Second Style Magazine

I read about Betty Doyle in the context of hair, so I decided to stop by her shop Ingénue and try on the lovely Garble retro hairdo, but I’m afraid my visit turned into a shopping spree. There are the cutest retro clothes in her shop. I must find something like the outfit to the left before I leave on vacation. Although going to the Italian Alps, the cities there have this distinct dolce vita atmosphere where this will be perfect for.  And the name: Hi Ya Love ~ Posey. Makes me smile. Matching espadrilles too, my favourite shoes for the summer.  In the middle there is probably the most stylish retro outfit I have seen in a long time, Femme Fatale in Navy & Pink. Navy is the new black. The side flounce with pink ribbon makes it just perfect. Hi Ya Love and Femme Fatale are shown with the adequately named Bombshell hair, which may be a bit too blue-ish to be called black, but isn’t it lovely? The outfit to the right is Lana ~ Mediterranean and comes in two versions. The sweater tucked and untucked, which I chose to wear here. The prim brooch comes with it, as well as a transparent sculpted scarf which oddly enough has not appeared in the photo although I was wearing it. If I had more time I would redo the photo, but alas, you’ll have to believe me, it’s good!The hair is the Garble. The hair is also available in blonde, brown, red and white, but I prefer black for myself.

The skin is ND’s Alina Vintage Dangerous Lashes 1, and the necklace and earrings are Maya from Earthtones.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: no  ~ Friends list: no 

June Dion’s Bare Rose brand has long been known as a place to find stunning detail in an outfit and still expect to pay at or under L$200 for each outfit. I have to confess that I don’t especially enjoy shopping at Bare Rose — it might just be the least organized shop in Second Life — but I do love how many Bare Rose’s outfits are creative and detail oriented. Another, more succinct way to put it is that the sheer near-OCD attention to detail pleasure of Bare Rose far outstrips the experience of shopping there.

On the left is a really cute, flouncy summer frock named Blenda which comes in a multitude of coordinating colors. The semi-sheer blouse and the sculptie prim arm sleeves are perfect to go with the flowing flexi-skirt.

On the right is an outfit called Masked Assassin (for females — there’s a men’s version too.) The guns I’m wearing in this photo are named The Clerics and were created by the amazing Blooddoll Lulu. Masked Assassin is one of those outfits that’s just so “Only in Second Life.” Clearly, you’re not going to find a costume like this in the pages of anything other than a costume catalog in the real world, but in Second Life you can wear this around the grid and it hardly causes a stir, except for people asking, “Where’d you get that?!” and “Who made those guns?!” (Does it strike anyone else as interesting that only in Second Life do things like vehicles, guns and swords essentially become fashion accessories?) These two outfits — and what must be hundreds and hundreds of more outfits can be found on the Bare Rose sim.

Something else brand new just happened too – Bare Rose opened a new store called “Bare Rose haute” which aims to collect together designs which are more formal in nature — less costume-y and showy. These next three photos are all available at this new Bare Rose location.

Strangely enough, my first gown in the BR haute collection was this “Green Velvelt” gown which I picked up from our Inventory swap party earlier in July. (Thanks Caliah!) Notice the handbag — that’s also part of the BR haute collection. This style is called “Vixen Premium” and it’s available in five colors — three sizes included per color — for an absurd L$140. Composed of sculptie prims, these bags look amazing and come in enough colors to coordinate with just about any outfit.

Another design that I really found myself drawn toward was the Rose Gown (shown right above) which I paired up with another new BR handbag design. This one is called “Half Moon Ltd” and like Vixen, it comes in several colors — three sizes included per color — for a ridiculously inexpensive L$140. If you look closely at the full-sized photo, you can also check out a new line of jewelry by Bare Rose — also at BR haute called “Silent Ageha.” Its pricing — like the other accessories I’ve written about — is well below what you would expect to pay for a design of this detail and quality.

Let me leave you with one more BR haute treat, this spectacular gown called “Jessa” shown here in yellow. It comes in a multi-pack, of course. As with most Bare Rose designs, if it comes in lots of different colors, you get all the colors in the same package for the same low price. I love the tiered prim skirt, and the technical design of how these tiers work together on various attach points makes it quite a lovely thing to move your avatar around in.

I definitely recommend a stop at the new Bare Rose Haute location in Black Cat (200, 209). Even if you have more gowns that you know what to do with, the accessories on their own merits are definitely worth a visit.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes and no (most of the B*R haute I bought on my own)
Friends list: No

Maybe only if you’re living in a cave, a cave outside of EVDO range, are you unaware of the massive sale going on at Last Call until July 27th. Tons of previously undiscounted items have been stockpiled together and set for a final blow out price of L$40-L$100. And once they’re gone, they’re gone. Get more details here at the Last Call blog.

My friends Aleri and Digit Darkes (no relation) are also having a huge-a-mongous blow out sale at their joint mainstores (Diversity and X3D) in Dacham (75, 142, 48). Aleri mostly makes hair, but recently she’s been branching into some really cute clothing. All of her hair packs are on sale for 3 for L$100 and mega packs for a ridiculously inexpensive L$250. Meanwhile, next door, Digit is selling virtually everything in her shop from shoes to couture gowns for half off for a very limited time. This is a great opportunity to stock up on some really amazing runway-fashion inspired shoe designs in particular for just L$200.

What other sales are going on in Second Life? Post a comment and let us all know. Thanks!

If you’re interested in an ad for Second Style #10 — please plan to make arrangements now with HeatherDawn Cohen to make sure you reserve your space, as our ad submission deadline for #10 is fast approaching on July 23rd.

We are also starting an on-going promotion for ad sales: buy 3 ad placements, get one free placement. We will raise our ad rates for issue #11, so make sure you lock in the lower rate now and you will also have priority space reservations for forthcoming issues.

To make it easier for new designers to afford ads, we’re also discounting our quarters and eighths until we run out of slots for those sizes in #10. Quarters are normally L$2500, but during this sale, pay just L$2000. Eighths are normally L$1500, but during this sale, they’re now L$1200. Want to really lock in your savings? We’ll give you the buy 3, get one free deal on these discounted rates until we run out of slots for them in #10. You will save at least L$4000 (3 x L$500 + the free L$2500 placement) for the next four issues, even more when we release our new rates for issue #11.

Contact HeatherDawn Cohen via email (heatherdawncohen -at- gmail [dot] com) or in-world IM for other multi-issue discounts and packages we can put together. Our single issue rate card is available here.

Hello World!
I’m the new Blogroll Wrangler at Second Style Fashionista and as part of that duty I’m starting a weekly feature here to keep everyone up to date on any changes we’ve made, any new blogs we’ve added or removed or general blog things that strike me as noteworthy.

If you are a fashion blogger and have a blog we’ve missed, or if your store maintains a blog that we’ve not listed, or if in general you have something on your blog that needs my attention like a change of address or something superdeedooper, send me an IM in-world or send me an e-mail at justinebabii (at) yahoo.com. I absolutely love to hear from readers!

To help keep this interesting, I’m also introducing what I’ll call my “Blog Item of the Week.” This will be some cool product that I fall in love with from seeing it on a blog.

Blog Item of the Week #1- greta glasses from artilleri (here’s a Slurl).

Yes, artilleri is near the top of the blogroll and is in fact the first shop blog I clicked on and omg did you see these glasses? Only L$120 (or a fatpack of ten for L$500). They come in ten colors and make me look wicked smart, not an easy thing to do. I literally ran to artilleri for these and ended up hanging out in their fun retro diner build all night talking with friends who I invited over to see “the coolest smartgirl glasses ever!” If you’ve not been to artilleri go and look.

While I will try to get to as many blogs as I can each week, the sheer number of them will make that hard. If your blog has big news or big changes, please feel free to e-mail or IM!

greta glasses from artilleri
seen in world: no | review copy: no | friend’s list: no

credits: Skin by X2, hair is Sea Nymph II by ETD, earrings by Shenandoah Saintlouis of Z&S Designs

While reading the new product forums I noticed some cute looking pics from Mimi Coral at <3 Cupcakes. Mimi came to SL in 2004, decided at some point to close her shop but  re-opened it late May 2007. Over the last few days she has been posting a lot on the forum, so I decided to pick up some demos of her skins and see whether they looked as good on my avie as they did on the photos. After trying the demos I hurried back to the shop for the real deal because, yeah, they look good and what is even better, Mimi charges only L$ 300 for a single, and offers a really great deal for the fatpacks!

I bought the Exclusion Colourful pack for L$ 450 (!) which for now is only available in one skintone. Mimi wrote on the forum that she will come with additional skintones shortly. I think the face is sweet, not too photoreal, but not totally drawn either. The body has a subtle shading and highlights and looks very soft. It is not very detailed, but the abdomen is nicely made as well as the cleavage. If you want a highly realistic skin, this is probably not your first choice, but if you look for a good skin for a very good price, you might want to take Mimi’s skins into consideration.

I had to buy the fatpack of Mimi’s Difference skin too. Which, consisting of 8 skins for 1500 L$,  is a total bargain in my opinion. This  skin is also available in “tan” which is definitely a lot darker than the skins I’m wearing here. I am a fan of strong eye make ups with mute lips. I put a body shot in this one so that you can see some of the shading for yourself. The skins are done well… no seams, which for me is a total skin turn off, and no visible smudges.

The bikini is Chic Boutique’s Heart Bikini, and the hair is ETD’s Jessica and Hailey in the newly textured smoke and smoke faded. They are not yet available in the shop, since Elika has to retexture some 40 more styles before she is ready to roll. These hairstyles were sent out to the people who beta tested the new textures that Elika is working on.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: no  ~ Friends list: no

Damen Gorilla of Adam ‘n Eve has developed a passion for shoemaking and I was glad that he shared some with me as it is something that was not available at Damen and Sachi’s shop til now. With shapes, skins, hair, clothing, poses and shoes, Adam ‘n Eve has now developed in a one stop shop for all your avatar apparel needs.

These shoes have been in my inventory for quite a while already, but SL was giving me trouble rezzing objects, so I was lucky to be able to shoot one shoe at the time. But here they are. Above to the left there are the Bronte slippers that Damen made to match some of the recent victorian outfits that Sachi did and down to the right the Flora mules that have the same victorian look and feel. Both the Brontes and the Floras have wonderful textures and are higly detailed. In the middle there is the classical Oh Baby that comes in 15 satin textured colours and which is a wonderful shoe to match either a formal or just some classical daywear.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: yes  ~ Friends list: no

Filed under: Eep! How did this go on for two days without me knowing?! 

Amaretto and Cherry Tokyo’s Kimonos will wrap up their inventory reduction and clearance sale on Sunday evening at 9:00pm SLT. Lux Yao and Cherry  have lowered prices to the “might as well buy everything” level we love so much. Clearance items are under L$50, a lot of items are marked down as far as fifty percent and there are, as always, great freebies to be had.

Amaretto & Cherry Tokyo’s Kimono, Boracay Island (155, 112, 21)

I hit the master jeweler show this morning at Venus Nights Club and was quite impressed by a number of the works by the graduates. I was a little bummed that it wasn’t an actual show, it was more of a meet and greet for people to meet the new jewelers and peruse their creations. The collection is definitely worth a looksee, and there was a giant box of freebies that will hopefully be there a while.

In all, I found too many things for one poor blogger to write about in any detail, so I’ll give a shoutout to a few you might want to keep an eye on. All the grads are obviously new to the jewelry biz but it should certainly be fun to watch them develop as designers. 

In particular I liked the works of Kyrinnia Desmoulins, whose work will be on sale through Kalon. There are many cute things there by Shenandoah Saintlouis (pictured above wearing her cool silver hoops and the necklace from her London Collection) who will be selling her stuff at Absolutely Fabulous (Syrus 32, 251, 22).  I also liked Jordan Morgenrote of Jordan*s in Shephard. Her Amethyst and Pearl Necklace is to the left to the left (sing it with me). Bella Ahn of LusaBella Jewels in Lugubris made a number of great things as well. I was particularly taken by a big and versatile set of Native American themed turquoise jewelry called Lua.

From there I jumped to the Mirage Silks Show in Dublin, but a sim restart pushed that back a bit so I hopped over to see a show of limited edition gowns by artist Josina Burgess. After the show, the gowns went on sale, and when Josina says limited, she means limited. Ten copies of each gown were to be sold for L$ 5000 each. Should they not sell out after the show, interested Fashionistas can make an appointment to visit her in her studio. I liked a couple of the gowns a lot, such as Alaska, shown left.

I went back to the Dublin sim and caught the end of the Mirage silks show.  Solange Cerveau of Solange had a couple of designs that were truly breathtaking, and new artist ally Chevalier, whose butterfly themed silks closed the show, made good use of the colors and textures of nature to make silks something fun, light and beautiful. If you’re a fan of butterflies or of silks you have to see her shop, House of Chevalier, in Catalpa. Her Blue Morpho Butterfly Silks are shown left. The silks show repeats, and will be shown again tomorrow at noon!

Finally I ended the day at the Simone! sim for her Summer Sizzle show and it was fantastic. It got off to a bit of a late start, which I’m sure was frustrating to some but a welcome relief to me who has many many notes to go over from a full day at fashion shows. The Simone! summer collection is a lot of fun. Nice tops and cool jeans that are simple, casual and inexpensive.

To the left you can see the Black Jacket Set paired with Goddess Jeans, one of my favorites from the show and representative of the look of the Sizzling Summer Casuals Fashion Show.

So many clothes, so little time!

A friend draw my attention to Elegance Hats from Morrigan Hyun. She sent me some textures of her hats and I thought they were cute. So I looked Morrigan up and TP’d to her shop to see for myself. At the moment she has a sweet collection of indeed very elegant hats and pillboxes. In the past I have blogged several times that I am not much of a hat lover, but lately I think that some good hat makers have hit the grid, and I am having less trouble fitting them. I must admit, that makes wearing a hat way more enjoyable. In the photo there are just a few examples of hats that Morrigan has currently on display. I like the turquoise one with the peacock feathers a lot, as well as the Swirl, the hat to the far right, which is actually one of the first she ever made. Morrigan started making hats only a little more over a month ago, and it has become a real passion for her as she told me.  Prim lash addicts like yours truly might want to take a little time to attach the hat to a different spot as right now they all attach to the nose. But that is just a detail.

Credits: the hair is ETD’s Chignon in Smoke (Couture Collection) by Elika Tiramisu, the skin is Nora’s by Sezmra Svarog, Entice Almond, the clothes are some of the latest releases from Ivalde by Neferia Abel and the earrings are the Pearly Whites from Yummy, by Polyester Partridge 

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: no  ~ Friends list: no

I was bouncing around the grid tonight and stopped in to see Sea Nymph and Sea Nymph II. I liked them so much I bought four, three of the Sea Nymph II (shown left in, clockwise from left, Seadrift, Seaflame and Abyss), and Sea Nymph I in Sand. When I went back later, after I’d taken photos, I bought another Sea Nymph I, this one in Abyss.

 These are all special colors that are made just for this Limited Edition, which will only be sold during July. There are other  special colors: Mar , Sea Foam, and Sea Orchid, all soft pastels inspired by the sea and beach. There’s also a white and silver, Pearl and Tide, and of the basic colors are matched with highlights in Se
Each hair is L$ 150 or you can buy all 14 in the collection for $1500. 

I’ve seen this a couple times in-world and also ooohed at Grazia’s pics in a couple of reviews this month, so I’m glad I thought to pick up a few before they stop selling them. After I bought the hair, TP was down so I did the pictures in a hurry on the beach near the store. They don’t do the braid justice.
Sea Nymph brings its braid over the shoulder while Sea Nymph II ‘s dangles to the back. The braid is complicated and stops between wild and tangled. Fitting the piece was easy and there’s just enough flexi prim to make me happy.

In these pictures I’m also wearing a great little facelight I got from Spirit, which is kind of in the alley behind Bossa Nova at Dos Corazones (81, 186, 25). The light currently only comes as a freebie with the purchase of a hair, but I’m hoping owner SavannahAnn McMillan will package them up for sale as a separate item as the light attached to your nose and is just enough to keep your face from shadow but not so bright that people will wonder who’s blinding them. I was given a review copy of the light and immediately took a friend to find out how to get one.

Spirit specializes in cheerleader and dance clothes. I bought a cute varsity cheering jacket for when I’m feeling like getting all Mean Girls.  I was never organized enough to put together a RL dance outfit so I’m not sure I deserve to wear one here.

 Credits: Skin; X2 Gothica (Lite) Dark Eyes. Shirt by X2. Earrings by Earthtones.

Sea Nymph and Sea Nymph II:

Seen In World: Yes | Review Copies: No | Friend’s List: No 

X2, makers of the popular Hyper-Fusion line of skins, has opened a new store and if you have even a hint of Goth Grrl in you then walk, no, run, no, teleport there now! X2 and the new store, Gothica, are both on Exotica Island (120, 131, 24).
Lead designer Storma Amarula explains that with Gothica they are trying to make goth stuff a little less severe and a little more mainstream. The store includes skins and clothes for men and women, and this stuff rocks. The clothes and skins truly do range from items that could be worn in most settings to extreme goth, and the selection is mind boggling.

There are five new X2 skin lines at Gothica, and they are gorgeous. They range from Light, which is a very pale but striking skin that could be worn as an every day, to Undead, which is tastefully off-white as a vampire or well kempt zombie should be. In between their new skins are called Bone, Alabaster, and Pale. I’m a fan of X2 make-up and they didn’t let me down with the new line.

All of the pictures to the left feature either the Light Collection or Undead Collection. In each collection are eight different make-up sets, like Darkliner, Dark Eyes, Tribal, Runny, and so on, with five different looks in each of the make-up sets. (So yes, for each of the five lines there are 40 different make-up combos!) There are way too many gorgeous skins here for me to be anything but overwhelmed, but the Runny and Darkliner make-ups are my early favorites. Individual skins are L$ 1400 or you can buy a set of five for L$ 4000.

X2 clothing is less well known than their skins, but that may be about to change with Gothica. When you enter the room for women’s fashion, the first thing you see are latex catsuits in Black, Red, Pink, Bright Blue, Purple and three shades of clear (L$ 800). Each catsuit can be worn several ways, and there are different tops you can buy to expand your choices further. I didn’t provide you with a picture because Celebrity already filled our latex quota for the week, but I did have a lot of fun going through the combinations of outfits available. The latex shines beautifully and features the attention to detail you expect from a high-end designer.

I mentioned the catsuits first because they dominate the room, but don’t be fooled, my favorite piece of Gothica clothing is just beyond them, the X2 Dress Shirt. The dress shirt comes in three colors, black, purple or red, and comes in two textures. Each box comes with three versions of the shirt, buttoned, open and almost opened. In the picture I’m wearing the textured shirt (L$ 400) with the striped black lace pants on the left (L$ 250) and the shiny zippered pants on the right (L$ 250). These same pants, and several other similarly funky ones come in black or muted red and come as latex, striped or shiny in both colors.

From the cute tops (see the picture at the top) to the corsets and low-rise latex with detailed prim buckles (below), you will find the outfit that tickles your dark side at Gothica.

Hair credit to Goldie Locks and ETD, all skins by X2.
Seen in World: Yes | Review Copies: Yes | Friend’s List: No