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Pandora Cover Girl

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pandora_covergirl.jpgBack in April I wrote about Adam ‘n Eve Pandora skin and that it didn’t exactly look great on my avie, although I was swept off my feet with the over all quality of the skins. Yesterday I saw the lovely Tigerlily Koi modeling the new Pandora skin range on the Adam ‘n Eve blog, and I sent a message to Sachi Vixen to compliment her with what is yet another stunning example of how skilled a skinner she is. She sent me a few examples and to my big, big surprise, this great skin that used not to fit my shape looked lovely on me this time. I asked Sachi whether she had made snall changes to the shape of the mouth, but the only tweaking she did is in the eyes and some minor details on the body. It took me a while before I remembered that it was me who in the meantime has been doing a bit of tweaking. Anyway… I still look like me in the skins I mostly wear, but I have to correct my previous statement that Pandora does not work well with my avatar.

Pandora Covergirl comes in 8 different skintones and is sold in 6 packs only (4k) with all the make ups shown above, primlashes and matching manicures. The 2 lightest skin tones have an extra asset, all make ups come in freckled versions too for skin tone 00 and 0.  Take a look at the April 30 post for the full body shots our resident exhibitionist, the lovely ms Trollop, has included for your entertainment.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copies: yes  ~ Friends list: yes 

SLShopper.com Weekly Roundup

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It’s been another busy week over at SLShopper.com and I’ve been having fun shopping the classifieds. This week has been full of freebies and Halloween, and even some Halloween freebies, among other things. Take a look at what I found.

eldee_babydolldress.jpg Okay, so this is neither free nor Halloween related, but it is really cute! elDee is a relatively new store and this November babydoll dress is an even newer offering. I will warn you that’s it’s very short, but it covers everything that I need covered and I’m a fairly modest gal. I love the textures, especially the belt on each dress. And the flexi skirt is a little bit different and lots of fun. In addition to the green, it comes in a black and white version and a purple and green one.
Seen in World:Yes Review Copy:Yes Friends List:No

viva_frogshoes.jpg Viva is a new to me store and these frog flat shoes are a perfect introduction. These are a freebie, but be sure to look around once you get there. Not only are there other animal flats but there are lots of other great (and slightly less whimsical) shoes as well. I’m sort of attached to the frog shoes though, I have to admit.
Seen in World:Yes Review Copy:No Friends List:No




adamneve_eyes.jpg Now this is both a freebie and Halloween-themed! And trust me when I say these Free Halloween Eyes are perfect for the holiday. They come in 4 fun colors with bat, witch, ghost, and pumpkin shadows. And while you’re at Adam n Eve, be sure to check out all of the costumes and other great items there as well.
Seen in World:Yes Review Copy:No Friends List:No


ivalde_sandy.jpg Not many people know this, but I have been on a search for the perfect 50s poodle skirt costume for ages now. And this week, I finally found it! Meet Sandy from Ivalde. The skirt and blouse both come in poodle and non-poodle versions so you can pick your level of 50s kitsch with this outfit. And it comes in black, pink, red, and yellow. Anyone care to come to the sock hop with me?
Seen in World:Yes Review Copy:No Friends List:No

totalbetty_chiquita.jpg When I saw this Chiquita costume by Total Betty, I knew I couldn’t resist showing it to all of you. Seriously, how can you look at this and not smile? From the banana leaf skirt to the pineapple earrings, this is simply adorable. And of course, no Chiquita costume would be complete without a fruit bowl hat. There is even a little dance thrown in for free to make this loads of fun.
Seen in World:No Review Copy:No Friends List:No

As always check out SLShopper.com for more great finds. And I’ll see you here next week!

Halloween treat FabFree joins Fashion Network

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Fabulously Free — written by Cherlindrea Lamont — a blog focused on spotlighting high quality free or dollarbie items is now a member of the Second Style Fashion Network.

Like the other network blog authors, Cherlindrea will be posting a weekly round up of her favorite content here on Fashionista. I hope you’ll keep a close watch on FabFree too — who doesn’t like to save money? Cherlindrea’s made it into almost a competitive sport – who can look the best for under L$10! That’s a tough challenge and she does it day after day.

I am very excited to have FabFree in the Network. Welcome Cherlindrea.

Laynie’s Weekly Wrap – Oct 31, 2007

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hiccupboobs1.jpgThis has been a GREAT week for hair! First, I got to check out a new-to-me hair shop called LaLa Moon. Sweet owner, and sweet hair! It was a fantastic way for me to start things off. Then Teagan found hair that was just made for me- Hiccup’s Ghost Boobs!

If you love short hair, this is too delicious to pass up. Since I do a lot of ads, this hair is ideal, because it doesn’t hide the back of outfits! I think I’ve got a new go-to hair…

DiversityCobainFront.jpgThen I popped over to Diversity for their sale. That Cobain style everyone’s been wondering where it is? It’s back, and retextured so it’s even better than before.

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Teagan shared a gorgeous dollarbie (Gwenyth) from Tickled Pink, and our guest model showed off Gurl 6’s Lila. We wrapped up the week with Artilleri’s Dayna V2. This retro look is adorable, and versatile too. I think I may have found yet another new favorite!

We’ve got some great hair to show you this coming week. Be sure to stop by Savoir Hair and say hi!

This Week at SexySecond

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301007Ineffect1.jpgAfter the excitement of our spontaneous Silks Week last week we had a tough act to follow. Fortunately Arabeth was up to the task and showed us many, many nice things that we hope you’ll come visit us to see. To the left we offer to you exhibit A, “In Effect” from Nymphetamine, a cute mix and match nine piece set that can be lingerie or worn out clubbing with the prim skirt. 

 Arabeth also just introduced us to Laure by Camilla Yosuke of Insolence. Laure is a breathtakingly beautiful bodice, garter, panty and stocking set that you’ll just have to come over to SexySecond to see.

Feral_3.jpg

In the middle of the week, Fannie showed up very excited about Panther Girl outfits by Feral Spirit. To the left you see Spirit of Ost, which really is an amazingly detailed piece done entirely in prims. She also showed two other gorgeous Feral Spirit designs- Forest Midnight Huntress and Savage Winter which is especially striking with its white fur and matching boots.

Justine Babii showed off some sexy costumes sure to liven up any Halloween party, including a witch from Celestial Studios and Last Call, Bo Peep from Nuclear Boutique and  a different take on ‘pirate booty’ from Style Your Destiny .

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At the start of the week, Arabeth  gave us a lovely look at Summer Faerie from Coconut Ice, which hadn’t crossed my mind as a Halloween outfit (but I love the idea and will probably do just that!) . She also introduced Babele Fashion to me with their sassy Onsceno, a gorgeous mini outfit.

SexySecond is buzzing like a beehive now, working on the first issue of our magazine, digging through our closets looking for the sexiest things we can find from the past few months, and enjoying the opportunity to bring you this blurb about what we’re up to.  See ya next week :)

Welcome Savoir Hair to the Second Style Fashion Network

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I am super excited to announce that Teagan Blackthorne and Laynie Link, the bloggers behind Savoir Hair, the place to find great reviews of prim hair in Second Life have joined the Second Style Fashion Network.

Laynie Link will be posting a weekly round up of her favorite posts from Savoir Hair here on Fashionista. If you aren’t already reading Savoir Hair, don’t wait to see the first round up. Laynie and Teagan cover hair for both men and women, and from every hair creator in Second Life. Remember, also, that you can check out all of the posts from the Network blogs at http://network.secondstyle.com.

Update: Our lovely “high CPU” errors…

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Update 2: The transfer is completed. Drop me an email or IM if you still see problems or issues. Thanks.

Update: The transfer is going to happen tonight at midnight SLT. All of the Second Style web sites (including Fashionista, Men’s Second Style, the magazine distribution website, Fashion Network, and Stylecast) will be offline for a period of time (perhaps at much as 48 hours) while the DNS changes ripple out across the Internet. Thank you for your patience. I sincerely hope that this move will solve these issues permanently.

You might have noticed that over the last 48 hours we’ve been experiencing a lot of high CPU errors. These occur when the software serving all this lovely text, images and ads get too busy. Our ad server recently had some issues which have been resolved now — and it is busy trying to catch up on the work. This has the unpleasant side effect of making all of the other Second Style websites busy.

I decided today to move all of the secondstyle.com web sites to a new server with higher CPU limits. That means there will be a (hopefully short) period of time during the transfer from one machine to another when none of our websites will be operational.

That window of downtime will probably occur during the upcoming week. I will try to post a message about it before it happens.

Unique Skin… Made Affordable by Tête à Pied

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Tap_Custom_002.jpgIt looks like skins are the new black on the grid. Everyone and their mother seem to be determined to make skins. I’m not judging the quality of the efforts here, but it is hard to keep up with the industry these days. Especially when some of the skinners release new skins on a weekly basis… and then some, like Tête à Pied does. No questions about the quality in this case. Every new release gets my immediate attention because the make ups are just incredibly good and by now their selection is truly the biggest in SL and still growing. The market research Tête à Pied has done for this skin line, has proven to be very useful as most of the customer and NON customer feedback has been worked into the Vivant line and still being used for the development of new make ups. Speaking of make ups. On this photo I am wearing a custom skin from Tête à Pied. I wanted the luscious red lips of the Janvier skin on the pouty Paon and I think it came out perfect.

Expensive? Not on October 30! Tête à Pied’s Roslin Petion will hold 2 sessions for TaP group members where you can order your custom Vivant skin. Mix and match any lips, eyes and blush from any existing Vivant skin and add freckles and/or beauty marks according to your preferences and Roslin will make it for you while you wait. A single CUSTOM skin wil cost you only L$ 1200!!! That pretty much the price of an average retail skin out there!

Sessions will take place on October 30 from 1-2 pm SLT and from 7-8 pm SLT. As said, this is only for group members so please wear your tag during the sessions.

Queen of Hearts

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queenofhearts_004.jpgWhen Ms Delacroix shouted “Off with her head” over her subcribe-o-matic, first thing I had to think of was Toast Bard’s hilarious Head Off skin with all details taken care off. The slashed neck prim works well with any skin though. Really, I’ve tried. Happy Halloween! Anyways, The Queen wants to be revered at The Casa, and you owe it to her. The gown is of the usual Casa del Shai quality, with the wonderful texturing that Shai is known for. My personal favourite detail? The laced up back of the bodice. Shai herself is smitten with the heart. Talented Megg Demina of Chapeau Très Mignon has crowned The Queen with a lovely heart shaped crown.  And although Megg’s designs usually are a bit too extreme for my personal, rather conservative, taste, I truly admire her skills and her designs always bring a smile on my face.

Hair is Paulie Tamale’s for COIF- Artemis in snow, skin is Tête à Pied’s Vivant Buff Paon in a custom version. Not for sale.

Seen in world: yes  ~ Review Copy: yes  ~ Friends list: yes

Cavalli for Hennes & Mauritz… Did He Shop in SL First?

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cavalli.JPGNovember 8th will be another great day in the Swedish multinational clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz. Following designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Victor & Rolf, now Roberto Cavalli is about to launch a special designer collection for this company.  On a newsfeed earlier today I read that during a launch party in Rome, Sharon Stone has mentioned how wonderful the clothes look and what a master Cavalli is in combining chic and sexy.

CavalliSL.jpgWhen a few weeks ago I saw above campaign shot (by Terry Richardson), mise en scène during an actual party at Cavalli’s Tuscan Mansion I could not help but notice how similar the clothes are to things I already own in Second Life. Lets take a closer look for comparison.

The hotpants  and white top outfit in the middle of the photo (next to Mr. Cavalli, who, and I never noticed this before, has a total Eric Forrester look in this photo… part of the campaign looks? *shivers): The top is Veschi Shwank Snow top by Alla Ruff, the scarf belongs to the Shwank outfit. The little black bow is the Sabra black satin bow from Roberta Beauchamp’s Love.Love.Love. The hotpants are Cashmere’s Risque by Gianni Broda (pants and jacket layer). The tights are Blaze’s and the shoes are by Tesla Miles from Tesla, who makes some of the best scultped shoes in SL. The skin is Tête à Pied’s Biba by CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion and the hair is Elika Tiramisu for ETD, Willow in smoke blackened.

The skinny armed cheerleader in the back wears a downright copy of Shai Delacroix’ Giraffe Fever dress, that I paired with Curio’s Rita Groshomme sleek bob hair in black because of the glossy texture, Lucas Lameth’s Earthtones Boho Giraffe earrings, and Boho gypsy necklace as well as Polyester Partidge’s Natural bangle at Yummy. The shoes are Maitreya’s Grace in black. Thank you Onyx Leshelle for these strappy divine shoes. The skin is Joannah Carter’s for Pixel Deep, Fit Dark Raven in grey-blue.

That Cavalli can be quite cheap too is not only proven by the fact that he made a retail collection for H&M, but also by the fact that he shamelessly shopped for inspiration at Pixeldolls and obviously up Nephilaine’s lovely freebie dress Celeste: the little gold number. The shoulder straps, the bodice…. even the skirt’s fringes… it is almost identical (as far as possible, considering the limits of fabrics ;-P). To achieve the blonde predator look I dug up the discontinued Tête à Pied Février skin in bronzage light and, I admit, I bought myself the dirty blonde Cora hair at ETD. It is about the only thing I bought for this post. The shoes are the gold T-straps revamped from Fallingwater Cellardoor at Shiny Things, the clutch is one of CJ Carnot’s classics at Tête à Pied of which I think he should do more.

I wanted to post this immediately when I saw the publicity photo and recognised the outfits in my inventory, but then RL got in the way and it became an… i’ll do it later project. But when a reader posted a comment in the “Measuring With Different Standards” entry about SL clothes makers lacking designs skills, I made it a priority again. Because even if they are not likely to execute their designs in RL the way Mr Cavalli and his team do, the latter is not likely to be able to make the same wonderful textures and his designs a pleasure to wear in SL. The designs though are really pretty much the same.

Anyway… as you may have noticed, I did not ALL the outfits on the photo. In case of the little leopard babydoll to the right, I do have  Camie Cooper’s version of it, but not the snow leopard one and that would be better. The lovely black gold empire gown is an item I don’t have, and do not immediately get an idea who might have such a design. Same goes for the leopard dress in the back. So what I would challenge you to do is to make the missing outfits or improve the ones I did already and post them on Reader Style. There are only a few rules. Clothes you use for it must be available in Second Life already, and you should not make (big) changes to them in post editing. I will post the best outfits in an extra Reader Style post. It is not a contest, just a small pat on the shoulders of the many designers who are always being told that they look too much to RL for their inspiration. Well it sure looks like RL is starting to look at SL for inspiration too :-) /me dreams on

New Blog Roundup

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Carmen_2BAd.jpg Added *Icing* (blog, slurl) to our blogroll this week and fell in love with this gorgeous red retro dress called Carmen. I hopped down to their store and saw many delicious things that explain why the place is called Icing. Carmen is only L$ 250. I look forward to seeing some of designer Miko Omegamu’s stuff in the Second Style Fashion Show today. At the store I saw several cute things, a couple of which, like Curlicue, could soon end up in my !Favorites folder if Miko’s not careful.

1765151239_f9fa4d8286.jpg Next I happened over to Savvy? (Blog, Slurl) to take a look at their Cup series. Dakota Buck’s shoutout to the Melbourne Cup Carnival in her native Australia has produced some great stuff, namely a fine set of zippered gloves in 6 colors (L$ 40) and Cup Day, a cute dark prim skirt and top with matching hat shown here (L$ 200, without the horse I think). Here’s to more festivals that end up giving us great clothes.

_TM_2B__2BCupcake.jpg Finally this week we welcome Tami McCoy (Blog, Slurl) back to the world of updated fashions, as she released Cupcake, a flexi ponytail ‘do that is available in 10 natural colors and 8 fantasy colors. Each hair is L$250 and packs of five are L$1000.

If you have something going on and would like it added to our event calendar, or have a fashion related blog you would like added to our blogroll, give me a shout!

Weekend events

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spotlight.jpgHuge, amazing, jam packed weekend full of events — so many I’m just going to run through them very quickly. You can get lots more information, including grid coordinates or SLurls right from our Google Calendar. All listed times are SLT (PDT) on October 27, 2007.

  • 11:00 am – Very Irresistible featuring fashions from Cheresse Damone, Freda Fredriksson, Trysta Lacey.
  • 11:00 am – Sweet Angels presents fashions by Mystica Matova
  • 12:00 noon – Atlantis Modeling Agency presents Heroes Assemble (at Diegoland)
  • 2:00 pm – Ewing Fashion Agency presents designs by LeeZu Baxter
  • 5:00 pm – Second Style presents fashions by Betty Doyle, Miko Omegamu, Morrigan Hyun and Melanie Zhao
  • 6:00 pm – Laynie Link and Teagan Blackthorne’s rezday party.

glamworld_party.jpgThen on Sunday, October 28, 2007 (all listed times SLT) there’s two more events:

  • 12:00 noon – Atlantis presents Heroes Assemble (at Dublin 3)
  • 2:00 pm – Costume party and contest on Glam World. Pumpkin prize packs will be sprinkled around the sim, including some “mega-prize packs” including complete fatpacks of goodies — and a very very exciting announcement (which I know but I’d have to kill you if I told you. :-)

Finally, on October 31, I am going to be a guest judge for the Elysian Isles Costume Contest. You can win fabulous prizes by visiting Elysian Isle and snapping a photo of yourself in your best Halloween outfit. Events will be going on all day and there are plenty of cool picturesque spots to snap that winning image.