Second Style Magazine

Looking for a way to ring in New Years in Second Life? Head on over to the black tie Café Society’s Charity Auction and Gala Ball. The auction to benefit “Make a Wish Foundation” includes lots created by Caliah Lyon, Queue Marlowe, Betty Barracuda, Sparkle Skye and many more generous donors. The party starts at 8 pm SLT on Masterpiece Island (218, 189, 53) and features a live DJ spinning tunes and a firework show to really ring in the new year.

If you’re looking for something new or different to suit that black tie dress code, why not check out the gowns at Scandal by ShyOne Lehane and Kiana Dulce? The dress called “Crimson” shown to the right would be a perfectly colorful way to send off 2007 and start 2008. The silver detailing on the bodice is really outstanding and the prims in the skirt add a really opulent, slightly translucent finish to this design. I’m also showing off the Eolande Elverhjem’s — Ohana Isle (204, 55, 21) — brand new Docsisle Fleur de Lis designs in the necklace, earrings and hairpin. Marvelous!

The chic way to show skin this holiday season is the exposed back which is everywhere in fashion glossies. The gown to the right is named Gold Rush and it has a super sexy back scoop and a really dramatic ruched bust in the front. The primwork is not my absolute favorite, but the outstanding bodice more than makes up for it in my opinion. If you’d prefer a more “conventional” formal look, try on the “Winter Wonderland” in crisp snowy white (shown right), which shares some of the same silver accent details with Crimson shown above.

You can find Scandal at Cecil (130, 55, 91).

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I hope all of you that celebrated the recent holidays are recovering and gearing up for a brand New Year! Over at On Your Toes, we have been polishing up and getting ready!
This past week Joel, our man on the shoe crew, featured Eponymous Trenchmouth’s Olso boots available at Jeepers Creepers.

I have to agree with Joel when he says, “Great stitching, buckles, straps, and soles give the Olsos a character so thick that you can almost imagine running your fingers over them and feeling both the grit and the softness of the suede.”

These boots are available in black, tan, grey, and brown, and believe me guys, you will catch a lady’s eye in these!

That busy little bee Anessa Stine featured a whole SIXTEEN different metallic beauties that would be perfect for your upcoming night out for New Year’s! Yes, you read correctly, 16 different shoes with gold accents and delights. She searched from Armidi to Zhao, and in between to feature just some of her precious favorites.

As Annessa states, gold shoes are the perfect surprise splash of glitz for that little black dress.  Take a look and you will find that all that glitters just might be gold!

Speaking of New Year’s, if you are looking for a bit of whimsy consider the 2008 Heels from She’s So Unusual Shoes!

Stepping out into and onto 2008, you will have the choice to activate the touch poofer and throw confetti at just the right moment! Perhaps right after your New Year’s Kiss?

With that said, all of us at the Shoe Crew would like to wish you a happy & safe New Year. I don’t know about you, but my New Year’s resolution is to buy more shoes!  You NEVER can have enough!

I just noticed that Fashion Reporters, a blog by RL fashion journalists and commentators has been following Second Life a bit.

The first post is entitled: Real Life & Second Life Fashion, Will They Ever Meet?, and the next post (apparently first in a series) is entitled: Second Life Fashion: Trend-Setting for Real Life Fashion? Part One.

I hope they continue to report how they see Second Life influencing RL fashions!

This week saw big news in freebie fashion when Another Shop released all of her E series skins full perm. The skins come in 4 skin tones, freckled and unfreckled, 7 different makeups, and two eye brow options. Also included in these sets were custom shapes, eyebrows, and the .tga files for the skins.

Last Thursday we looked at a cute holiday dress from Rose Petal Creations which went great the the candy cane textured hair at Wilted Rose. While at Wilted Rose we picked up some other great holiday outfits including one for men. The other items we look at this day were the newbie male skins for under 30 days at Tete a Pied, Christmas dress set given to VK Designs by Victoria’s update group, a morning star dress at Matahari Style, 7 free outfits from LeeZu, starry flower gown from Vintage Clothing Reproductions and Christmas Angel hair and wings were given to the Pixel
Dust update group.

We began Friday with a treasure hunt from Ravenwear with skins, hair, and clothes as part of the prizes to find. Cherry Tokyo’s Kimonos, Bryce Designs, and Amaretto has their own hunt today with free hair, kimonos and more. Then we ran over to Spirit for a Christrmas gifts that included a skin, dance items, and even goodies for men. The other great items of the day were a kimono from Mare which went great with the fan from Orchid Dreams, Cassini Creations sent their group a scripted silk set, and a cute dress collection was given out to the update group for Persona.

I made a request of everyone on Saturday to please go and vote on MISC-208 so that we can have more than 25 update groups in Second Life. Kyoot Army gave their group a great scarf and leggings which went great with the free silver top from Immortelle. The other great items today included PanJen’s update got a cute holiday lingerie set, A Piece of Candy has 2 cute outfits for $1L until Jan 1, and Style Your Destiny gave out a cute poinsettia dress to their update group. The best fun to be had was roaming around Calla looking for the gift boxes that had all this free hair.

I made a request of everyone on Saturday to please go and vote on MISC-208 so that we can have more than 25 update groups in Second Life. Kyoot Army gave their group a great scarf and leggings which went great with the free silver top from Immortelle. The other great items today included PanJen’s update got a cute holiday lingerie set, A Piece of Candy has 2 cute outfits for $1L until Jan 1, and Style Your Destiny gave out a cute poinsettia dress to their update group. The best fun to be had was roaming around Calla looking for the gift boxes that had all this free hair.

Sunday showed us another hunt but this time we had to catch our gift. A disappearing gift hunt was underway at Skin Within to get free skins and more. Other items we looked at today was an ice queen gown from Sy Designs, freebies at the Shine Auction from Accessories by Eolande & Bossa Nova, Tuli gave her group a holiday skin collection, Minnu Model Skins gave their group male & female skins plus more, and Analise gave her update group color changing silks.

Monday was a very busy day that began with a hunt for white ornaments at Bossa Nova. The ornaments are scattered about the area and have hair and clothes that go great with the shoes hidden all over She’s so Unusual. The other goods we looked at today were the dongipani shorts from YeeVoo Designs, a cute holiday necklace from ShenS Boutique, a cute sweater set & kitty purses for Honey Kitty’s update group, a pink dress at Diversity, a cute casual outfit from Unique Needs, holiday hair from ESAB, bikinis from T.a.r.t. and manicures from Orchid Dreams.

We began Christmas day with a bang by looking at the holiday group freebies from Muism which includes an suit for men. The outfit went great with the holiday boots from TEsla and the top hat from Second Thoughts. Evie’s Closet gave her update group the most amazing gown that went great with the new Alyssa hair from Hair Solutions. Mirada made freebie and hair history by giving out 1 free color pack for every style in the entire store. The other Christmas day freebies were: GuRL 6’s update group was treated to free holiday pajamas, House of Zen gave male and female snowman kimonos, several pairs of holiday pajamas were out at Parallax View, free hair from Ingenue and free hair for men and women at Calico Creations.

On Wednesday we headed back to House of Zen to check out their new freebie area that had a nice collection of full perm eyes and red & black kimono sets for men and women. DEKA Fashions has a free shirt for their update group and if you join you will also be given a cute outfit. For the first day of Kwanzaa, Style Your Destiny gave out male and female items to their update group.

camilla Yosuke is really Second Life’s lingerie legend – she’s made lingerie a signature design for her brand and her care and expertise in creating lingerie designs in Second Life is visible in all of her work. First up is the Aradia design, mostly in white with colorful accents. I’m wearing in this photo camilla’s own line of skins. Aradia is understated and classic, wearable in every situation and still looks fantastic, much like its namesake.

The Laure collection (shown in emerald, available in several other colors) is a satin/lace corset, panty and stocking set. I pictured it here with the Elise sculpted strap heels — some of my chicest shoes in my collection inside Second Life. The my inner detail diva loves the shading and work on the satin lace-up ribbons on the corset, while my eye for pretty lace adores the design of the panty.
Next is Scarlett, named for the ever-well dressed Scarlett Niven, the Bud Select Lingerie Legend of Second Life. camilla created this corset set expressly for Scarlett and this color, pink, just for her and a select group of friends. Fortunately, Scarlett is available in many other colors and I love its elegant throwback retro vibe, and the cute lacy ruffle at the hip. I paired Scarlett with a pair of Pearl in white heels, also by Insolence.
Everyone knows that camilla makes outstanding lingerie, but did you know she also started to make a line of beautiful sculpted boots? To the left is the Natasha design, available in four colors, charcoal (shown), camel, brown, and violet (boots shown with the Autumn Denial ensemble by Saeya Nyanda of Kyoot Army –Silent 128, 204, 41). It’s hard to miss the high-end look and finish of these suede beauties. It’s a triumph of texture work to get such a finish on a fabric has hard as suede to look realistic.

Insolence is located at Venom (96, 136, 28).

Vivant Chestnut skins by CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion of Tete a Pied (except as noted). Hair is Whitney in Truffle by Starley Thereian of Celestial Studios, pearl choker by Caliah Lyon of ~Muse~

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: No

Ever put together those outfits you so totally love that you just want to share it with the whole world? Yeah, it happens to me too, sometimes. This is one of those things that I just sort of threw together one summer day. It’s winter now in my real life, but weather hardly matters in Second Life.

The genesis of this photo was the then brand new cami-tops by Sioxie Legend of Second Wave Apparel, Plush Omicron (168, 221, 34) – definitely among the best casual tops you can find in Second Life. One of the best things about SWA is that the quality is very high and the price is very low, so you can splurge on a fatpack of tops and not have to worry if you ever need to match your new electric blue prim hair to some item of clothing. (A virtual girl’s got to be prepared for anything after all, right? That’s my creed, at least. Fatpacks for everyone!)

The denim is DoC Eldritch’s DE Red Tab jeans — DE Designs (204, 132, 20). Whenever I’m not wearing LF or GLAM denim, it’s these – they were among the first I found in Second Life to come on both the pant and underwear layer.

The boots came from Callie Cline — calliefornia (225, 178, 22) — they’re hard to beat for buckle and chain detailing. While I don’t know how much mileage you could get from “dressing them up” I think they work really well with “glam casual” or “rocker girl” fashion vibes. They definitely bring a lot of edge and street to the visual fashion party mix in a “Whadda you lookin at?!” statement.

The skin I’m wearing is “Jessica” golden skin tone by Stumbelina Ophelia of Cake, necklace, cuffs, and earrings by Fallingwater Cellardoor of Shiny Things, hair by Lost Thereian of Naughty.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: Yes

Another post from my vault of unfinished drafts. Unfortunately, the Halloween Enchantress is no longer for sale as it was a limited edition creation, just until Halloween of 2007. But hopefully it will be back again for 2008 in some incarnation. (In 2006 Starley released the Queen of Halloween costume.)

This year was a collaboration between Last Call and Celestial Studios, and the result was spectacular. I’ve long admired Starley’s skins – and this set included a special edition “spooky” Vogue skin, and some fun spidery custom jewelry. One of my favorite features about this set was the sculpty prim wings. I actually recycled them to be part of a demon avatar set which I occasionally wear on the grid from time-to-time.

Just looking at the outfit alone, it’s hard to see it in any context which doesn’t involve a roleplay theme or other costumed attire, but it’s still a technically thrilling achievement, and it tickles me to see how the wings echo the fabric of the skirt.

The Halloween Enchantress was for sale at Celestial City (68, 243, 27), but isn’t any more. So let me recommend a visit to try on some new hair demos, including the Whitney style which hasn’t really left my avatar’s head since I bought it a few weeks ago.

Seen in world: Yes
Review copy: No
Friends list: No

There are shops in Second Life that seem to have been here forever. Well, at least they were here when I came to SL. And because you hardly see them on the blog feed, you sort of forget about them which is a shame, because not only new designers make nice things. Lets not forget a whole lot of established ones that have been pioneering before even the flexiprims were introduced.

So, with this in mind, after a long long time, I went back to Jonquille Noir’s Little Rebel. It is quite a big shop, with a lot of slightly retro inspired clothes. My eye fell on a high waist skirt that I fancied and took home to play with. It comes on the skirt and jacket layer, and alternatively has the high waist part on the shirt layer as well for more versatility. Glitch pants cover up your legs when you move. It comes in 10 different colours, from black and the brown that I am wearing to vibrant pink and sunny yellow. If you don’t mind a bit of a photoreal look these are very nice skirts for L$ 100. What I really like about Little Rebel is that they sell a lot of separates and that they are affordable. I admit… I went back and picked some more skirts up… and the slip dresses shown below.

I was introduced to Little Rebel during Relay for Life’07 when Jonquille made some delicious RFL themed slip dresses. They are not available anymore… but she still has them in delicious colours. Not less than 42 different colours and textures that is. Sleek and simple and ooh so sexy and all with the same lush satin look. For this review I picked the sky blue and the petal rose versions… but as said.. tons of options here. They make a great basic. They are shirt and skirt layer only, so no glitch pants here. Just create your own if you want to, or wear some of your cute undies.. after all… a slip dress is supposed to be part of a woman’s lingerie collection.

Hair and skin on both photos: The Soho in midnight I from Armidi, and Vivant Boudoir 1 in buff form Tête à Pied.  The blouse that I wear with the skirt belongs to Bare Rose Gabrielle outfit, the seamed tights are from Battered Boudoir’s chocolate bodystocking. The jewelry is Maya from Earthtones Boutique and the glasses are the Buddy Holly glasses from Artilleri. The necklace I wear with the slipdresses is the Antique Pearl strand necklace from Lovelace.

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

Have you heard of Decoy by Annette Voight? I think it might be the best kept clothing secret in Second Life, and that’s good for fashion insiders, but Annette is such a fabulous talent, she deserves a wider audience for her designs. Like Kat Palmer, Decoy was featured in a recent Second Style fashion show — and this is a long overdue post about Annette’s designs, so let’s get it going.

To the left is the Sweetarts dress. I’m not sure if the name is inspired by the range of pastel flavors it comes in, or if Annette just has a sweet tooth. Either way, this is a really lovely design, full of well shaded folds and a sense of realistic fabric drape as the dress hangs from your avatar’s shape. The color choices are well considered and range from the watercolor pastel blue-green (called blueberry) to the more dramatic looking crimson tinged “cherry.”

To the right is an ensemble made of separates: “Autumn Comfort” is the name of the sweater, and the denim is called “Stripped Jeans.” Despite the names, these jeans are anything but stripped. You get the jeans on the pants and underwear layer, plus some fantastic flare leg prims for that ultra crisp well polished look. The lace up tie at the waist band adds some edge and a touch of mystery, which is a good quality for denim.

When Valena Glushenko (our fashion show coordinator) showed me Elysiana (shown in Emerald, to the left) I immediately told her that I didn’t want to take it off! Unfortunately, it had to be passed to one of our show models, but Annette was kind enough to send me another one. I was floored by the ruching on this design – the drawn on drape and shading is really top notch, among the best I’ve seen in Second Life. And I think the jewel tone color and cut are so on trend right now for cocktail dresses.

To the right is the super cute and super fabulous freebie called Classy Flirt. Just to play around with the look a bit, I added Decoy’s “Just Peachy Cardigan” in sky blue over the dress top, merlot ribbed tights by Tete a Pied, and Pinson boots by enkythings. See the attention to shadow, fabric drape and believable wrinkles in this design, especially on the prim skirt.

I saved two of my favorite Decoy looks for last. On the left is Alesana (shown in plum) – this was another one of those dresses from our fashion show that I simply could hardly believe had come from a designer so new to Second Life. The batwing bodice is very dramatic and the absolutely gorgeous weave of fabric down the front of the dress is bewitching. I didn’t show you the back of the dress, but all those tiny fabric touches continue on the back and sides, virtually seamlessly. It’s truly an impressive technical achievement to make those textures align so neatly.

Finally is a fantastic little party dress named Chloe – another great choice for your New Years circuit. Shown in silver, all of the Chloe designs have a skillfully applied lace applique surrounding the waist, sides and back of the dress, again, aligned almost seamlessly. It’s hard not to enjoy this square cut bodice charmer with its tasteful black piping detail at the bust and hem.

Skins are Mellie 2 (semi-precious collection) by Annyka Bekkers, hair is Bombshell III by Armidi.

Decoy is located at Alhena (217, 158, 23).

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: No

Word on the street has it that many designers, while taking time to spend the holidays with family and friends, have been working on some new designs. Your Fashionista blog wrangler will be hopping in the coming weeks I’m sure, but for now I’ve been browsing the fashion blogs and looking at all the great mash-ups and outfits being reviewed. A couple of sales caught my eye too, like one at Devilish Cupcake (Blog, SLURL) that starts tomorrow.
I got a little weak in the knees when I saw new hair and dresses from Frangipani Designs (Blog, SLURL). I plan to stop by and see these new hair designs as soon as I can get in world and see their new safari dress as well. Designer Rach Snookums of Frangipani has really impressed me and I frequently check their blog for updates these days.

Over the holiday I was watching a couple of different movies with vintage clothing and I have absolutely fallen in love with the cut of clothes from the 1940s and early 1950s. So when I saw the following jacket from Silver Rose Designs (Blog, SLURL) you can only imagine how excited I was.

Advertised on their blog as a jacket style outfit that converts to a dress when the fur trim is removed, I’ll have to go take a look and see if this will be something I can wear to the train station when my beau comes back from the war in the movie in my SL head.

There were no new blogs added to our blogroll this week, but Marleen Vaughan of Marly’s Vintage Fashion promised to be my friend if I mentioned that her blog has moved to here, so I did. If you have a fashion blog or a blog for your shop and would like it listed on our blogroll, send me an IM or an email and I’d be happy to put it up there for you. Remember that you can also import our entire blogroll into your site from our links page.

Have you made any New Year’s Resolutions yet? Mine is to clear my post queue from this year, no matter what! So you’re going to see a flurry of new posts from me over the next day or two as I try to get everything into calendar year 2007.

I want to kick things off right by showing off some gorgeous outfits by one of my favorite new designers, Kat Palmer of Immortelle. We featured Kat’s work in a recent Second Style produced fashion show, but before that I’d planned to write about several of her designs. My delay is your gain, though as Kat has recently released some really wonderful new looks which I included in this post.

This outfit started my love affair with Immortelle’s designs. When I saw it on FashCon, I couldn’t help myself from heading over immediately to add it to my closet. Called “Fleur Noire” it’s a gorgeous cocktail frock with a classic black top and a gold skirt with a fabulously beautiful lace overlay. Cut to fall just above the knee, this is a flirty look that isn’t at all trampy or overstated. I especially like Kat’s attention to the prim skirt pattern alignment – it must’ve taken forever to get all those panels to look just so when your avatar isn’t walking.

Around the same time Kat released Fleur Noire, she released the dress to the left named Miami. (Shown here with Stumbelina Ophelia of Cake’s Miami makeup in Golden skin.) Taken together, these two designs made me a fan forever more. Like its sister design Fleur Noire, Miami is another above the knee cocktail dress. But here, Kat shows her eye for color and pattern matching together perfectly in an ensemble. Everything I admire about Kat’s work is on display here: the understated elegance, the artful blend of color and accent, and magnificent attention to pattern. The tropical flowers on the skirt hem always make me picture this gown beachside on some warm island like Fiji.

Next to Miami, I’m showing off one of Kat’s most recent designs, the tiered skirted dress named Drama. Look at the tone-on-tone highlighting and fabric wrinkling at the bust and the hinted on trend sequin bands on the halter straps and underbust, as well as trim on the skirt tiers themselves. Kat added even more versatility by including a baby-doll style skirt which can be worn instead of this knee length version shown. Drama would be a cute way to ring in the New Year anywhere on the grid.

But Immortelle isn’t just about cute dresses. Kat has designed some casual outfits like Elizabeth, shown on the left. Elizabeth comes with several mix-n-matchy perfect layers so you can grab up elements you love from this outfit and mix them in with your favorite separates from other collections. Here I’m wearing a unified Immortelle look with the burnt orange shrug, with the lace-up corset style shirt and the jodhpurs-on-underwear layer which looks so fabulous with boots. (Earrings and boots by Lyra Muse for Last Call, Celebrity skin by LF Chai, Whitney hair by Starley Thereian.)

I wanted to end this overview of Immortelle with a look at the stunning floor length Muse empire waisted gown. Like Drama, this gown has several different skirt options to choose from – empire waisted floor length or something a bit shorter for a more relaxed casual look. I love the subtle shadowing work on the bust ruching, the super thin spaghetti straps, and the sheer overskirt and slow fade of color from the waist to the hem on the underskirt. Muse is available in a variety of colors: Honeydew, Pink, Purple (shown), and White.

Immortelle is located at Olympia (243, 93, 22).

Seen in world: Yes
Review copies: Yes
Friends list: No

We at SexySecond took a couple of days off for the holidays and are just now getting back to speed, clearing the eggnog cobwebs and feeling our way back into the blogosphere. Remind me to either never get drink ideas from Celebrity Trollop again or to clear my whole calendar for the next day after serving them. Loved the Peppermint Martinis, a little too much I’m afraid.

Just before Christmas I blogged the lovely sweater and pants you see to the left. It’s called Aspen and was made by Sensual Casanova of Sensual Designs. While most of the things we blog at SexySecond are more latex and silk and less wool, I find that anything well made can be sexy, and I find Sensual Designs’ clothing to be especially, well, sensual, and priced at only L$175, Aspen makes me positively giddy.

Arabeth Laval blogged some incredible things this week, including the outfit you see to the left, Warrior by Apple May Designs. She also found, in what may be my favorite post of 2007, a can of whipped cream you can use for, well, let’s just say it can have a lot of uses, from Szentasha.

In addition to the posts already mentioned, we featured some great lingerie from Oh What a Neat Boutique, Nanogunk, and some more latex from Kayliwulf.

Come on over and take a look at SexySecond when you get a chance. This week we have a lot of new things to review and an exciting contest for our second magazine issue I’ll be announcing as we get closer to the New Year!