Celebrity Trollop

There’s already been a ton of posts on the feeds about Hair Fair 2009 and a sneak previews of all of the tasty goodness. Oh yes, I will definitely be writing more about Hair Fair 2009, but to prepare you for the initial rush, I wanted to show some pictures of the sim layout, in case it never fully rezzes for you.

It’s a candy wonderland and my favorite building (so far) is Selena Gateaux’s candy pirate ship pictured above. The Fair this year is spread over 4 sims, arranged in a quad. I suggest you start in the northwest corner and work around counterclockwise (Obligatory UK: anti-clockwise.) Also, not every designer has set up their pavilion – and some designers plan to release new things not just at the start of the Fair, but throughout the entire length of it. It runs until July 4, so if you can delay gratification for a few days, it might be a wise idea. After all, it isn’t like they’re going to run out of pixel hair for you to buy!

Here’s a full list of the participating designers and the quadrants they’re in:

South West – Map coordinates: Hair Fair (163, 140, 23)

Magika
House of Munster
Battle Angel
Digital Eyes
Heading to Dreamville
Analog Dog
Exile
Damselfly
Snipz
Adam n Eve
LALA Moon
MADDesigns
Calys Creations
Hair Solutions
Kiss
Katat0nik
Lamora
Find Ash
Rock Candy
ChiChickie
Maitreya
DV8
Inorite
Vixen
Tukinowaguma
Tekeli-li! dark artistry
Flavor Designs
NebuchadNezzar – NDN – Industrial Cybergoth Gear

South East – Map coordinates: Hair Fair 2009 (98, 179, 23)

Dernier Cri
Argrace
Zobovic
Hype
Lag Designs
Booperfunk
Dreads n Threads
Dark Mouse
Amacci
Zyrra Falcone
Blood Royal
Alice Project
Redlic
Simplee Britnee
Sky Shop Hair Resort
Onigiri
Miau Haus
Audacity
Baskin Bobbins
Tea Lane
Jolie Femme
Waka & Yuki
Hair Influence
Twisted & Spoiled
Nushru
The Good Life
Sweet Hair
Designs by Katey
a.C Store
The Stringer Mausoleum
Sparle Skye Designs
Honey
Innovations
Vignette
Shag
Draconic Kiss
Sirena hair
Curio Obscura
B Spot
Defectiva
MIU
Mirada
FOAM

North West – Map coordinates: HF 2009 (83, 233, 23)

Clawtooth by Clawtooth
Beauty Avatar
Spirit
DeadKitties
Tiny Bird
Goldie Locks
Mela’s
Fuel
Kin
Diversity
Gwendolyn Cassini Creations
Ingenue
Wasabi Pills
Milestone Creations
Posh
Glittercake
Here Comes Trouble
Curious Kitties
TRUTH
Philotic Energy
Mia Snow
Vanity Hair
Curio
Raspberry Aristocrat
Head Mistress
Refuge
Bish Hair
Pixelated Dreams
Mau & Mej’s
Fascino
BiZaRRe Hair & DeMiNaTioNs
Carlucci Designs
Rosy Mood
Decoy
Excess Androgyne
Sari’s
Biedermanns Hair
Tekuteku
C’est Moi
JE Republic
House of Heart

North East - Map coordinates: Beta Business Park (191, 75, 23)

Nodoka
Pirate Arts
Lazy Places
Aitui
George Street
Deviant Kitties
Dicord Designs
Bryce
Hairstyles by Tami McCoy
Pazazz Hair
Black Maria
Aoharu
Fashionably Dead
GroovyGirl Designs
U-Neek
DK’s & Pixelthreads
Filigreemotion
Calico Ingmann Creations
SLink

Sculpted prims have revolutionized a lot of Second Life fashion idioms. I think prim shoes (and now prim feet) has been the item most positively impacted by the introduction of sculpties in April 2007. It’s been really wonderful to see the state of the art advance so quickly in two years (and, if you’re old enough to remember prim shoes in April of 2006, you’d appreciate the quantum leap forward in sculpted prim footware a great deal.) 

A flip side of watching sculpted prim shoes become so ubiquitous is that sometimes you find creators who just don’t quite get their design right, either in implementation of the prims themselves, or with the textures they use on the shoe prims. I was so happily surprised by Jori Watler’s Pretties Risque pumps that I built a whole outfit around them.  I shamelessly begged Jori to make a pair in a springy citrus orange and she delighted me with the surprise shown in the picture above.

Checking the entire line of shoes, both textured and solid colors shows a deft eye for color and the skill to make them work within the context of a sculpted prim pump. They’re versatile, beautiful and reasonably priced. If you’re looking for footwear to match the hottest new releases, I can recommend a trip to Pretties by JB to see these shoes.  They’re yummy.

Pretties by JB is located on (Endellion 154, 116, 22).

Hair: Truth, Truth Hawks
Skin: Rockberry, Heather Bebee
Jewelry: Zaara, Zaara Kohime
Top and Skirt: Cupcakes, Mimi Coral
Shoes: Pretties by JB, Jori Watler

Zaara Kohime probably isn’t best known for her jewelry designs, but she clearly has an aptitude for it and a fantastic eye for capturing the essence of lush Bollywood decadence, where too much is never enough. So it is with Zaara’s most recent jewelry design Nizam which has been seen on the fashion feeds for weeks since its release. I’ve seen in featured with outfits, featured in (third-party) vendor ads, featured in a thousand and one Flickr feeds (like mine! :O)

That isn’t to say that the exposure is unwarranted or unseemly. For a collection of this quality, it deserves to be a widely publicized, seen, worn and generally admired across the entire Second Life fashion industry. Nizam consists of several pieces: a headpiece with complimentary hair created by Onyx Leshelle of Maitreya, an elaborately constructed and detailed nose piercing, a neck hugging statement necklace, a long draping necklace, earrings, a pair of matching bangles, a pair of upper arm cuffs, and a pair of bejeweled sandals.  Nizam is available ala carte by the piece, or sold as a complete collection. The collections are available in a white/gold or multi-color/gold.  Zaara also recently added a set of recolored bangles in all of the hottest colors of this summer and fall which are sold ala carte – although I wish there was a fatpack of them available.

Although I’ve seen the white/gold version of this collection the most frequently, I urge you to consider the multi-colored collection and incorporate pieces of it into your everyday looks.  Bold color is really trendy right now and Nizam is a fabulous way to make sure every outfit’s got a bit to show off as you tool around Second Life.

Zaara is located on Zaara (135, 132, 24).

There’s been back channel drama lately about the appropriateness of critical reviews of content. My own thought is that constructive criticism is of value to both the designer being evaluated and the general reader. However, the line between “constructive” and “destructive” is a high wire fraught with peril.

Second Life’s content creators (by and large) are craftspeople, who can (and do!) spend numerous hours working on a project from start to finish, whether it’s a skin developer obsessing over seams in her skin lines or a shoe creator who spent a week and half perfecting the newest sculptie map for prim toes hearing — in a very public way — that someone finds fault with your work can be a very emotional and personal experience.  That’s what makes them different from some kind of giant digital content publishing behemoth; or to put it in a real life analogue, the difference between your favorite kitsch vendor on etsy and Claire’s at your local mega-mall.

It’s especially so when sales from the output of that time ends up being less than minimum wage. In other words, financially, most content creators (maybe not the topmost tier, but most) – could probably earn more money in a month by pumping gas. Sure it’s not exactly as glamorous as making (or writing about!) pixel clothes, but it pays better and you can usually snag beef jerky whenever the mood strikes.

Despire the high availability of dessicated salted beef snacks and obvious financial reward, most content creators stick around in SL because it scratches a creative itch for them. They create because they like doing it and not because they’re trying to pay their way through law school (well, most of them anyway.)

As I think back over the  past several years, I’ve always tried to be fair to both designers and readers. When I see flaws in an item I otherwise like or enjoy, I try to point them out consistently and if I can’t find anything nice to write about an item, I usually just don’t write anything.

So what’re your approaches to constructive criticism of Second Life content? Do you handle it privately in world? Via email? Or do you vent on your flickr stream or a private plurk?

I’ve been a fan of Rosemary Galbraith and Mimi Coral for a long time. And just about nobody in Second Life gives more quality freebies to their group than this duo of moist delicious pixel fashion goodness. They’ve dropped the membership price on their freebie/update group. Plus they’re running a BOGO sale on all of thier skins – or another way to think about it is buy a L$1000 gift card and get a skin for free. That’s a great deal when the skin is as nice as Seduction, shown above.

Cupcakes is located on Le Zoo (73, 162, 23).

Digit Darkes has always been – from her first foray into pixel fashion – one of the people who likes to inject a health dose of real life trends into her releases.  Case in point – check out the bold mix of color and wide stripes in Alexander McQueen’s ready-to-wear Fall 2009 collection at Style.com.

That’s why when I saw Digit’s take on this trend I was so immediately struck by her timeliness and her taste. Subliminal comes in several different colors, but I wanted to highlight another real life trend that I’m excited to see start to filter into stores this fall: the color brown is to have a major showing this fall and winter. Along with the big, bold, and blocky shoulders (yep, they’re back – not sure that’s positive) and colors, there’s a lot of deliciously deep and luxe browns from leather to shiny, sheeny satine.

Digit’s store is located on Addictive (81, 141, 22).

Can’t wait to see what other runway inspirations Digit has planned for us in the future.

Almost 100% of what I spend in Second Life is the result of another blogger’s post. I’ve decided that I’m going to acknowledge when I’ve purchased something from a content creator as a result of a blog post by leaving a comment there. Due to the way SL interfaces with the web, it’s almost impossible to tell if store traffic is a direct result of a blog post. But at least there will be some footprint in the sands of the Internet when a blog post has directed my spending to a particular store.

Ever since I noticed Aranel Ah’s store *BOOM* in the Crush Row shopping sim, I’ve been watching her style and construction skills grow and evolve. Aranel’s earliest creations were cute, but she’s reached a point now, technically, where almost every new release has a compelling element in it and the attention to detail that are a mark of quality.  One of her most recent releases is this deliciously ephemeral orange sherbet confection. One of four dresses in a collection that features everything from this lovely hibiscus flower to a blue sparrow, it’s the quirky complementary details and divine color that drew me to this specific sample from her collection. I especially love the way she’s used alpha blended puff sleeve prims to add extra texture to this design.

*BOOM* is located at Existence (198, 43, 626).

Dress, *BOOM*, Aranel Ah
Hair: Truth, Truth Hawks
Skin: Cupcakes, Mimi Coral and Rosemary Galbraith
Lashes: Silhouette, Carissa Crimson

One of the quirks that I find a touch irritating about Second Life is that designers who don’t speak English well seem to be somewhat marginalized. Perhaps within their own linguistic circle they’re celebrated as they ought to be, but outside of that circle, it’s all unfortunately (and inadvertant) ignorance. I know that Second Life’s Japanese speaking creators (to pick one great example) have a thriving content creation business. It’s also a bit unique in that gets a reasonably large amount of coverage in English-focused blogs.

Not so for many of the other linguistic groups that populate Second Life, whether it’s Brazilian Portueguese speakers or French speakers in the UAE without a good command of English. djod Karu seems to be in the latter category based on guesses that a diram is a unit of currency in UAE and in her profile, djod says she can speak Arabic. She does well enough to get by but it’s clear that French is her primary language just based on the way that textures and prim pieces are named.

It’s a shame too, because until she took the initiative to contact me I had no idea she was out on the grid making some super great clothes.  She seems to enjoy bringing the stage and video outfits of American Poptarts into Second Life (from Britney Spears to the Pussy Cat Dolls.) It seems even in non-English speaking parts of the world, no one markets internationally known pop tarts as well as Hollywood.  Check out the fabulous details on those leather texture boots (sold seperately from the outfit pictured.)

Shown above is Yuki, and homage to my favorite trash pop guilty pleasure Pussy Cat Doll.  Some of the designs are photosourced, but Diram really comes through by making the textures look great in Second Life, even if the underlying design came from a picture.  She fills in the rough patches and uses both traditional and sculptured prim pieces to add some excellent “3Dness” to her creations.  And all of the details in each outfit are right on target with the real life inspiration for them.

Not everything at Diram is inspired by American pop princesses though. Take this last outfit which has inspiration from the faux fur trend that’s hot in the runways right now, and incorporates some really dramatic elements of flair like the giant buckled collar at the neck and the beautiful print pattern on the bustier.  Diram is a store with a lot of offer a shopper from excellently detailed sculpted prim boots to homages to your guilty pleasure Top 40 pop singers to runway inspired details in original designs.

Diram is located at Chez Pat (160, 247, 24).

Skins by Tuli, Cupcake, LeLutka and Laqroki
Ankle boots (not the red boots): Stilleto Moody
Hair: Damselfly and Truth
Clothing and red boots: Diram Design, djod Karu

A few days ago on Carissa Crimson’s Fashion Feed I saw Thalia Jie’s post about a wonderful dress by Gumi Yao. I never would have found these dresses if not for her post on Carissa Crimson’s Fashion Feed of SL aggregator.  The dress speaks for itself – it’s gorgeous (you simply must see Thalia wearing the orange version), it’s cheap and it’s almost impossible to find. (Here’s a shortcut I wish someone had told me – wait for the building and its vendors to rez and fly to the top platform.)

I’ve also come to love the Rockberry Uma skins in the past week or so. I’ve gotten other Rockberry skins from Lucky chairs or just demoed a bunch of other skins in the past and I liked them, but I didn’t el-oh-vee-eee LOVE them. I love Uma, especially the wonderfully rich dark skin tone. Like Gumi Yao, Heather Beebe’s Uma skins are gorgeous, cheap (L$250 per makeup and a fatpack for $1200) and impossible to find. (They’re on the back wall of the very back room.)

Rockberry is on Fusion (205, 57, 24).

Dress: Bad Box, Gumi Yao
Hair: Willow 2, Truth Hawks
Skin: Uma Dark, Heather Beebe
Boots: kakaue kreation, kakaue Yoshikawa
Jewelry: Lassitude and Ennui, Jackal Ennui