Easy Street is the place most of us … especially the ones who live paycheck to paycheck … dream of landing on, as did our parents and grandparents. Here in Second Life, Easy Street is easier to find; one place is a group of sims that includes Casablanca Bay.
Jumo came out with a gown a few weeks ago that would be perfect for anyone living on Easy Street in RL. I missed blogging about it while it was at the May round of Sense; but it has made it to June’s store, and can be picked up there.
“The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
A little while back, when Conan was taking pictures of my new house, he also shot some of me posing in a new gown from Kelini Couture. Now that the push to finish up this year’s OFPC is over with, I feel more justified in writing this session up. The terrible thing is, due to the self-imposed delay, the gown is no longer available.
I don’t feel too bad about it, though. This dress was one of the most photographed and frequently written up in the past few months, so it’s not likely you missed hearing about it. The Flower Power event was one of those double-ring shopping fairs, to squeeze in the maximum amount of stores; but, with some persistence (and a good item search function), you could find the Kelini booth and fill up your shopping bag. It’s not available any more, so let’s hope Eva will hear our crying and pleading to place it in the store. (Please, Eva, PLEASE, pretty please!)
Amalia‘s strapless top is sewn with some additional pleated folds (lined in gold satin here) that extend down to form a sort of mildly panniered overskirt effect. The sheath undergown is studded with golden flowers in a very nice effect, and the hem is raised enough for a pair of elegantly-shod feet to be revealed — this time in N-core’s Knotted sandals. N-core prefers to sell their shoes in individual colors yet; but the included HUD allows plenty of options in soles, heels and other secondary parts. And, for once, I decided to wear pantyhose, from BAX Coen. I like the effect so much, I may make copies of the feet with the SLink appliers for the hose and keep them on hand for ready use. A caution: if you use attachment feet with as system body, as I still prefer to do, you’ll need to purchase a package in your desired tone from both sides of the display, one for the appliers and the other, older package for the system panties. It’s worth the investment!
The makeup is relatively simple for once; I didn’t use multiple layers for my eyeshadow, as I love to do so much. Mandala’s collar and earrings make a lovely compliment to the confection, and Donna Flora’s Vanilla ring adds a grace note, as does the Finesmith ring on my other hand.
Jewelry:MandalaNyorai Choker and Earrings; FinesmithHere Comes The Sun Ring (Grass); Donna FloraVanilla Ring; The Forge House Lannister ring (Gold/Black; vintage)
UPDATE: Delmars no longer has the Tim Hortons, or anything of the town, from the looks; I don’t know if this is permanent, or a temporary thing. But if you need a doughnut fix, seek not here, at least for now (sigh).
“To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions.” — Hugh Jackman
“Whether you take the doughnut hole as a blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.” –- Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
N-Core has good shoes, and here’s one of my stock ones, which I actually managed to match the skin to! I’ll admit that SLink feet and appliers make color matching simpler, but once in a while I get it right.
Here I am at home in my new apartment, enjoying the sunset and listening to a concert on SCPR. (That’s Second Life Public Radio, incidentally.) It took a while to decorate this living room, and I dipped into the backstock of my store for the art hanging on the walls — as well as a little private stock; see that rather familiar artwork for a book cover there past the dining set? But it was worth it; I even had the landlord say “Wow!” when she stopped in to set up my door locks.
The focal point of the room is probably this huge redwood and slate fireplace in the living area, which gives me a cheery blaze as the days slide into winter. And there’s a surprise or two as well; though the room is mostly Art Deco, one of my favorite styles, visitors who come in the front door may expect at first to be seeing something a little more modern than that. I have two of my original “Metallic Princesses” self-portraits hanging in the entry vestibule. (You can see one hanging over my shoulder there as I meditate by the fire.)
The gown I’m wearing is a hunt goodie I picked up from Sascha’s Designs a month or so back at a discounted price. The kicker for getting this green version of Malicious was that you had to hunt through the entire first floor looking for the individual pieces, assisted by clues provided by Sascha’s assistant. And baby, it was a hunt indeed, looking for those tiny little boxes. But I think you’ll agree that this luscious gown’s fabric and lay are worth the work. It’s done in what I’d call a metallic green foil or lamé print, judging by the gleam off the bodice here. Spaghetti straps go around your neck in a halter, but I think you can leave them off as they’re a separate part of the dress.
Finesmith’s Alexandra suite came out about the same time, and I paired this exceptionally large set of earrings, necklace, bracelet and ring with the dress. I’m still trying to make up my mind if this was a good choice, or if I should have gone with something more conservative. Any opinions out there? I kept the makeup light this time in exchange, relying on my own “natural” lip color, and just a touch of eyeshadow.
It isn’t often I write about something that’s just been released. But, after getting the notice from Sascha’s Designs and stopping in to look at it — and also spending some very nice time chatting with Sascha Frangilli and a pair of Dutch visitors — I decided that this was so good that it was definitely worth talking about. The only trick was what hair to wear with the magnificent jacket.
Doesn’t look like much here, does it, if you focus on just the blue undershirt and the white pants? (In this color choice, there’s also a pink top; but I favor red hair, as you know.) It’s the dressy jacket that makes this iteration of the outfit so nice — one of the nicest dress jackets I’ve seen yet in my fashion history in world.
An experiment: click on the pictures for larger versions
I was exploring a sale a few weeks back — I think it was something like 55-linden Tuesday, or some such stuff — and one of the stores did not have laid out what I was looking for, at least that I could find. But they did have something else, and that made all the difference. Combining that with some other goodies, including a super-luxe buy from one of the most fabulous jewelry stores on the Grid, made the difference in this.
The gown is Harlow, from RBZ Design, and this is what I purchased when I could not find what was supposed to be out. I’m not angry; this was so pretty that I bought both this dress and another in green, for when I’m in my red hair. I normally don’t go for such a plunging bust line on a strapless dress — I keep thinking the bodice stays up by surface tension and nothing else. I’ve gotten used to it, though, from so many of my old vintage Last Call dresses that I’ve become comfortable with such a revealing look, I guess; I rather enjoy this one. And the silvery decoration running around the confection adds a beautiful touch, as does the bow in back, pinned up by a diamond brooch.
The aim here was for femme de luxe, and so I went all out on the jewelry. You can see just part of it here, but I have a fair collection on, which is the advantage of the Add feature on many of the 2.x clients. Wear your first piece, then Add the next pieces until you get what you want (within the maximum limits). Here, I have one ring on the right hand (from Muse, sadly no longer open) and two on the left, as well as a bracelet on each, and a long trailing string of black pearls around my throat. And diamond earrings, of course: these from U & R Dogs. On my feet are a delicious pair of slingbacks from N-core. (Why can one never remember to take a picture of the shoes unless you’re doing a shoe article [sigh]?)
The big diamond splasher is vintage Paper Couture; while the black flower with a black gem in the heart is a recent creation in the Bouhachi line from Rozoregalia.
But the topper, literally, is this. I was shopping at Finesmith Designs later during the sale. After picking up their sale item, I browsed, and waffled, and then said what the hell, and took the plunge to buy this beautiful headdress, called simply Swan. It’s hard to keep from thinking about the film Black Swan on seeing this, but I assure you I suffered no hallucinations — just raptures of delight. The headdress is a hat, so I paired it with a black bob from MADesigns, and black lipstick and eyeshadow, and voila.
The one place I might have went overboard is with the additional Capucine eye “tattoos” from White~Widow; but I liked the silvery dots below my eyes for effect, and so kept this on. Aside from this, a lovely confection to fly away into the night in, along with the prince of your dreams….
=====
The details:
Skin:PXL SkinsCandy SK SE red lips, medium eyebrows and freckles
“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
=====
Wright, probably the greatest American architect to date, had good reason to be arrogant. Visionary, inspired, and controversial from the beginning of his career to the end of his life, FLW also did much to influence the thinking and taste of architecture in this country during the 20th Century, as well as many elements of American aesthetics in general. He helped create a distinctly American style of building and decoration, the Prairie style, which shared many of its beautiful tenets of design with the Arts and Crafts movement, but brought a new, more modern language of form to the same concepts.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum in Usonia region (named for FLW’s designs for middle-class homes) exhibit reproductions of a number of his beautiful works, including one of his masterpieces — Fallingwater, the home designed for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh, executed in another of his styles, the Organic. The actual home is set in a well-forested plot of land, and seems to arise naturally from the surrounding limestone rock. The creators of the FLWVM have achieved something of this effect here with their virtual Fallingwater; and it is this background that I chose to pose against in this new gown.
If anyone in Second Life couture could qualify for the right to be arrogant and controversial about their talent — though as far as I know, they never have been — the designers of Paper Couture would. There is very little grey concerning Paper in the blogs, from what I’ve seen; either you love their designs, or you hate them, just like people did FLW’s work. Bad reviews have little influence on their bottom line, though — hordes have rushed each fall to purchase huge chunks of Ava and Cora Lu’s collections. I’ve lusted after them myself ever since I bought Magpie back in 2008, which I wore to New Year’s Eve that year. This year’s collection has hit a similar home run, as has been shown elsewhere, and as I’m showing here.
Second Life® with Harper, Conan, Jem, Diana and Morgan
If you like what you read, then please consider linking back. We also link to other Second Life blogs we think are good. You may also retweet any individual article on Twitter, when looking at that article, by clicking on the "Tweet" button just above the Comments section.
Around the Grid is willing to provide unbiased and unreserved reviews of Resident-created and -sold, non-pornographic products, especially fashion and hairstyles, and of Real World books on Second Life. Submissions for review should be sent in world to Harper Ganesvoort.
Book publishers please contact harper.ganesvoort@gmail.com for instructions.
All submissions become the property of Around the Grid.
We reserve the right to not write about a submitted item at our discretion.
Archives
Episcopal Relief and Development
Please consider donating, especially in times of disaster, to Episcopal Relief and Development, a worldwide ministry of the Episcopal Church in the United States. 100% of your donation goes to relief work; no administrative costs are taken from contributions.
