Eclectic as I am with my fashion choices in Second Life, there's something I'm a real stickler for, and that's dressing for the season. Never mind the fact that by default the sun always shines in our happy virtual land (charming but laggy snowflake emitters aside), if it's a blazing sunny day outside, I'm not going to put my avatar in a sweater and big boots. In autumn, I'm all about tights, long sleeve tees and cozy hoodies. And by the same logic, throughout winter, my jammed inventory is host to scarves, gloves, and above all, coats. My poor long suffering friends get the worst of it. It's easy to incur my wrath, just wear a cute little summer dress or shorts and sandals in October. “But I live in Florida, it's 90 degrees here!” they say. “That's not the point, you're veering dangerously far from seasonal stereotypes!” I say, and then frown and tap my virtual foot until they don something I deem more appropriate or teleport away in shame.

There is a lot of talk around about how much of the population of Second Life is very homogenized. In a lot of ways this is true, often I have trouble telling people I don't know very well apart when I have nametags turned off, but then, I have that same problem when I have nametags turned off in real life...A good deal of this criticism comes down to the skin a person wears, some skins are very defining, they wear the shape, rather than the shape wearing the skin, but I think that a bigger part of the problem is that people take themselves, and the clothes they wear far too seriously. There is an innate fear of looking a little bit silly sometimes. And that's a shame, because, goodness me, silly is FUN! A friend of mine is on a long break from Second Life due to illness, and one of the things I miss most about her are the times when, after a long day of being awesome fashionistas, we'd pull as much random foolish nonsense out of our inventories as we could, get all 'touristed' up, and then quietly inflict ourselves on the public.

When I first started in Second Life, a little under two years ago, babydolls were all the rage. They were everywhere, you couldn't get away from them, especially if you happened to be in the financial bracket I was then (*cough*camper*cough*). And I hated them. With a fiery passion. I hated the unflattering way they hung there, all sticking out and and ending at the waist, making even the most expertly crafted avatar look like she was wearing poorly-fitted maternity wear, I hated the way no-one (at least within my price range) seemed to bother shading them, they were just block colours or fussy patterns, and I just...urgh. Hated them. Happily, those dark days are over now, and underbust skirts and loose-fitting top garments in Second Life are experiencing a renaissance of sorts, with elegant empire-waist gowns and sweet smock jackets, all made with carefully trained eyes for style and talented hands. It's really fascinating to see how Second Life fashion evolves over time, to see designs be refined into something beautiful over time.
 

This close to Christmas, there's not as much opportunity to be 'dainty' as I would hope. It's all grownup stuff, cleaning, decorating, shopping, endless shopping, so much shopping (it almost stops being fun.....almost), wrapping up gifts, food preparation, checking things off endless lists...it's all so PRACTICAL. When I was a little girl, what I would be doing, the instant school broke up for the Christmas holiday, is prancing around like some sort of sweet little excited fairy. But sigh. With age comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes cynicism, and if I was a less maddeningly happy-go-lucky person, I would be quite jaded by the holidays and claim it had lost its magic entirely. Luckily, that's not the case. I AM a maddeningly happy-go-lucky person, and in amidst all the practicality and work and stress and trying to be superwoman that December brings, I have the distinct joy of being able to slip off to Second Life.

Something that always astounds me about the talent of creators, clothing designers in particular, in Second Life is how they have the power to make you believe. A commonly uttered phrase about SL (admittedly normally about whatever drama is happening on the Grid that day) is “It's just pixels”. True enough, but when the pixels we are treated to daily in SL have been treated with as much love and care as these, who are we to complain? I have no graphical, or mechanical skill whatsoever (when I once tried to play with flexi in Second Life, all I could do was make a scary tentacle, which now proudly terrorizes visitors to my friend's garden), it's really quite shameful, but I really am quite excellent at suspending disbelief when I see something beautiful. A good amount of my friends are technically minded, and when they see something cool in SL, they'll say “I wonder how they did that?”.

It's amazing how far you can get by showing a bit of skin. One of the oldest truths in the world (although I'm sure they put it somewhat differently 3000 years ago) is 'sex sells'. Or really, I suppose, more accurately, the suggestion of sex is what sells. Show too much, or the wrong bit of flesh, and you become prime gossip magazine fodder, and that's really not the most flattering form of publicity. Of course, there's a wide discrepancy between sexy, and just plain tarty. UK tabloid favourite Jodie Marsh falls squarely into the tarty category, and has done very well for herself out of it (I saw her house on MTV Cribs once during a bout of insomnia, surprisingly tasteful). The best example I can think of for working sexy in a classy way in order to further your career is Elizabeth Hurley. In 1994, the then largely unknown actress accompanied her then-boyfriend, Hugh Grant, to the London premiere of his file Four Weddings and a Funeral, and was wearing 'That Dress' as it came to be known.

I must admit, I'm not really one who gets poetry. I'm a prose gal, and song lyrics are just about my limit when it comes to words painting pictures and being rhythmical and generally...pretty. I don't know why, but I can stare and stare at a poem, go over it a thousand times in my head, and have none of it make any sense to me, I suppose I'm not the best at interpreting inspiration. It's a shame. It takes something really special for me to be able to understand where it's coming from. And special, I got.

A tale unfolds upon this dress,
A rhyme of lost innocence.
A girl amid a winter field
A raven dark, his wings revealed.
An apple glows a warning red
Upon the snow the color bled.
Snow White, skin like fallen snow
her bloody lips with red will glow,
Hair as black as raven claws
Reflection dark in mirror's jaws.
This frock will tell a warning tale
A winter masque in which innocence fails.

In my spare time (such as it is) in Second Life, I like to go play at an 'immersive' Victorian steampunk RP sim. For reasons probably best kept to myself, I recently went in search of some Victorian underwear to wear there, which was rather less fruitful than one would perhaps imagine. I eventually found a place which had a fine selection of nice vintage undies, in my excitement bought altogether more than I needed, and proceeded never to actually publicly wear any of it. It got me thinking, though, two things: Firstly, for all the lingerie stores out there in Second Life, very little of it caters towards historical roleplayers, and for all the historical dresses to be found out there, there's little consideration for what could possibly be worn underneath them.

For some reason, one of the big clichés in the world of 'cute' is the image of a baby with a bowl of spaghetti dumped over it's head. Any parent will tell you, having to clean up after such an instance is anything but adorable. Wearing your food is generally considered at very least, not especially sophisticated, if, at times, admittedly, raising a smile. Sofia London's mainstore, LurveBite, has the makings of changing this, bringing about a wearable edible revolution, with her Food Couture line, full of delicious dresses not just inspired by, but made of, the scrummiest ingredients, marshmallows, chocolate, buttered toast, banana pudding and vanilla wafers, breakfast cereals, a mouthwatering line that's literally good enough to eat.

In the not-to-be-specified 'olden days', everyone wore hats, all the time. Apart from times when they were sleeping, bathing, politely greeting a passing lady, and selected other non hat-wearing times, hats were something you could not get away from. I, for one, rather like the romance of a fashion accessory everyone absolutely had to have, at the risk of seeming rude without one, or something, and I do love my hats. Sitting writing this on a cold October morning, I'm glorying in the chilly weather due to the fact that it allows me to wear my favourite sequinned floppy woollen beret when I go out later, and not feel overdressed. Nowadays, practical applications of wearing a hat aside (protecting yourself from the cold or the rays of the sun, and, baseball caps rarely count!), matching a hat with an outfit has become somewhat of a flourish of style, an epic finishing touch, making more of a statement than the most outlandish jewelry, towering over all other accessories as master of unnecessary grandeur and glamour.