Second Life Fashion : Trend-Setting for Real Life Fashion ? Part Two.

December 29th, 2007, Author: Jean Paul Cauvin, Categories: Op-Ed

SECOND LIFE, December 29, 2007 – (Continued) … Interesting that a Real Life fashion designer also goes to Second Life to explore leather goods ! “His shoes are among the best virtual ones” says our connoisseur, Princess Hildegarde, “simple, sober, they display details that unmistakably show that Storm Schmooz knows what he is doing for real.” Indeed, coloured inlays in the inside of the shoe, details under the foot arch, small platforms to compensate for the high heel for instance are all details that should be appreciated by Second Life residents, just like the very careful work on textures to give them the shiny aspect of calf leather, on footwear for men or women alike.

When asked why he is present on Second Life, Storm Schmooz answers in a very straightforward manner: “I wanted to make women more beautiful here too.” Quite natural for an accessories designer, really… However, I personally wish that a shoe designer’s investigations in dream world would be more fashion forward, finding his virtual creations still quite “classic”, apart from maybe a gold very low boot, which although not a complete innovation, may be judged much more fashion forward.

In fact, many SL fashionistas would love to see RL fashion houses use the virtual platform to cut down on costs in the development of their products. However, I am not sure this would

AVAILABLE ON SECOND LIFE AT MAITREYA

be possible at the moment, at a creative level. Marc Jacobs did not need Second Life to develop a shoe with a big half square, half rounded heel, attached to the rest of the shoe horizontally instead of vertically; Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent with next season’s naked foot arch mules and sandals, just like for instance the geometric designs in the structure of stilettos in the latest collection by Charles Jourdan could not either be compared with the creations of Second Life shoe designers, to talk only about the restricted field of footwear.

In the metaverse extravaganza instead, we have -apart from the basic freebie ugly shoes-,

AT STORM SCHMOOZ

many items ranging from vertiginously high stilettos, to knee high boots, nearly always adorned with many buckles and blings, not to mention the innumerable sneakers copied from Nike, Reebok, Puma… Being able to have a closet of footwear comparable to Elton John’s or Imelda Marcos’ is accessible to the masses -or nearly- on Second Life. Finding there a shoe designer in grade of creating innovative pieces is another story! And for the moment, Second Life designers seem to be happy with mimicking existing designs or accentuating unwearable stilettos or show-off boots revived from RL footwear of the 1980s or inspired by bling chichi streetwear gear for fake gangsters.

However, when Storm Schmooz is being asked why he thought he could bring avatars on Second Life, his answer is very important : “They have been dressed by technicians so far. They look better dressed by designers”. Don’t we all agree ? However, no matter how this designer asserts that he is also

BAX BOOTS BY BAX COEN

doing it “for the fun”, he admits he had to put up for a lot of time finding the right software to develop his “sculpted shoes”, in fact an entire week before he could produce his latest boots.

If you pardon the technical aspect, and want to understand something about designing in SL (or building it’s the same thing), you have to understand some basics first. Clothes can be created from templates. The garments created with this method have to be reworked on graphic software and then imported in Second Life. They invariably produce “sticky

SPRING STILETTO BLOSSOM ON SALE AT SHINY THINGS

clothes”, although some may be enriched with nice textures, prints, transparencies. The second tool is very much the same as any object created in that world from walls to tables and … shoes. They are all a combination of primitives also called “ prims” in the SL lingo. Prims are 3D shapes, cubes, cones, balls that every “builder” tries patiently to malke longer, twist, enlarge, adjust, assemble to create objects. The third and newer tool is the “sculpted prims”. With some out-of-the-SL-world 3D software, one creates a sculpted prim of the requested more elaborate shape to be able to create with more freedom. We will come back on this subject later to discuss if and how all these technical aspects could actually influence Real Life fashion designers in the near future. As for now, it could just explain how it took a week to Storm to create a pair of boots for SL residents.

Another avatar and the Real Life person behind are spending much time designing accessories on the grid. Unlike other designers in the virtual world, Chrys Orca does not have to worry whether her prim accessories will fit on the head, on the feet or on the lips of the various avatars that could buy them from an anonymous shop. Chrys Orca is creating them as one-of-a-kind exclusive pieces, only on order. “We do in the virtual world what real Haute Couture does for the real world” says Sasha Dielli, a designer himself and Chrys Orca’s exlusive agent, encouraging SL fashion designers to create “no copy” pieces for its rich clients. (Continued soon)
JEAN PAUL CAUVIN

Further selection of the best

COWBOY BOOTS AT THE BOBBYSOCKS SHOPPE

fashion blogs and web pages devoted to Second Life for who wishes to investigate the world of fashion on SL:
- Second Style, the fashion reference in world also has a glossy website for non-residents and a very up-to-date fashionistas’ blog for latest SL fashion news
- Less serious is Second Life Fashion Police Blog, covering fashion faux pas on the streets of Second Life.
Princess Hildegarde and Publicist Redgrave -our SL fashion muse and mentor- have nicely accepted to wear their best

footwear for us, self-stuled and self-photgraphed … A good example of the things you can only do on Second Life too !