Men's Second Style

Let us sing the praises of the humble waistcoat, unjustly neglected for decades. Nowadays it seems that even gentlemen such as ourselves could go for years without ever wearing one except at weddings and attending Royal Ascot every year. Yet it forms a crucial article of gentlemen’s attire in other subcultures, such as the Steampunk sims. I ran across Nix Sands’ rakish Xcentricity brand first in Port Babbage and was captivated as soon as I saw them. My favourite is Poisson, here portrayed in what are indelicately called ‘sooty tones.’ The celtic design is printed on the finest satin and the garment is reassuringly snug without pulling tight.

Other gentlemen may frown on it, but I love to leave my jacket behind and take the air in only my shirt sleeves and waistcoat — ah, the daring informality of it all! Clearly Mssr Sands did not have such indiscretions in mind, since the backs of his waistcoats not only lack the design, but are not even satin, merely cotton, with bunching showing clearly as a buckled strap takes up the slack fabric where the garment tapers at the waist. [I stand corrected on this point; please now see Baron Wulfenbach's comment to this article below.] Poisson is also available in indigo, olive and salmon (all of them much nicer names than ‘sooty;’ …I ask you!) and costs only 80L$. You may not see them when you first enter the shop — cycle through the vendor which also sells the ‘Steamy’ and ‘Wheeler’ waistcoats, to which we turn next. Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Itny told me to head to a store called [insert cool name] a while ago, but (as is usual) I forgot. She reminded again a few days ago, and this time I went right after she told me. I found a nice box of goodies there for 1L. Curious to see if I could find more, I checked through the group history and found a few more things. As I was busy poking around, I ran into Malte Antfarm, the owner of the store. Malte is a pretty nice guy, and we ended up talking for a bit. As I was talking to him, the topic of his next freebie came up.

I mentioned that guys tend to get plenty of shirts, but everything else is much less common. Therefore, why not make his next freebie a pair of pants? Sure enough, a day or two later, Malte dropped the shirt and pants I’m wearing here on the group. I’m pretty sure he mentioned that they’d be packaged in the box as well for when they age out of the archives. Anyway, enough back story, on to the clothes. Read the rest of this entry »

The Faces of Darklands Fashion Show will be held at 1000 a.m. SLT this Saturday, June 28, at Crimson Shadow.  This is an event in the previously announced model search contest, and new skins by Draconic Kiss will be released.  Contact Lokum Shilova inworld for more details.

Designer Shinichi Mathy described himself to me as “a newcomer to the SL fahion scene.”  He may have arrived relatively recently, but I hope he sticks around for a while.  His shop SHIKI presents a generous collection of unabashedly colorful, breezy casual designs for men, and a handful of items for women.  I’m pretty sure the shop was redesigned within the last few days–it had a completely different layout when I made a quick last-minute visit last night.  Things do come and go so quickly around here.

Although I’m not featuring them here today, you’ll also find a few decidedly informal suits…perhaps just the thing for a summer garden party or evening cocktail cruise.  The pieces I’m wearing here are just a small selection from Shinichi’s Spring and Summer ’08 collections. Read the rest of this entry »

I wouldn’t describe Thea Tamura’s new hat-with-hair creation as bizarre, but it certainly is unusual.  To me the design looks and feels more Baroque or Rococo (albeit stylized), even Romantic.  (I could easily see Shelley wearing this hat in less anguished moments.)  However, Thea herself has called it her “Bizarre Hat.”  It’s simple and direct, so who am I to judge? 

The hat I picked up for myself is the Black style, probably the most sober of the twelve different variations.  You can choose from seven simpler solid colors and five more elaborate fabric textures.  The Black hat’s base texture is a medium-grain leather, while some others have a linen fabric look.  All the styles are clearly pictured on their vendors, so you can see how each style is finished. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Sunday, rather early in the morning, I saw a notice for new freebies from Alphamale. The first thought that crossed my mind was, “Finally, took Yelmer long enough … the girls had some freebie lingerie months ago!” I had been waiting a while for this and I was quite excited. Normally, when I get notices from large groups about an item, I tend to wait an hour because fighting for a spot on a full sim isn’t worth it — you can just wait a bit and there will be no one around landing on your head, etc. But after waiting about 30 seconds, I thought “Screw the others, I want that freebie” and teleported in. Luckily for me, not a lot of people are on Sunday mornings and the sim wasn’t too too crowded.

After chatting it up with Yelmer a bit (for the record, Yelmer and Mariska are very nice people — if you see them at the store y’all should say hello) I head home and tried on the new clothes. The wait was definitely worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

So, this will be a little different.  I thought it might be both fun and challenging to feature some skins that might not be designs I would choose for myself, at least for everday wear, yet are still interesting and well made.  This is more of a feature (or collection of features) than a formal review, so I won’t be going into quite as much detail as I usually try to do when I actually review a skin.  But I will tell you what I think and hopefully show you enough in pictures that you can decide if you want to drop by any shops to try on some demos.  Which of course you should alway do before buying a skin, no matter how great you may think it looks in the ads or on anyone else, including me.  But I hardly need mention that for your benefit, experienced and discerning shopper that you are.  Read the rest of this entry »

I never covered these because I figured they’d be gone too quickly. However, 3 weeks later these dollarbie gifts are still around so head over there before they actually do get yanked. There’s a nice red top and green pants, as shown by my friends at free*style.

For one week, unisex vampire skins are on sale at Crimson Shadow. Several different styles are priced at just L$100 each. The sale lasts through June 22.

I honestly hadn’t heard of this store before I got a landmark by way of the Free*Style group notices a few weeks ago. I finally head in to the store and I must say I’m glad I did. First of all, the store is really cool. The build is excellent quality, and its just a nice place to look at. On top of that, there are cool-looking clothes that aren’t same stuff you find everyone else wearing. Who doesn’t like being special like that? On top of that, and more important for this post, the owner has been quite generous and has a box full of cool clothes so we can try out his stuff.

The hat, shirt, pants, and gloves are all from MadHouse 88. Lets start from the top. The hat is a close-fitting Jeep Cap and comes in three different colors: gray, green, and red. Its easiest to wear with no hair underneath, so a skin with hair drawn on would probably come in really handy. If you don’t have one, it covers enough of your head most people wouldn’t give it a second thought. Its relatively easy to resize so long as the top of your head is generally circular. Read the rest of this entry »