Men's Second Style

“If only you could see what I have seen with your eyes.” — Roy Batty

I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for some time now, but I was never really sure how to make it work or even if I could pull it off, close-up photography of avatar details being the challenge that it is. But it kept nagging at me, and I kept worrying it over, and finally I thought, “Well, maybe.” So here we are. Of course there’s also the question of how useful it will be to you, The Reader. You’ll have to be the judge of that.

Cliché: The eyes are windows to the soul. (Do SL avatars have souls? Maybe on the other side of the keyboard. That’s probably a discussion for another time.) Truth, subjective though it may be: The eyes are, or at least are perceived as, the outward expression of something inner, and definitely affect our perception of others. These are some of the eye designs that have become my favorites over time.  Any one of these designers has more eyes than I can feature here, some of them vastly so.  This brief overview is intended to do no more than give you a closer look at some of my personal favorites. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t yet had a chance to visit and check this out, but I Just read about a big sale at TRUTH.  Looks like to-be-discontinued clothing and hair have been drastically marked down, with hair packs starting at L$50.  Just sayin’. 

At some of his club gigs lately, my friend Kaj has been wearing some intriguing and unfamiliar jeans and shirts–detailed design work, rich colors skewing to the dark side, goth influences but nothing heavy-handed.  He was kind enough to put me in touch with the designer, VincentTalent Maximus, whose work was new to me.  Vince’s “2di4″ collection so far isn’t extensive, but it’s well executed, beautifully artistic and growing.  We were able to beat our schedules into submission and make time for an inworld chat, so in addition to my usual blather you’ll be hearing from Vincent himself regarding his design work.

“Right now I’m experimenting with a few things,” Vince says.  “I’m really into goth influences (not hard core), spend lots of time listening to dark ambient music, things like the Legendary Pink Dots.  [I] love Tim Burton and the lighter side of dark.  Vampires are great, but they should be sexy!”  I find myself in agreement with the sexy vampires idea.  After all, they’re not just Max Schreck. Read the rest of this entry »

I just looked in the archives, and realised my last post was made on the 4th of February. My apologies to Ryan and to the readers. Early February, real life took a turn for me, and I’m still unwinding from it. I plan to return to my old schedule though and post at the least once a week.

One of the things that changed in this 5 month period is that Lissa Maerten’s Cattivo stopped existing and got absorbed into Style Starts Here – in cooperation with Simone Designs. A short while ago I had the pleasure of receiving a few copies of one of the outfits released under this new label. From what I’ve seen so far, this place definitely deserves its name.

The outfit I’ll be reviewing is the D2K Outfit, where D2K stands for “Dressed to Kill“. The outfit consists of a blazer, a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. The jacket is available in eight different colours. These are Navy, Olive, Slate, Copper, Khaki, Desert, Light Blue and Light Gray.

Read the rest of this entry »

I love hair.

That’s probably not news to you.  After all, you see me here (and inworld, if you happen to bump into me or, hmm, stalk me down) wearing new or at least different hairstyles with frightening regularity.  Oh, sure, I have a few favorites that I keep going back to (*cough* “Nekoge” *cough*), but who doesn’t?  Hey, I’ve been giving “Poynter” a break lately, so give me some credit there. 

It’s been a few weeks by now, but Kavar Cleanslate recently updated and expanded his collection of men’s hairstyles at Exile.  (The update includes all-new hair textures–more on that later.)  His new styles are available in 30 different shades, packaged in packs of six.  Four of the packs contain natural shades: Blacks, Blondes, Browns and Reds.  (All styles are shown here in Scarlet, one of the Reds.)  The fifth pack is appropriately called Wild Cards as it contains a selection of brighter, less natural colors.  The sixth pack is K’s Choice, and it includes a selection of five from Kavar’s naturals and one of the wilder shades. Read the rest of this entry »

So much for putting up more than one post while I was away on vacation.  It seems there’s never quite as much “spare time” as I think there will be.  What is up with that?  I had good intentions, but you know what they say…the road to hell and all that.

I learned about the new Urban Tactic boots by Tesla Miles just before leaving on a jet plane, almost literally at the 11th hour.  Although I took these pictures the night before I left and carefully stashed them on my handy-dandy USB drive, I never got any further than sorting and cropping them.  No actual writing took place, and don’t get me started on the internet access problem.  Why do hotels charge for wi-fi?  Because they can, I suppose.  And I’m lazy, not to mention cheap, so rare indeed were the times when I toted my laptop down the block to the bar that offered free wi-fi–and excellent Bloody Marys and Red Snappers, I might add.  Well hey now…I was on vacation, after all.  Read the rest of this entry »

RL’s been keeping away from posting but I wanted to plug this gridwide hunt for men that’ll run until August 3rd. Head here to start and hopefully I’ll be posting more from it as the week progresses.

It was Ryan who last mentioned Yukimaru Koba’s Z#road shop, back in January. He was reviewing some skins. I found myself in the shop for the first time this week and it was the blazers that impressed me. I think the best of the lot is the dark blue blazer with matching trousers. It’s one of the sharpest suits I own now. The fabric is so soft and comfortable. Some suits in SL are all perfect creases and smooth, straight lines, and some SL suits have wrinkles that have become permanent creases. The Z#road blazers and trousers are marvelously in the middle. There are some sharp creases in the right places, and no creases in the wrong places, but other than that, this almost liquid feel — it ripples rather than wrinkles. And I love it.

The red jacket is pale, almost salmon, and clearly on the ‘strong’ side of the border with pastel. The trousers that come with it are called white, but in fact they are more eggshell off-white. The debonair cheerfulness of this bright outfit Read the rest of this entry »

A little while back, Posy was lamenting that she hadn’t done any new design work for Miau Haus in what she thought was far too long.  The next thing I knew she was asking, “Are these shirts sexy enough?”  Well, now, let me just take a look.

Yes…yes, I think they might be.  Break out your favorite skin with a treasure trail, because you’re going to need it.

Posy’s new “Seiki” shirts are devilishly disheveled and come in bright White and deep Black.  With each you get a jacket-layer shirt (untucked only, natch), prim collars with and without flexi nectkie, and scrunched, turned-up sculptie sleeves.  The shirt’s fabric weave is clear and easy to make out, even on the Black shirt, and finishing details include heavy rather than fine stitchwork and color-matched buttons. Read the rest of this entry »

Yelmer has put up a box with black and white trunks in the Alphamale stall at the Beachwear & Lingerie Expo. Make sure to grab em before the expo ends on 26th of July.