Men's Second Style

Getting dressed is as easy as throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt.  But style is in the details, and that often means accessories – an area of fashion often difficult for men.  Should the belt match the shoes?  Should the shoes match the coat?  Should the coat match the watch?  Can’t I just say to hell with it and put on my bathrobe and stay home?

In any outfit, finding the right balance of accessories is key.  Too few is bland; many and you end up looking like Mr. T (and that is only a good look on Mr. T).  Further, your accessories should complement each other.  While they don’t have to match exactly, they should appear to have the same purpose.  Dress shoes look good with a suit, or parts of one; less so with Bermuda shorts.

On Second Life, of course, it can be even trickier.  Belts are usually part of the pants, and an afterthought of the designer.  Finding a good prim belt is difficult.  When I want to wear a belt, I usually go with this one from Thora Charron’s LeLutka Homme collection, part of the Mick set.  It works well with a wide range of casual looks, it’s well-made, it’s slung low on the hips, and it isn’t nearly as bulky and outfit-killing as most of the other belts I’ve tried.

Shoes should not exactly match a belt, but they should be in the same color range, and should have the same purpose – a casual belt goes with casual shoes.  The Soubresauts in black by 2g are my go-to casual shoes.  They are the perfect mix of simple and beautifully designed: Pique Flan’s texture work is fantastic, giving them the look of light leather driving shoes.  I wish they had a resize script, because they took a good bit of tugging and stretching to fit my feet properly, but that’s a small nitpick.  They’re great shoes.

Your tie only really has to work with your shirt and jacket (if you’re wearing one) – that one’s easy, and more so on Second Life, where most ties come with shirts.  For the adventurous, there are patterned prim ties sold separately.  I have a few, but they’re irritatingly hard to adjust to AO movement (my belly keeps swallowing them).  This tie comes with the shirt from Laqroki, and although it, too, sometimes disappears into my abdomen, it looks great and is part of what I think is the best-looking collar in SL.  Winter DiPrima, Laqroki’s designer, seems to have figured out that shoulders curve.

In real life, most men wear a watch.  In Second Life, it’s just easier to look up at the clock in the corner…but a watch is still a distinctive piece of a man’s style.  There are many watches in SL, and most of them are faithful replicas of the styles we’ve all seen in stores and magazines.  Most of them have bling options, some have HUDs to help set different features, and some don’t even tell the time at all.

I haven’t seen a watch that’s impressed me as much as the Chronometer by GBTM.  It doesn’t have bling, and it doesn’t need it: the motion of its tiny nanoprims give it a subtle shimmer effect that’s visible from a distance, giving it just the right amount of flash for a sports watch.  It doesn’t have an extraneous HUD, just a simple script for resizing and setting time (and it keeps time in two time zones; handy!)  The detail work that Beyondthematrix Boa has put into this watch is mind-blowing, and it’s a great addition to a good casual outfit.  In addition, BTM and his partner, Ginger Ling, are tremendously nice people.  Stop by their shop, tell them Marten sent you.

I should not overlook glasses.  For some men, style extends to glasses only so far as finding a good pair of sunglasses.  However, to others, glasses are an integral piece of our look.  We present ourselves to the world every day in glasses, and those glasses should be as much a part of our fashion as the suit we wear or the hairstyle we sport.  My glasses are Armin Rickena’s cc00 style from Maschienenwerk, and are – like everything from Maschienenwerk – free.  I’ve tried on a lot of other glasses from many other designers, and although there are certainly many that have their merits, I keep coming back to these.  The tortoiseshell detail of the frames looks great close up, and they aren’t burdened by extraneous HUDs.  They’re just simple glasses that look great.

Marten is also wearing:

jeans by {Kari},
hair by Hayate’s Hair Lab,
eyes by Flesh Peddlers [not currently available],
and skin by <TheAbyss>.