Men's Second Style

Usually I try to cover new stuff, this time I’m reviewing something a little older though. Not old as in “take out the featherduster and remove the cob-webs“, but definitely not new anymore by SL standards. I saw this gothic outfit at Schadenfreude, and felt like I absolutely had to cover it. Consider it a part of me going back to my roots. After all, when I joined Men’s Second Style, I told Ryan I wanted to bring some alternative styles into the spotlight. When I look at my previous reviews however, many of them are preppy and mainstream casual instead.

The exact outfit I’m reviewing this time is called lurking bondage pants, after the style of the pants it comes with. For the record, these pants have little to no connection with the BDSM/bondage scene, and are in real life mostly a part of musical subcultures such as goth and punk.

The top is ripped open on the chest with safety pins holding the tear together. The pants come with zippers on several locations and bolts on the calves and waist. Black straps connect these bolts. Stylised flames adorn the textures of both top and pants. There are 8 versions of the outfit, with the difference in the colour of the flames. I am reviewing the black version.

The first thing I noticed is that the designer, Allegory Malaprop, is apparently as much of a layer glutton as I am(credit goes to her for coining the word in the help notecard). The outfit includes 2 male tops (sleeveless and shortsleeve), 2 female tops (same), and 2 pants (regular and low-rise waist height). Yet when you look at it in your inventory, you end up with a whopping amount of 37 wearable items. Every top is available on all 3 upper body layers and the pants are available on both lower body layers. The prim parts also come in diverse combinations. Some of the lesser used options are placed inside a second box called extras, if you cannot find them all.

The straps on the pants are made using the system skirt layer, which gives me a mixed feeling. On one hand, it’s probably the only way to get straps such as these to work and move with the avatar. On the other hand, system skirts get bugged regularly and I find them harder to adjust than prims. As such, I never got the straps to perfectly connect to the swivel bolts. No big deal however until you start zooming in up close. The movement of the straps looks quite fine within the limits of Second Life in my opinion. They look a bit jagged, but I doubt that’s anything the designer can avoid.

What might be a problem for some people is adjusting the prims of the outfit. One of the options is to wear the pants with sculpted prim cuffs, but since there are also swivel bolts on the calves these are linked together (though there is an option to wear them separately). The designer brings up this point herself in the help notecard that’s included with the outfit, and explains the best way to go with fitting and sizing this part of the outfit. She explains how edit linked prims works and in what order to best do it – I wish more designers included help notecards such as this one because even to me it came in useful. If this is still too difficult, you can always choose to wear the bolts only.

One thing my pictures don’t do justice is the detail of the textures. Since the clothes are very dark, it’s hard to notice all the detail in the texture on my pictures, but when you look at them from up close in-world, you can see the shading and lighting details. They’re not the best I’ve ever seen, but they’re good craftsmanship and add to the overall quality of the outfit. This picture has brightness and contrast edited to make the details more visible.

So far, this is one of my favourite gothic outfits on the grid and I’m glad I found Schadenfreude. The style might not be for everyone, but if you like the style this outfit should definitely be added to your shopping list.

The outfit can be found at Schadenfreude’s mainstore for a price of 300 L$. Head up the stairs into the large black elephant. The outfit is the first one on your right side when you enter.