Belleza y Moda! Beauty and Fashion! Love of beauty and fashion energizes much of the passion of Second Life creators, bloggers and fashionistas. It is what sends skin creators back to their tablets to develop ever more beautiful skins. It’s what motivates creators to play with sculpts and textures to find new forms and to explore to the fullest what SL fashion can be.

Today I am wearing some of the boldest explorers who most fully realize and expand the boundaries of SL beauty and fashion. From MiaMai whose textures are stunning, to Mimikri who knows no bounds in finding new ways to form and shape clothing. From Stiletto Moody who has been at the vanguard of SL footwear development, to Truth whose energetic and playful explorations of hair sculpts send weekly tremors across the grid and finally, to Belleza whose stunning skins are at the apex of SL skin creation.

Let’s start with this amazing cape from Mimikri Kit. It is made up of three prim attachments, one for the chest and two for the shoulders. I copied the chest prim and attached the copy to the spine so that I could more easily wear a necklace. Here’s a hint, keep the original prim attached to its original attachment while fitting the copy to a new attachment point so you have it as a guide to line it up as the designer intended.  First, I have to point out the stunning light and shadows of the gold leather, but the main focus has to be on the bold and innovative use of sculpts for this cape. At first, seeing it in the vendors, I fretted whether it would look as good on my avatar as it did in the photos. We have all had that happen, haven’t we? Still, it’s never happened to me with anything from Mimikri, so I bought one of the wool plaid capes and it worked brilliantly. So when deciding this dress needed some jacket, this brilliantly conceived cape came to mind immediately.

Luscious, luxurious ball gowns and red carpet splendor are my first thoughts when I think of MiaMai creations because her gowns are so amazing. However, I don’t think anything shows off the mad skills of a clothing designer than a solid color cashmere like this dress. Cashmere and velvet are two of the hardest fabrics to do well and doesn’t this cashmere look soft and warm.  A solid color texture that is well done is never a solid fill of color, but is richly detailed with the weave of the fabric and the highlights and shadows from our form. That is what makes MiaMai’s work so stunning. Incidentally, it has a cowl neck collar that I decided not to wear, instead wearing this amazing necklace from So Many Styles that seems to be a part of the dress itself.

These shoes from Stiletto Moody are among my older shoes. I love that they are color change and save space in my inventory. I love that when new viewers are released that change scripts, I am sent updates so that even though they are old, they still work perfectly.  I love that if I accidentally deleted them, my purchase is maintained in a database for redelivery. There’s a level of customer service and quality that wins my heart. Moreover, there’s an amazing User Guide on their web site that even includes many of the RGB values of skins for the bare shoes.

This is the recently released Cyndi hair from Truth. Once a week, the grid trembles and shakes as women across Second Life make a mad scramble to try on the demos and choose the newest styles released by Truth Hawks. Occasionally, I try to pretend to be above the fray and wait as much as two days before popping over there. Two days is my limit before I succumb. There’s a couple reasons for his immense popularity. The most important, I would wager, is the magnificent color choices he offers us. As a redhead, I am constantly tinting and fussing with hair that is too brassy, too orange, too brown, too pink and wow, do I love having red hair I don’t have to tint.  The second reason for his immense appeal is the range of styles he produces – truly something for everyone – and the effort to avoid constant hair/mesh intersections.  By the way, in this picture you can see more clearly the lovely necklace from  So Many Styles and the earrings by Zaara. If you would like to see the collar as intended – instead of the necklace, I have a photo on flickr of the original.

Belleza! Well, what better exemplar of Beauty than Belleza itself – the stunning skin creations of Tricky Boucher. This is Jesse, Belleza’s most recent skin release. From the lush lipstick to the clear porosity of the skin to the lovely interplay of light and shadow, Belleza skins are truly outstanding.  I have a preference for elegant and flexible skins that wear well with everything. That’s what you get with Belleza.

Now, what makes this all more exciting is that if you asked anyone else to put together their own exemplar of “Belleza y Moda” they would come up with something completely different – because fashion is our way of exploring and defining our world and it’s always uniquely our own.

****STYLE NOTES******
Promotional Copies are denoted by a Bold R

• Poses: Reel Expression
• Skin: Belleza Jesse Sunkiss 0
• Eyes: PXL Creations Glow Yellow Green R
• Lashes: Lelutka Diva Prim Lashes
• nails: Fleur Sunset Shimmer (no longer available)
• Hair: Truth Cyndi
• Dress: MiaMai Cashmere Dress Orange
• Jacket/Cape: Mimikri Helena Leather Cape
• Shoes: Stiletto Moody Pinup Pumps
• Jewelry: Zaara Ramya Wood Bangles, Zaara Hiral Wood Earrings and So Many Styles Mosaic Necklace.