Spring is edging its way into our lives. In the courtyard, the magnolias and dogwood are blooming and in Second Life, well in Second Life for many it’s perpetual summer, but sometimes we let a little seasonal luster into our lives – particularly in fashion. That’s why when featuring two new items from the Accessory Fair, I decided to go with the very spring-centric Olethea dress from Lelutka.
The next highlight from the Accessory Fair is Ganked – a store that took the feed by storm a few weeks ago with bold, contemporary large necklaces in abstract shapes. Their creationa for the Accessory Fair are equally bold and attention-grabbing – including this gorgeous yellow set called Broadway Lights. This is actually a freebie being offered by them at the Accessory Fair.
This outfit highlights two Accessory Fair participants, Ticky Tacky and Dahlinks – as well as the outstanding dress from Agnes Finney for the memorial fundraiser For the Love of McQueen. I confess that the moment I saw the Agnes Finney Dress Mayur, I fell in love with it. In many ways, I even prefer her dress to the original McQueen dress that I think inspired it. I also think it is a beautiful illustration of the difference between inspiration and plagiarism. You can see elements of the original within the Agnes Finney design, but reimagined in such a way that the new design is distinctive and completely divisible from the original.
With the Morning Fog necklace and earrings and the Shining Star outfit, I almost feel like I am wearing the weather report. Of course, the weather report never looked this cute. Still covering the Accessory Fair, I turned today to more casual, everyday jewelry. The Morning Fog set from Bliensen & MaiTai is definitely that. Pastel gems strung on a leader necklace and a crystal-studded hoops for the ears and wrists are delightfully feminine and decidedly casual.
Louise Brooks was a great silent film actress and model – in fact, I would be surprised if you have not seen pictures of her at one time or another – including many striking nudes. She was very much the iconic image of the flapper era with her short bob and long pearl necklaces and her dramatic, defined makeup. Dahlinks, in keeping with the Broadway theme of the Accessory Fair has produced the Louise Brooks jewelry set of necklace, earrings and cocktail ring. It is quintessentially Art Deco – bold and geometric. Nonetheless, despite its adherence to the era, I did not pair it with something vintage, instead imagining what Louise Brooks would wear if she were alive today.
I found the answer in my Baiastice 2009 folder – the bold assymetric, figure-hugging Black Plastik. She would not be wearing vintage, but would wear the avant-garde. She was bold in her wardrobe then and she would be bold now.
Squinternet Larnia, the avant-coureur innovator behind the brand Donna Flora, has a genius for baroque jewelry with extravagantly bold clusters of gems, crystals and pearls. Her new creation, Emmanuelle, for the Accessory Fair is no exception. I struggled so hard to decide what to wear with it because there were so many options – should I wear lavender, purple, black, cream, gold, red or some combination thereof? With this bold combination of gems, I could go any direction I wanted. Vintage or modern? Avant-garde or classical? There’s real brilliance involved in creating jewelry that you can take with you on many very different journeys in style. I confess to going overboard on the photos, so if you want to see more, they are in the Emmanuelle set on my Flickr.
As the Accessory Fair opens on this beautiful Saturday morning, I am thrilled to be featuring the Hera Earrings and Cocktail Ring from Abraxxa Anatine of EarthStones. I remember some several months back that she told me she was going to do something really crazy, that she always wanted to do. Abraxxa is one of those who doesn’t give hints, though, so it was not until she finished the ring that she shared the story of seeing this amazing ring that she fell in love with and lusted for. Like most of us, though, the $26,000 price tag made her jaw drop and made that dream unattainable – until she decided to make it for herself in Second Life®. Luckily for all of us, she has also made matching earrings and not only are these gorgeous, extraordinarily detailed masterpieces available they are not $26,000 or even 26,000 lindens. As you can see, the pieces consist of five constellations of diamonds around a central clusters of gems and inner suns of citrines and topaz – a veritable cluster of solar systems – an entire universe to adorn yourself.
Magnifico Exclusive is new to me. Finding new stores is one of the great benefits of exhibitions like The Future is Now and I think this was a great find. I think it projects a strong attitude that had me reaching for the pack of Attitude poses from Studio Sidhe.
The trouble with naming an exhibition The Future is Now: 2010 is that it leads to thinking about what that means. The Future is always now in that our decisions today determine the future, but I wonder if with our faster world of today, it might be that Now is the Future. I hope not. As our communication systems get more universal, faster and more interconnected, we have become able to create world-wide networks of friends and acquaintances that involve us in new ways in a broader world. This leads me to hope and optimism and that our decisions will be smarter, less parochial and in that way, the future is now – or could be. There’s a grimmer counter effect, however, to our faster, more efficient communications. People have all sorts of theories and ideas, but I kind of think of it as the Relentlessness of Now. We know so much of what is happening NOW that NOW drives our decision making process more than the future. This leads to unfortunate, sometimes disastrous decision-making on the individual and the national and international levels. Much of the global financial crisis can be directly credited to Now trumping the Future in investment and planning. Sometimes we need to slow down and think – and think about the future, because if Now is the Future that we plan for, we are in trouble.
But enough about that. The Future is Now event is actually a celebration of thinking past today and anticipating a future unknowable and unexpected – full of delights and mysteries and life of all kinds. You will be seeing all sorts of fantastical imaginings from this event – but I am drawn to the more earth-centered exploration of futuristic clothing that is wearable today. The Disconnected Dress from Baiastice is just that. I can imagine it being worn on a starship or on a sidewalk – and that’s wonderful.
Those physicists who employ the chronology protection conjecture to assert that one cannot travel in time have never been in Second Life where one can travel from Stonehenge to Ancient Greece to newly imagined cyber-futures in mere seconds. That such travel is restricted to the digital world at the moment is merely a factor of our technological limitations, but our imagination has no such limitation. Imagination was set free for the Rezzable® event @ Greenies Home. Called The Future Is Now, it features the fashion imagination of some of Second Life’s most well known and most experimental designers.
Event organizer Winter Jefferson gifted me with one of the lovely gowns from the collection by a designer who foresees a future that still has time and space for romance and frills. From Bliss Couture, the futuristic Xennah gown is an exuberant homage to romantic finery which inspired me to do some time traveling back to the ancient ruins of Stonehenge on the CAM1 sim.
