Continuing coverage of the Accessory Fair moves on to Magpie and the delightfully colorful Magpie. Magpie is a perfect name for a jewelry store – what with the well-earned reputation of the birds for their love of bright and shiny things collected to feather their nest. Any self-respecting magpie nest would be proud to have these lovely blue and purple gem flowers brightening its nest, that’s for certain.
I was thinking it would be fun to do color formulas like we do chemical formulas. Instead of H2O, we could write Bl4Si2 when we wore four elements in black and 2 in silver. Or, we could do it in French to make it more obscure and seem more fashionable and chic and write out Nr4Ar2. Yes, there you have it. Sometimes my mind goes off on odd tangents and speculative journeys. This outfit sent me off on that journey while I was wondering how to explain what in the heck I am doing wearing black hair. Actually, the explanation is quite simple. I saw this hairstyle from !syDS! for the Accessory Fair and just love it – and they only made it in black and white and it’s no mod so I could not tint it. In between thinking about sending out a call to Redheads of the World to Unite and storm the barricades and swooning over its bold and audacious styling, I just had to wear it. Even if it’s not red. So one of the black elements is the hair.
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.
