Sunday, March 13, 2011

Fashion For Life: Mapplethorpe

Fashion for Life began yesterday.

I remember Relay for Life because it was one of my first large-scale Second Life events that I was aware of, years ago when I joined.

I went for the freebies. Many of the stores had freebies as well as donation items, and I was not a wealthy person at the time. I remember it was way up in the sky, and very little rezzed, and I found the store design sometimes frustrating. Everything seemed jumbled together, and it was all very, very gray.

Creep
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black; (Dress) Fumiwo, Special Gift for Fashion Fair; (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - Black; (Pose) Del May, Mime/Cat burglar


Years later, on a much faster computer, I find Fashion For Life (which replaced Relay for Life in Second Life - now everyone is on the same team) much more pleasant. Spread across nine sims, there's actually a path you can follow from one area to the next so you walk by each store - something which I must admit I quite love, even though I circumvented it to focus on each sim at a time.

Everything is still gray, but this time it's a design choice - and the stores stand out like brilliant jewels against it - many taking advantage of the greyscale to use single themes of color that set them apart and make their store seem to glow. Even if they didn't do so, the vendor pictures really stand out. The gray is easy on the eyes, too - blending together a wide variety of stores in harmony.

Scarlet Stand
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black; (Dress) Cipher, Punk Lolita Mini-Dress ++Lilim++ - Red; (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - Black; (Pose) Elisa, Burlesque6


I began in Mapplethorpe, designed by Eshi Otawara, because it's the sponsored sim of two very dear friends of mine, Azriel Demain and Tomoyuki Batra (yes, I know Tomo has his own lovely store, Little Boy Blue, but I think of them as a pair! And I ran into them together *hand flail* PAIR!). Otawara did all of our graphic cards a huge favor and used only a few textures, so the sim loads incredibly quickly when you arrive and the lack of lag is hugely appreciated. Even with sixteen other people on sim, I was able to easily move around and take pictures.

One of the fun qualities of taking pictures with people around, though, is the inevitable "people standing in the background of my picture - OMG MOVE!" I resisted IMing people, but it took some self-control. In fact, I started writing the blog as I photographed to give me something to do while waiting for the inevitable picture-invader to move!

TOES!
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted white; (Dress) The Black Canary, Eternal Grace; (Shoes) Nonko, Medical Bondage (without ankle wraps); (Pose) Long Awkward Pose, Emo - Lies, All Lies


I had fun going between posing inside of stores, sometimes on the little displays they had in place to set the ambiance, and poses outside taking advantage of Otawara's spare yet elegant build. I only noticed on the second time through the birds of light going up over the gatcha machines, for example, so it's really worth a few looks at the build as well as for picking through the glorious outfits on sale.

Another random thing which happened was that right as I was about to take a picture near the edge of Mapplethorpe - the sim next door vanished! This is an interesting aspect of things being multi-sim and yet concurrent and cohesive; the world seems to transform when next door changes. I couldn't resist taking a "before and after" set of pictures to show how much the flow from one sim to another matters in how this particular build is done.

Huston, we Lost a Sim Huston, we have Sim Again! Repeat, we have Sim Again!
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted white; (Dress) Bare Rose, Amphitrite RFL - Pale Blue; (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - White; (Pose) Everglow, Gift Pose 2


Mapplethorpe is very Japanese themed, with a lot of Gothic Lolita or Visual Kei inspired clothing. I'm not sure if that was a planned aspect, but it made it easy to bounce around to all of the stores I was familiar with and pick and chose.

Cipher is one of my new addictions - they do their corsets in a slightly complex way, putting them on two prims and in the most recent Punk Lolita outfit using alpha textures as well, but the end result moves incredibly well with different poses, making it seem a lot more realistic. I ended up shrinking my belly for the corset, but I didn't have to do anything else besides increasing the size of the prims (which I often have to anyway, being a plump faerie).

Otawara's style works well with the overall theme, being vary nature focused with a Lotus floating in the center among the gatcha machines. The grasses are lovely, and you can actually walk among them without falling down. The addition of just a touch of water makes everything seem organic despite the spareness of the buildings themselves, which are rather square and open fronted.

Lotus Standing
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black; (Dress) Falln Angel Creations, Avarita Gown - Flame Exclusive for Fasion For Life; (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - Black; (Pose) Ks2cool, Pose82-90


There seemed to be fewer freebies this year, but it's entirely possible that's more about me than them. When my focus was on freebie, not purchase, there was a tendency to look simply for that - entirely focused on the goal. Now, with a focus on freebie, purchase, and photography, my attention is divided enough that any single thing doesn't strongly stand out.

That's the interesting thing about focus - it's always changing with who you are, how you feel, and what your goals are. In many ways, your focus makes the world around you more than anything else.

Phoenix Rising
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3; (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride; (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished); (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde; (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black; (Dress) Likka House, Papagena - pink; (Stockings) Vextra Fashion, Sheer Stockings - Dark Pink; (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - Black; (Pose) Luth, Runway V2 13

( A lot more pictures here. )

Overall Credits:

Location: Fashion For Life - Mapplethorpe: Sponsored by Falln Angel Creations
Light Settings: Alchemy Immortalis, Fog Lifting

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only

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