Kate’s Modern Problems

My plane arrived late. I wanted to text at a red light but I kept making all the greens while the GPS made me drive through the worst part of town. ZOMG, my parent’s generation never had problems like this.  It’s funny that technology never really fixes anything, just replaces old problems with new problems. Even when the new problems seem trivial in comparison to the old ones, they remain annoying as all hell. Problems change, humans remain the same.

*** written from my hotel room where I am having trouble sleeping because one pillow is too low and two pillows is too high ***

Some people will think I hate MVW

You will have to aggressively project a hater stereotype on me to make that work. People that know me will never believe you. That being said; how did I go from fan to contestant to correspondent to executive to someone who cringes in distaste and embarrassment at the mere mention of MVW? Three things…
Arrogance: If you don’t believe this contest is the pinnacle of fashion and taste in SL, then you don’t know anything.
Hypocrisy: The more the event is hyped, the more appalling it is when it fails to live up to any of its own standards.
Exploitation: Finally, there is the unspeakable emotional damage inflicted on many of its participants. It could be said that being a contestant is voluntary and they only have themselves to blame. It is true that embarrassment, humiliation, mortification are inescapable. They are part of the human condition. My complaint is with a contest which lies in wait to profit from those whose only fault was to dare to hope, to dream.

Chouchou Returns!

Chouchou’s next live show and first concept album “theme01 Nirakanai” will be out 17 Dec. Chouchou is an SL only J-Pop music collaboration by Juliet Heberle and arabesque Choche. Islamey, the Chouchou sim, will re-open with the live concert at 5:00 SLT. Sneak peek:

See you there!

Linden Realms

Happy Holidays! If you are like me, second living under a second rock for the last couple months, maybe you missed Linden Lab’s launch of Realms; the “only substantive first-party game” within the SL game. What has this to do with fashion and modeling? Nothing. I haven’t blogged in two months. Gimme a break.

The object of Realms is to collect crystals, avoid hazards like rocks, fireballs, toxic water, complete quests and earn $L. Since a premium account was no longer necessary to play Realms, I had all the incentive this intrepid adventurer needed to check the portal out.

The minute I walked  into the game area… I was stunned. I felt like Alice through the looking glass. I was transported into a completely different environment that challenged my very assumptions about virtual worlds. My head reeled with the abstract, primitive shaped strangeness. Tall ovoids I am sure were supposed to represent trees, but with the green at the bottom and the brown trunk on the top. I was chased by nightmares right out of a cubist, impressionist painting. I died (teleported back to starting point) for random and inexplicable reasons. There were signs but they were illegibile or nearly so or if I looked at them from a distance and squinted they sort of made words with some letters inverted, some not, maybe entire words backwards. The Realms HUD went wonky on me. I wandered the game area for a couple hours in a complete daze, not knowing what to expect, surprises and amazements around every corner.

The next morning (I am usually much smarter in the morning for some reason) it occurred to me maybe using Viewer 2 might improve that wonky HUD. I set aside my beloved Phoenix Viewer 1, loaded up Second Life’s Viewer 2 and went back through the Realms portal.

Oh… everything looks rather ordinary now. All those weird shapes must have been mesh objects. Suddenly everything makes sense. The signs were legible. There were easy and obvious paths and directions to follow. The HUD worked. In less than a half hour I completed the quests and was done with the game. Hmmmm, I rather liked the way rock monsters looked before.

My post-apocalyptic, nihlist friend Alter has pronounced Realms “LL’s pathetic attempt to make SL interesting and compelling again”. That’s one point of view. I found it a diversion. It reminded me of my first days in SL. It was free. I had fun. I made $23L. OK, there’s your fashion tie-in… that’s more fun and money than I have made modeling over the last two months.

ShopaholicFeed.com is Offline!

First opened on June 1, 2009, my favorite reflector for SL fashion blogs, ShopaholicFeed.com is now offline. Thank you, Luna Jubilee and Express Zenovka, for two great years. Your sense of style and support for bloggers, new and established, will be greatly missed. I wish for the best of luck and laughs in whatever SL/RL ventures your future holds for you.

Kate’s Monthly

To whom it may concern,
You’ve been deleted from my friends list. You are probably asking yourself “why?” Usually it happens after I receive a series of blind teleports or spam. Friends don’t do that to friends. On the other hand, you may have recently developed or revealed an addictive personality, detached reality, lack of life planning, suspect judgement, pernicious depression, delusions of grandeur, divatude, avarice, purveyor of vile gossip; any of a host of ailments that make a person generally un-fun to be around. Or you may actually be a fun person to be around; but you know that little personality quirk of yours? The one I thought was so cute when I first met you? Now every time you do it makes me feel crazy. You may be a horse person. I am so done with horses. I may have just looked at your name by chance and asked myself… who is this person?
Sorries,
Kate

Hair Fair 2011

I just finished marching diligently through over 100 stores on four sims that make up this year’s Hair Fair. Why do I do this, put up with the lag and crashes and slow rezzing? It’s about charity. It’s about new hair styles.  And, well,  my friend Nemi said it best, “It’s an institution, like the Macy’s Day Parade.” In order to give an overall feel to this year’s event for my lag-averse friends, I picked a personal favorite hair at each sim. None of the hair is demo. I voted for each hair with my pocketbook and I am happy that some portion of the sale will go to this year’s charity of choice, Wigs for Kids.

Iridium

My favorite here was Dara from Pocket Mirrors, created by Alair Cortes whose designs represent the kind of classic hair styling that never fades away.

Osmium

My pick is Meena from Hairoin. Designer Elke Banting creates a a wide variety of styles, everything from everyday to punk, goth, vampire and cyber. I’m not sure which style this one is.

Rhodium

It’s my pleasure to welcome back a blast from the past, Sparkle Skye. Designer Dominus Skye is a Second Life institution; from games to clothes to hair. Moira cleverly incorporates little delicate jewels formed into flowers in the hair and won over my heart.

Platinum

Another pleasant surprise was the Wendy hair design from Diorsis Rossini. This style house takes inspiration from the latest in real life european salons and brings it to second life. Every once in a while I get feedback that my styling is conservative. I dare someone to call this hair conservative!

Best in Show

In typical Kate fashion, my favorite hair at this year’s Hair Fair was not in a shop. It was on the head of another shopper. The hair, simply called “A”, caught my eye immediately. Right after the Hair Fair, I went to Magika Island to get this latest creation from Sabina Gully. After a long search, I eventually wandered into the discounts section at the back of Magika and there was; “A” for 49L! Most styles at Hair Fair listed for 250L. I took the 201L I saved, went back to Hair Fair and donated it. There are donation kiosks at each Hair Fair sim landing point.

Kate’s Monthly

This month I want to talk about a new skin from Belleza called Aiko. The name and description clearly intend this skin to portray an Asian female. I find this novel, unusual marketing for Second Life.

I have come to expect Asian influence expressed in anime style skins with very light complexions, large eyes and big hair. Instead, this skin comes in four tones; pale, medium, tan and deep tan. There is a classical, buttery texture to the skin at distance. There is fine detail in close up.  This is a great skin for modeling, rewarding any SL viewer at any camera distance.

If you belong to the Belleza Update group you can get one Aiko makeup in each of the four skin tones for free. I’ve got to warn you though, its very hard to own just one Belleza skin. The line and full pack options are priced so cleverly I almost always end up getting all 16  makeup options. The full pack also included bonus lipstick colors on the tattoo layer. I can mix and match any eye and lip color combination, multiplying the makeup options.

Despite these well made qualities and enthusiastic feedback from friends, when I first got the skin, I wasn’t sure what I thought. So I gave it some time before I wrote about it. I have now been living with this skin for about a month and… I like it. This would be the point where my BFFF, Cheer, chimes in and says “See Kate, I told ya so.”

See this skin through the lens of Cherie Parker in the June issue of Scruplz Magazine, pages 86,87,92,93.  http://issuu.com/scruplz/docs/scruplz_issue__14_june_with_links

The best shoes in SL!

Welcome to Kate’s monthly SL blog/rant.

I just returned from the 4th annual SL Shoe Fair and are my feet tired! After reviewing over 50 vendor’s worth of shoes, I have chosen my personal favorite of 2011.  I want to tell you after 5 years in SL I have become a battle hardened shopper; frugal with my footsie affections. I am no longer going to fall head over heels for the first shoe that winks or whispers my name. I don’t want to wear the shoe everyone else is wearing. I want to wear the shoe I like. In order to win this fickle affection, a shoe must be stylish, novel and not cost an arm and a leg.

So it might not be a surprise that I did not actually find my favorite 2011 shoe at the Shoe Fair. I saw it at the Glance International Agency Relay for Life Charity Auction. I chased the model backstage with my camera and IM’d her telling her how much I liked her styling, the shoes n particular (hint, hint). She told me they came with the outfit. The black silk shoes were from BD Designs. I went to her store to buy a pair immediately after the show, but I couldn’t find them! Yikes.

Clearly it was time to introduce myself to Briher Destiny. As designer and owner of BD Designs, she told me she used the shoe shape frequently, but only sold them with complete outfits.  These scripted shoes are resizeable, come with the typical skin and toenail HUD and everything you need to wear them with either viewer 1 or viewer 2.

I went back to the store and sure enough,  was able to buy the shoes in combination with a black and white jumpsuit outfit… for $199L. My advice to you is to run… don’t walk to BD Fashions for Her, Earthsea Isle (29, 189, 23) and buy yourself the best shoes in SL before Briher Destiny changes her mind.

The Garment Rack: Fashion-Nation Season One!

I know! I know! It’s been a minute since I’ve brought you anything new but there is very good reason! Besides the normal pulls of the real world, SL has had me especially busy as well. They say when a door closes, another opens. Well, when one door closed for this blogger, another at Virtual World Network opened in the form of a show called Fashion-Nation where I was given the extraordinary opportunity to be host!

What is Fashion-Nation, or Virtual World Network, you may ask. Virtual World Network (VWN1™) – is a Mixed-Reality Internet Television Network, produced and owned by Ishelwood Studio, that aims to take the media landscape by storm, by bringing both virtual and real worlds closer together though innovative, mixed reality media and HD quality entertainment. Fashion-Nation, provides a forum for fresh talented designers that wish to show their latest collections and while doing so provide some insight on their designs and inspiration to our viewer.