I’ve rarely blogged about avatarian beauty and fashion. I’ve had my reason for not doing this, mainly that I didn’t want this blog to be about beauty and fashion… yuk, yuk. I wanted this blog to focus on my personal experiences, exploring, nightlife, and my special interest in Japanese gardening. However, today I do want to say a few things beauty and fashion.

The first comment I have is that there has been a sort of generational change in both beauty and fashion. I believe the change is largely driven by competition between the builders of fashion products. The changes are clearly related to ever increasing skills of the builder, but also by apparent improvements in the building technologies.

When I first came online, I quickly loaded up with the usual collections of skirts, shirts, pants and clunky looking prim shoes. The clothing was often stylish but rarely did I find clothes that had the fine textures that seem to flow with my movements. My skin was one of those very tanned freebie jobbies and my hair was soooo full of hair spray it didn’t move…hehe. You could blame all this on being noobie, but the fine quality products that exist today just weren’t available two years ago.

My friend Sheridan, who is always on top of style trends (after all, she was born a full three weeks before me), introduced me to Rac skins and my first flexi-hair from Gurly. By the way, the investment (about US$16.00) I made in my Rac skin got me many compliments over the years. My search for hair wasn’t over tho and that’s a long story, but I discovered Damselfly over two years ago. In fact, I found a style that became like my trademark hair style (Ziffy called it “Yordie Hair”… hehe) until early this year. That Yordie Hair hair got me many compliments tho, and my current Damselfly style is even better. In both cases, Rac (now Laqroki) and Damselfly were style and technology leaders.

I don’t want to sound egotistical, but I think the combination of my Rac skin, Damselfly hair and the shape I created made me an above average, pretty avatar. Unfortunately, many skin, hair and shape suppliers have caught up with Rac & Damselfly. And today, there are many, many pretty avies in Second Life. Just look at the REAL JYB Dreamgirls, for example.

Today it is very hard to be unique with your skin and hair. It is possible to create your own shape (which I have always done), but again the artistry and skill of vendors is closing the gap here too. I believe it is possible to distinguish yourself thru your clothing tho. When I first arrived in SL I found it so irritating to find fashions that didn’t look like they had been designed by guys to satisfy wild sex fantasies. (Girls, you know what I mean. Guys, never mind.)

Anyway, my closet is very full with great clothes, prolly 200+ dresses, 100+ pants outfits, way over 100 pairs of shoes, and too many separates to count. Unfortunately, I’m finding it necessary to retired some of the clothes I really loved at one time or another. Some of the great bargains I found are now too old tech & old style to be seen wearing (you know, like in real life). I’m finding I need to spend more and more each month to stay in fashion (you know, like in real life). So, my point is… hmmm, don’t really have one I guess.

My favorite store is still Minikri because the prices are in my range and I have so many of their things, but I have a very long list of favorite stores. For style information, I keep my eye on Fashion Planet blog. There’s a list of other fashion links in the right column of this blog but you’ll have scroll down to find it.

Ok, I’ve said my piece about beauty and fashion. I’m not saying that the topic is out of theme with this blog, but it is a topic that is like a vortex that could suck me in and could stay there forever. In fact, I’m going to race back to SL and put my gardening jeans and a t-shirt on, right now.