While Rome Burned...

Yes, 1st Life has kept me busy lately and I'm catching up - on blogging and on shopping. Earlier this week I walked into Glam Affair, saw the avant garde Nero Collection and fell in love.  Beautifully textured blacks with clean lines and fierce details - utterly fabulous.  The only way they could be more perfect is if I could afford them all.  The nipple grazing bodice and bold shoulders of Black Mistress come with a short hip skirt over shorts, but I couldn't resist pairing it with the July pants with their draping waist and ultra wide legs.  Keeping things simple and bold, my new favorite ultra short hair from Kin and the Afrika set from YS&YS finished the look.

Credits:

Outfit: Glam Affair Black Mistress & July Pants

Hair: Kin Cricket (Black)

Jewelry: YS&YS Afrika Set (Silver/Black)

Featured SLURLs:

Glam Affair

YS&YS

Kin

Inventory Check - Hair Designers

I know that in my head I have an imaginary and purely subjective list of "favorites", but I got to wondering if that was actually where my Lindens were invested.  So, I figured it might be fun to total up the actual numbers and see how they stacked up to my mental list and, more importantly, what I was actually wearing the most.  Why hair first?  Cause I just spent time sorting through my "demos to buy" folder and my "stuffage from Hair Fair" folder as well as moving all those unfiled recent purchases to their proper categories.  For the curious, I have hair under body parts instead of clothing and my categories are - Exotic, Long, Short, Mid, Ponytails, Updo, and Hats (which includes any hair that comes with a hat, scarf, goggles, etc).  The "Top Ten" were:

1. Truth (15) mostly updos
2. Damselfly (11) mostly long
3. Tukinowaguma (9)
4. Detour (9)
5. Mirai Style (7) mostly scarves
6. Bishwear (6)
7. Cake (6)
8. EMO-tions (5)
9. W&Y (5) mostly short
10. BooN (4) mostly short

 

My "Go To" list of "hair I grab first on a regular basis in SL" in no particular order other than that of the photos in this article does come from this list of designers, but is mostly different from my "blogging go-to list" which pulls from more categories and designers:

Bishwear TossMeAround (Raven)
W&Y New 92 (Pack A - Black)
Mirai Style Ofif (Black)
Truth Grace (Crow)

 

One of the really interesting things I discovered was the huge number of onesies and twosies I have where I don't have a lot of different styles from an individual designer but I have a couple of really unique or interesting ones - I think I might own every short style on the grid.  I had hairstyles from a huge number of designers and a whole folder of LMs (which I think I may turn into a nice inventory preserving notecard).  I also noticed that I have an affinity for "slightly messy" even with more formal updos - must be some kind of commentary on my having come to terms with my more than slightly unruly RL hair. :)

 

SLURLs are within the article this time; I would like to additionally credit Cubic Effect's fabulous Knit Jacket (Black) and YS&YS Afrika Set (Silver/Onyx) seen in each shot.  I think that my next few inventory checks will be jewelry, poses and tattoos (once I catch up a little bit on my backlog of locations, pictures and outfits).

Why Contests? (And An Update)

Someone asked me today (after I finished up another set of contest pictures) why I entered contests.  It's obviously not for the fame (since I don't win) or for the money (since most prizes don't cover the entry outfit).  Then again, I don't blog for the freebies (since I don't actually get any) either.  I simply enjoy really great SL fashion, great SL locations and taking pictures of both.  I've also recently started playing with a photoLIFE studio and that's been great fun as well.  It's a challenge to put together an outfit, find the right accessories, get a location or background that sets it off, find the perfect poses and get the ideal angle for the photos.  And, after that, the real work begins.  For October, I've entered three contests - the My Precious Queen contest blogged earlier this week, the Angel of Angel Dessous contest and the Couture Avenue Look 2011 contest.

Angel of Angel Dessous Couture Entry
Dress - Angel Dessous Iberia Rosso
Hair - Tukinowaguma Jelena SH (Ebony)
Fan - Urid Dal Black Lace Fan
Collar - Ezura Lolita Crown Black Neckdress
Earrings - EarthStones Eternelle Marcasite (Garnet)
Pose by Manifeste



Angel of Angel Dessous Lingerie Entry

Lingerie - Angel Dessous Glamour (Forest)

Hair - W&Y New 92 (Pack A - Black)

Jewelry - Zaara Vanisri Wrapped Necklace (Onyx/Silver)

Pose by DeePosed

Couture Avenue LOOK 2011 Entry

Top - Baiastice Cage Top

Pants - LeLutka Rockin' Pants (Black & White)

Hair - W&Y New 148 (Pack A - Black)

Necklace & Earrings - YS&YS Afrika Set (Silver/Black)

Bracelets - Mandala Reiki Bracelet (Black Diamond)

Garter - LouLou Garter Pistolero

Belt - EarthStones Leather & Laced Belt (Coal)

Pose by DeePosed

And the promised update - I didn't place in the Click photography contest, nor did I make the finals for Styling Forward, though I'll post my semi-final outfit in the next couple of weeks.  The theme was Black & White (Anything Goes).  The closing dates for this month's contests are October 5th for Couture Avenue (October), October 12th for My Precious Queen (October), October 25th for Angel of Angel Dessous (November).  I promise I won't enter any more this month, since I have a final Steam Hunt wrap post to do and an absolutely amazing Halloween outfit to blog.  And no, my fingers aren't crossed.  Much.