Goodbye 2009 – Welcome 2010!

2009 is officially over here in Europe, and I wanted to wish all of you a good start into the new year!

I will not attend any SL-festivities, but if I would, this dress would probably have been my choice – it’s one of Ingenue’s recent releases.  “Kerria”  is a very sexy yet elegant gown with a sweetheart neckline and a single strap on which a big prim flower is pinned. Very reminescent of the classic Hollywood divas of the 1940s.

To emphasize the elegant side of it, I paired the dress with a pair of 5th & Oxford’s new leather gloves, which I tinted slightly to match the dress better.

All promotional items are marked with a bold “R” for “Review Copy”.

Body:

• Skin: (5th & Oxford) FAIR Audrey Summer Cocktails 1
• Eyes: (Miriel) Realistic Eyes – Strong Green [not available anymore]
• Lashes: (Miriel) Lashes – Feather [not available anymore]
• Hair: ETD – Tyra – smoke

Outfit:

• Dress: Ingenue ::  Kerria :: Egyptian R
• Gloves: 5th & Oxford) Leather Gloves – L *purple* [tinted]
• Earrings: Paper Couture Faceted Golden Sapphire Dangle

Other:

• Pose: [LAP] – Chub – Doin Right [from the 2009 Poop Hunt]

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Hybie’s Blogger Challenge

Just a quick drive-by-post, since RL has me in its thrall, but I couldn’t bear to have this picture sitting any longer in my flickr-account. It is a contribution to Hybrid Ansar’s blogger challenge, issued here.

I’m quite in favour of plus-sized avatars becoming more visible, and as I wrote before, I’d use a bigger shape myself if it didn’t come with a bunch of problems: prim parts of clothing don’t fit and sometimes cannot be modded enough to make them fit and a lot of poses are rendered unusable because of arms or hands sticking in tummies or hips…

I’m wearing Prelude’s Estelle dress in silver blue here, a beautiful 40s-inspired dress with excellent textures and great shading. Complemented by Evoke’s Slingbacks, some of the cutest shoes I have seen on the grid in a while, this makes for a very romantic outfit.

Body:

• Skin: (5th & Oxford) FAIR Audrey Summer Cocktails 6
• Eyes: (Miriel) Realistic Eyes – Strong Green [not available anymore]
• Lashes: (Miriel) Lashes – Feather [not available anymore]
• Hair: ETD Juliana – Smoke

Outfit:

• Dress: Prelude – Estelle (silver blue)
• Stockings: *Sheer* Stockings 01: Nylon Black
• Shoes: Evoke Ribbon Slingbacks – Black Leather / Black Satin
• Earrings: Paper Couture Diamond Bow

Other:

• Pose: *TorridWear* – Geometry 06

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Sweet as Sorbet

(Credits at the end of the post.)

Some dresses are just made for balmy summer evenings spent outside, for Sunday afternoons in the garden or a stroll in the countryside. Prelude’s “Sorbet” is such an outfit. a cute dress, available in a variety of icecream-colours, with a romantic sweetheart-neckline and puffy sleeves, very reminescent of the 1940s.

I’ve been changing into and out of “Sorbet” for a couple of days before deciding to make it a little more demure, as required for vintage daytime clothing, and to wear Pink outfitter’s “Poppy” blouse in white chiffon underneath, tinted to match the dress. Its half-transparent texture compliments the diaphanous overskirt and sleeves and looks just airy enough to pass as a summer outfit despite the high collar. Thanks to a resizing script, you can easily fit the skirt and belt to match your avatar’s proportions.

Shiny Things’ “Brandys” cork wedges are among my favourite shoes in Second Life®, both due to the texture and the fine details, and the blue ones just happen to have the exact right colour to go with the pattern in the dress.

Body:

• Skin: (5th & Oxford) FAIR Audrey English Rose GG [group gift]
• Eyes: (Miriel) Realistic Eyes – Strong Green [not available anymore]
• Lashes: (Miriel) Lashes – Feather [not available anymore]
• Hair: Kin – Jennifer (black)

Outfit:

• Dress: Prelude – Sorbet Mint
• Undershirt: [Pink Outfitters] Poppy Sheer Chiffon Blouse – white [tinted; without chest ruffles]
• Hat: Tesla “Melanie” hat [freebie]
• Shoes: (Shiny Things) Brandys – blue

Other:

• Pose: [LAP] – KB – Prissy

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Great Minds…

Body:

• Skin: (5th & Oxford) FAIR Audrey Fresh 2
• Eyes: (Miriel) Realistic Eyes – Strong Green [not available anymore]
• Lashes: (Miriel) Lashes – Feather [not available anymore]
• Hair: ETD Juliana – Smoke

Outfit:

• Outfit: *ICING* Ashley
• Earrings: ~Muse~ Claris Pearl earring in Gold
• Shoes: [Decoy] Francisco II Wedge Navy
• Stockings: OPIUM Everyday L$1 Store – tan lace-trim stockings

Other:

• Pose: ..::DARE::.. Relaxed Hand over Head

Even though I haven’t seen the film yet, I had saved pictures of the costumes Nicole Kidman wore in “Australia” to my hard drive, as a source of inspiration and reference. Imagine my surprise when two new outfits were announced in *ICING*’s group messages and they turned out to be recreations of just these costumes.

Shown above is “Ashley”, a travelling costume in navy and cream that comes with a lot of different options. I’m showing the full version here, but you can also wear it without the jacket, for example, without the scarf but with collar, without collar but with scarf, both scarf and collar… The skirt looks good without the prim flounce, too.

Rounded up by a hat and little gloves, “Ashley” really doesn’t leave much to be desired and the most difficult thing for me was to decide whether I wanted to lean more into the 1930s or the 1940s direction: the film is set in the years between 1939 and 1942, and “Ashley” can actually go both ways. In the end, my interpretation turned out to be a little more 1940s-style than the original – Decoy’s Francisco II wedges in navy look as if they had been made for this very outfit, they just couldn’t be ignored.

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Vive La Résistance

Body:

• Skin: Fleur Allure Alabaster Kitten 2
• Eyes: (Miriel) Realistic Eyes – Strong Green
• Lashes: (Miriel) Lashes – Feather
• Hair: fashionably dead – Dorothy’s Morning – Nothingness

Outfit:

• Dress: Ibizarre Flower Dress Siri
• Cardigan: []::Tuli::[] Cable knit cropped vest WHITE
• Hat: From the “Timeless Glamour” hair by Clawtooth by Clawtooth (some of the feathers are tinted white)
• Stockings: *Sheer* Stockings 01: Nylon Black
• Shoes: Maitreya Group Gift Pumps – Pearl

Other:

• Pose: Long Awkward Pose – [LAP] – CM-When I’m Alone

Towards the end of the 1930s, there already was a natural tendency towards fuller skirts in fashion which got stopped short by WWII and the rationing of clothing, cloth and footwear. Everywhere but in France, where women saw it as their patriotic duty to use up as much cloth as possible in their outfits so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the German occupants. French women remained impeccably dressed through the chaos of war, and while everywhere else skirts became narrower and shorter each year, theirs remained full and wide and anticipated Dior’s New Look.

Today’s ensemble is inspired by such a French outfit from the early 1940s and proved more difficult than initially expected – I just couldn’t find some of the things I had in mind, or they did not look good in combination with the outfit, so in the end I kept it relatively simple. It’s so hot outside that I can hardly bear the sight of a cardigan and stockings anyway. 😉

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