I have blogged before about how much I adore Shai Delacroix and her designs. I know I am not alone here. I’ll say again that when I was very new early last fall, Shai’s designs were the first that I really adopted as a staple in my virtual closet. She was also one of the first designers who I got to know - and she was extremely generous, helping an awkward noob like me.

Just like in RL, I am a fashion chameleon. I can wear a pretty, girlie dress one day and something far more edgy the next day. I work in technology (on the marketing side though), so there’s a lot of leniency with regard to what I put on every day. I take full advantage of that to be sure. I mention this only because I feel like Shai has been able to leverage that facet in all of us in her designs - there really is something for everyone or most moods anyway lol. Oh and I have a lot of those too

From time to time, if we wait long enough, there comes along something of the “very special” variety of SL fashion. Something that reflects not only the deep talent of a designer, but something about the person who made it. The real person. I think Shai has revealed some of that in her recent Filipiniana series. These are really very special. Even if you typically don’t have reason to wear pieces like this in SL, it’s sometimes enough just to put them on for yourself and admire them.

I picked my favorite from the series, the Imelda Terno. I remember all the press about the former first lady and her shoes back in the 80s, among other things. I have been accused of shoe hording myself but I’ll leave those details in my RL. At any rate, Shai includes some information about the dress in her blog saying, “Inspired by the glamour of a glittering former first lady, this terno is an embodiment of how she moved the dark & powerful decade of Philippine History with her style. Imelda Marcos popularized the Philippine national costume with butterfly sleeves and stylized column serpentina skirts. Each public appearance was a work of art. She was keenly aware of Filipino cultural constructions of the lady as the icon of national tradition, and used these insights to achieve her nationalista goals. Everyone secretly loved her fashion sense.”

As you can see (click to enlarge the picture), the dress is very daring and beautifully made. It’s just so different than what you typically see in SL. I adore it…the system skirt; the blended fabric at the base; the sparkling lace at the bottom that you can almost hear rustling; the sculpted sleeves; the amazing detail on the back. Again, very different and deeply beautiful. I even love the green and green is not something I typically wear in either life.

While this is the only piece that I happened to pick up, Shai introduced three other beautiful dresses as part of the series and also offers the Imelda dress in ivory, which is also stunning. Prices on the Filipiniana series range from $800-1,000L.

Visit Casa Del Shai in Deco.

Skin by Lovey Darling; Hair by ETD

I’ve talked before about how much I am loving the designs from Dakota Buck of Savvy?. I actually can’t recall a new designer that I’ve enjoyed so much since I started playing dress-up back in September. Dakota has put out a lot of new outfits recently and I thought I would show a couple of my faves. There are, of course, many more since I took these snaps so I am a little behind again

If you don’t own any Savvy? creations yet, one thing you ought to know - it’s layer heaven (or I guess hell) depending on how you like to dress your AV. Dakota’s designs were actually the genesis of my recent inventory reorg and purge because well, there are so many combinations with her outfits that my old system of dividing by type and then designer was no longer working. This was a good thing actually…long overdue in fact.

I happen to love all the layer options and outfit combinations, especially because with some of Dakota’s core “Classy Broad” offerings, she tends to work in similar colors. So literally, there is no end to the combinations you can put together mixing and matching from the Roslin (shown in an earlier post) to the Manna to the Haver outfits for instance.

The composite below (click for full size) shows a few examples of the staples within some of the Classy Broad offerings as well as the new Antique Seagull dress (shown in the neutral option but available in 3 other colors, priced individually at $150 or in a fatpack at $500). I’ll say again, I am totally smitten with the goods from Savvy? And of course, I love the name as well - very clever.

Shown are two of the manyyyyy combinations from the Haver outfit (left), the Antique Seagull (middle) and my absolute favorite, the Manna outfit (right), which has the prettiest undershirt and tintable smock top. Every detail on these pieces is literally done to perfection - from the lace edging on the Manna undershirt to the gorgeous antique feel of the Seagull’s corset. And of course, people usually shy away from system skirts, but you won’t with Savvy? because they are perfectly done. The Haver and Manna outfits both come with other capris and color options as well but I don’t really do capris in SL - I dunno, they don’t really work on my AV. Maybe I need a little more junk in the trunk.

You can find the Savvy? main shop here, as well as several outposts like the one at Fashion Victim HQ.

Skin - CS Vogue, Summer 2 (light freckles) in champagne; Hair - Alina in dirty by ETD

This last week I’ve seen two massive drama fests in the world of SL fashion. There are probably many more - but really, it just never ceases to amaze me what crap goes on between pixels in the blogosphere and in-world.

Definitely not going to rehash the ugliness (or even link to it) here but I will say this…If you’re going to “report on”, comment or throw accusations around like some people seem to thrive on because they apparently don’t have enough drama in their own real lives (or perhaps they’re just very young and inexperienced), best understand the difference between these two words: libel is applicable for something that is written and slander is spoken defamation.  (note: I doubt either of these applies by the way - just edumacating on the differences).

This isn’t hard. Get it right.

Kthx.

Let me give a quick belated birthday shout out to Hawks.

Blue Hair and I were discussing astrological signs today and apparently, we’re totally incompatible as far as star signs go lol.

I don’t know when Jelly’s birthday is so let’s assume they’re a match. In the meantime, Hawks’ sign must be Gemini (apparently he gets to choose between Cancer and Gemini!), which is characterized as:

… Gemini are an entanglement of paradoxes, but the truth is that Gemini have an easy acceptance of opposites. Gemini world is one of duality. Gemini can like this and that, one thing and its opposite. It’s like you see your world through a radio and Gemini can tune experiences and points of view in and out as your interests change…A Gemini’s greatest strength is having a curiosity about various interests….

I really don’t know so many, many happy returns of the day