A week or so ago I saw a notice for a “new to me” designer, Lux Yao and her shop Amaretto. I TPd over and was very impressed by a couple of the designs in both concept and style. In addition, she has a great shop design, which makes shopping there easy…like in RL, I find it hard to shop anywhere where the aesthetics of the shop aren’t good. Anyway, I digress…

I chose two pieces from Amaretto: the Nastasha and Boytrap dresses. I am definitely attracted to designers who don’t do the “same old, same old” in SL and I think Lux may be one to watch, as her ideas seem fresh. I do believe she also won the “shop of the month” at ETD, which should give her some great visibility in SL.

My favorite of the two would have to be the Boytrap dress, which is very late 1960s or early 70s inspired. Cute little minidress accented with a belt…the skirt needed fitting on my shape and didn’t seem to work well in certain poses, but I do love the dress and if I got better at fitting prims, I might not have a problem :P. Boytrap is priced very reasonably at $200L.

Next up is Natasha, which is a daring green jersey dress with prim belt. It’s a system skirt but it’s well done and I think, very flattering. If you can’t handle the site of your AV’s arse in a system skirt, try making a copy of your shape and setting the bum to 0. I didn’t do that here but I think it’s still fine. You’ll likely need to fit the belt as I had to, but it’s copy so if you mess up (why oh why do things jump around as I try to resize them???), you can have a do-over. My only nit with this dress is that the edges seemed somewhat unfinished on the back of the top - though the front is fine. The Natasha dress is also $200L.

After I was done at Amaretto, I walked over to Cherry Tokyo Kimonos to sample some of the wares. I had never heard of this shop before but I suppose since I don’t typically sport kimonos in either life, that might be why Cherry brings us some very beautifully detailed patterns in her designs, and though I didn’t purchase any of the true kimonos, I did pick up the Indian Kurtis outfit in blue. The outfit comes with jeans, shirt, shirt bottom (skirt layer) and belt for $400L, which I found a bit pricey.

I preferred the outfit without the belt and shirt bottom as neither really suited my shape all that well. The belt was also no-copy (but all transferable) so careful resizing, which you will very likely need to do (the snaps show that I didn’t do it very well but SL hates me so this will have to do). I love the top - very rich, shimmery, and well detailed. I will definitely be wearing it again. I’d love to see Cherry release some of her tops as singles or packs, giving customers the option on how to pair them up on the bottom. Overall, definitely worth a look for something new and different.

Visit Amaretto and Cherry Tokyo Kimonos both on Boracay Island, right next to each other in keeping with their “East meets West” theme

Skin by Cake; Hair by ETD; custom “Key to his heart” necklace by Xessories (D’nel DaSilva)