Fledge joins the Fashionistas!

** Boudoir Immersive - Event running until April 13th **

I logged on Saturday morning to get some rare quiet time, as the Bean was still asleep, and was just in time to get a group notice for the opening of Boudoir Immersive - a dual world art project by sisters Vitabela Dubrovna and Precious Restless, the creators behind fashion studio Boudoir. They have created a set of gowns both in SL and RL, and while photographs of the RL models wearing their creations are displayed at the SL gallery, monitors in the RL gallery will show SL avatars as they attend the exhibit, making it a dual-world experience. Moreso, one feels, for the RL crowd, as they get to ogle our avatars - we don't get to see them and it's a shame they couldn't set up a media link the other way, though I suppose in general SL avatars are far more interesting to look at! The dresses are (I think) available to purchase in SL; full sized copies were rezzed around the walls to complete the display.

White butterfly dress, virtual and real.
RL model photo by Mladen Saric.
Attendees received a gift of a pretty veil with butterflies to match this dress.

Pink butterfly dress with ants. RL model photo by Mladen Saric.
Dresses were not displayed next to photo-boards so I made my own composites.

As you know, I'm not a fashion blogger, and although I love pretty clothes, I'm not at all bothered by how fashionable they are; what's important to me is whether something looks good and unusual, not whether everyone is wearing it this month. I also like to wear things that I wouldn't normally get to wear in RL, because why use the limitless possibilities of a virtual, imaginative world to look the same as you do in life? SL for me is a fabulous dressing up box full of designer clothes and accessories that fit perfectly and are easily affordable. RL... is not. 

This, incidentally, is why I spend most of my time not being a dragon. I love my trueform but it cannot wear clothes. I could wear an anthro-dragon, but then I would still have to eschew skins, hair and makeup (and possibly shoes). Usually I settle for horns and a tail (which I am wearing here but you can't see it for the dress) with exotic skins and eyes.

I love the designs of Boudoir; they are beautiful and feminine and exquisitely made, but also unique, exotic and eccentric. They were asking for people to come to the opening of the project so that there would be plenty of people on the monitors, and I was happy to oblige; I put on one of my Boudoir gowns and hairstyles for the occasion, getting dressed in record time, and brought a friend I hadn't seen in months (years?) but happened to catch online.

Boudoir gown 'Narcissus Lake'.
The bottom of the gown has an animated texture, like water,
and the insects spin slowly around the skirt of flowers.

Dragonfly hair from CHH3 (also Boudoir) and jewellery from Tekeli-li.

My mousey friend, Nikola Gynoid, very pretty in a gold cocktail dress
and mesh oyster necklace free from Modern Elegance.

The exhibit was (sensibly) very sparsely decorated with just a few photo boards and the hanging dresses. Even so, with a good number of people already there as I arrived promptly at opening time, my computer was stretched to perform. I very rarely suffer from the common bane of SL, movement lag; but my graphics take a while to respond in crowded environments and for several minutes I felt as though I were walking through an empty exhibit full of featureless grey people. I had to drop my graphics to basic, my view distance to 64m and lower the number of non-imposter avatars before everything rezzed. 

Incidentally this is a good tip for anyone experiencing lag at an event, especially the crowded market fairs; if you are there to go shopping and not interested in what your fellow shoppers look like, turn them all into low-res pixellated cartoons. You will free up memory to deal with vendor textures and will still see enough of people not to bump into them, and to know if the person you're talking to is male, female or a slavering monster with their eye on your jugular - or lower. If you want to know what someone looks like in detail, they will rez fully once you focus your camera on their avatar.

Avatar UlupuhVisitor wearing the same dress displayed on the wall behind.
Ulupuh is the name of the RL gallery hosting the exhibit; one has to wonder if this was
Vitabela or Precious in disguise on a newly created alt!

In fact it was such a select display that there was plenty of time for crowd watching once I had viewed the exhibits, and I always love nosing around at other avatars, seeing what they are wearing and what fun toys they are playing with. Ctrl-3 is your friend for finding out who made an item without bothering people by asking, as it brings up an edit window on their stuff; unfortunately it doesn't seem to work on rigged mesh (stuff like hair, clothes and shoes which are fitted to the avatar skeleton so they size and move automatically) but will work on unrigged mesh attachments such as pets and accessories. 

I saw several interesting avatars at this event, and also spotted Alia Baroque and Elizabeth Tinsley of Fallen Gods - whose fantasy skins are to die for, but are not in my previously mentioned 'easily affordable' bracket. Elizabeth seemed to be co-hosting the event, from the way she thanked us all for coming. Elizabeth was sitting next to Sonya Marmurek, who I recognised from last year's colour challenge, but for some reason Sonya's outfit never rezzed for me which is a shame as it was clearly mesh (she had on an alpha mask and was mostly invisible) and doubtless lovely. Or perhaps she was doing it on purpose to help reduce lag. I didn't like to ask!

Petra Messioptra, Vitabela's listed SL partner, looking fabulous in feathers -
quite possibly a custom outfit. Damien Calvin behind/right.

Machinima/ShoDo artiste NicoleX Moonwall with luv Woodrunner,
performing synchronised twin ballet.

Aki Shichiroji of Wilds of Organica, in a work-in-progress avatar
to be released at the forthcoming Fantasy Faire.
(Fantasy gamers will know this as a Peryton. The creature was originally `created by
Jorge Luis Borges in his Book of Imaginary Beings.)

So there it is! My first, and quite probably last, fashion event post. I enjoyed myself at the opening but it has taken three days to finish this blog post, what with the Bean being off school for Easter vacation and warbling constantly in my ear even when not requiring my specific attention (85% of the time). He has a friend from next door who comes over to play and then I have two of them, and what with this and the fibro my brain is cheese. I wish I could take the time to keep up with other blogs and maintain a mutually supportive reader list the way Rudh does, but the fact is I can barely manage to write my own blog let alone browse my followers', so alas I am doomed to write largely within and for a vacuum. At least I'll have some kind of testimony in years to come to what I've been doing with my annual subscription to LL.

Oh yes - Item Credits for what I am wearing!

Dress ~ Boudoir ~ Narcissus Lake
Hair ~ Boudoir ~ Dragonfly (hunt prize, no longer available)
Jewellery ~ Tekeli-li ~ Piscene necklace and earrings;
and Lassitude & Ennui solar/lunar bracelets
Skin by Ferryn Miriam
Gold makeup ~ KOSH ~ metallic eyeshadow/sweet lips
Horns adapted from Isle of Wyrms Shadow Dragon
Eyes ~ aN ~ Pop Star Cat Eyes Sunny Yellow

** Boudoir Immersive - event running until April 13th **