Celebrity's Couture Culture: Navel Gazing

Your suitably-attired author, Ms. Trollop

If bare midriffs are so over out there, how come Second Life's fashion designers haven't gotten the memo?  That's the premise of "Navel Gazing", Celebrity Trollop's inaugural essay for a semi-regular NWN column called, fittingly enough, Celebrity's Couture Culture.  It's a look at the latest trends in SL fashion, and what they say about the virtual society at large.  As the author of the popular Second Style Fashionista blog and managing editor of the deliciously stylish Second Style avatar fashion magazine, Celebrity is supremely qualified to cover this scene, so here's a grand NWN welcome to Celeb, her insights, and her abs of digital steel.  (Her first post after the break.)

Ms. Trollop and friends and their navels for all to see

Navel Gazing

by

Celebrity Trollop

"The bare midriff fashion is well and truly dead... Only pop stars living on faded glory continue to adopt it.  More decorum in dress is the new order of the day." 

So writes Pauline Weston Thomas, who analyzes fashion trends for the website Fashion-Era.com. She wrote that analysis in late 2004, a prelude to the spring/summer releases of 2005. But even among the younger set-- the Britney wannabes-- the midriff trend faded around the fall of 2004. This article at the Seattle Times is typical: "...[V]intage glamour, preppy styles and girly men's wear [is in for teens]," says June Rau, Nordstrom's fashion director for its western region. "It's much more covered up.  We're trending toward something more traditional. It's a more dressed up, more put-together look."

Just how much does real life fashion intersect with Second Life? There's no doubt that real life trends affect Second Life.  I know many of Second Life's content creators either follow the fashion glossies, or are influenced by what they absorb through popular culture, whether it's a television show or a movie which gives inspiration for a new design. Since showing the belly button is decidedly not fashionable (unless you happen to be an extra on Entourage or maybe a booty girl in a hip hop video) in real life, why is it that the news hasn't affected Second Life-- almost two years after the dare-to-bare style is out?

When I joined Second Life, the default skin didn't even have a navel at all, much less the killer abs of steel that one now can purchase from a number of different skin makers. Now, newbies have more choices in their initial skins.  (To see these, go to "Library->Clothing". "Library" is that arrow in your root inventory window that you never look in.) 

A recurring meme in Second Life fashion circles is that there is a definite penalty paid for outfits and designs which are not ultra-sexy-- or if they cross a certain line, even skanky.  Reaction among designers is mixed, and the evidence is mostly anecdotal, but there certainly does seem to be something to the idea that sexy sells better than more demure designs. My Second Style colleague Choice Sliter wrote about it last week, and in April, I wrote about it in response to a blog post on New World Notes.

After surveying several Residents, there seems to be two phenomena at work: a lot of real life fashion rules don't apply in Second Life, and the other-- a direct consequence of the first-- is that given the opportunity to explore how garments look on an idealized body, most of us leap at the chance to flaunt skin.

Anya Ixchel, the force behind SLATEnight Magazine, touched on this topic herself, and she encapsulated the responses I heard from many residents when I asked why clothing that shows so much skin is so popular in Second Life. "It's a chance to express a fantasy or to wear things we'd never have the nerve to wear in real life," as she put it.  Anya has an interesting perspective on how Second Life cultural norms shock (and at times dismay) brand new residents-- she's a professor who introduces her students to Second Life as part of an effort to bridge a technology gap between students and their teachers.

In the end, although Second Life is influenced by real life fashion trends, it does not necessarily follow them. The normal ways fashion memes spread in the real world have been suspended-- or at least strongly checked-- by: the body-sculpting powers of the appearance sliders, purchasing gorgeously defined abs in a top notch photorealistic skin, the lack of having to physically construct garments from fabric and the ability to shift your whole look from hair color, makeup, accessories, and clothing with mouse clicks rather than hours of detail-oriented preparation in front of a mirror.

We have the power to portray ourselves through our avatars in Second Life in virtually any way we please.  And for most of us, that's with an extra portion of skin sizzle.

For more on the best of SL fashion, visit Celebrity's Second Style Fashionista blog.

Comments

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Very interesting analysis — I specially liked (and agree with!) the concept of "given the opportunity to explore how garments look on an idealized body, most of us leap at the chance to flaunt skin". Now this is something that always intrigued me (I'm of the prude persuasion, mostly) since on an idealised body, everything fits properly, and almost anything can we worn that looks "just right"... so it's strange to opt mostly for "showing off" skin instead of garments :)

And then again... why not? Most of us aren't supermodels iRL and can't "afford" to show off what's beneath our garments... it's interesting to see how this slightly changes our perception of fashion, and makes it be "slightly out of sync" with RL's fashion.

Personally speaking, and favouring mostly casual clothes in outdated styles... what I miss more in SL is a chain of shops for *nice* business clothes :) With SL's RL business being rampant, and the need to get properly dress for meetings and presentations, I find that, after two years of the female fashion dominating SL, now it seems that male fashion has a huge advantage in terms of business clothing — they have a huge selection of choices (after several years complaining about their lack of clothes), while we don't :)

So it's certain that clichés still dominate SL fashion. Girls will still dress what Britney Spears wore 2 years ago :) ... just because we *can*.

[rikomatic]

I was trying to buy a non-skanky SL bathing suit for my girlfriend the other day. It's very hard to find something tasteful and flattering without being completely sexed up.

The men's fashions aren't much better, with lots of stores just selling variations on distressed jeans or pimped out suits. Some of the clothing designed for gay avatars can be pretty outrageous but often more flattering than the standard Gap or Abercrombie and Fitch offerings.

In theory, the haute couture people should go nuts designing in SL, since there are no limitations of physics or cost in creating whatever wild things crosses their mind.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Part of the belly button thing could be trying to fit in with others, if everyone else is showing their navels you might start doing so to, to fit in with your SL niche.

And yes, part of it is dressing in ways we can't in real life. That schoolgilr picture was taken around oct 28 IIRC, (I was off to the right)

As part of halloween play in RL it's okay to play with image . But in SL that mood extends throughout the year to a certain extent. so it's ok to put on your Poptart Finale hair and Amlurial Academy/Sister Penitence/St. Solaera uniform

Personally I tend to flaunt cleavage more than anything else and even though I sometimes refer to myself as a shameless hussy in SL, I'm pretty tame fashion wise.

It is possible to find nice officewear if you look around a bit. I've got all sorts of things as seen on my blog and PXP. OPIUM, Little Rebel, Luminosity, Casa del Shai, Luxe, Jennifer McLuhan.

And as for non skanky swimsuits, I believe Nicky Ree has some ( IIRC I have a plaid bikin with sarong from there) and Francesca Poppy's Poppy Designs had a recent release of cute (or as we say on PXP: kyoot) print bikini's that I'll be blurbing.

There is some haute couture stuff going on, especially in formals, and the Paper Couture store in Barcola has a very haute inventory.

This also says something about how the fashionista community is not very good at marketing itself. Maybe avatars in some cases wear what they wear because they don't know all of whats available. They don't follow the blogs or whatnot so they simply don't know.

[Joannah Cramer]

I wonder how much of it is simply result of technical limitations -- producing anything that _doesn't_ bare midriff requires using jacket layer, which means no real options to put anything on top of it, a need to create two textures instead of just one and thanks to badly done UV map of the stock AV model the seam between two pieces can be absolute bitch to line up on anything more complicated shading and/or pattern wise.

Given these, it's small surprise really so many people settle for just baring some skin. Especially when the customers still buy it...

[Fashion Tv]

that was interesting

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