European Fashion Designer Brings Her Line Into Second Life

Martina Karapetrić & Morana Saračević (Vitabela Dubrovna & Precious Restless in SL)

Martina Karapetrić is a renowned fashion designer in Croatia, and owns a Zagreb boutique called Boudoir (founded in 2001), which she runs with her twin sister Morana Saračević. Along with creating haute couture fashion for Eastern Europe, the sisters have worked on campaigns for Dove and Coca Cola Light (Martina designed a new bottle for the Croatian market.) Two years ago, Martina tells me, "[a] friend told me about Second Life... and I decided to look, and try to 'play' it."

She spent a year roleplaying in Second Life, as an avatar she dubbed Vitabela Dubrovna. Which is yet another example to counter the cliche that glamorous female avatars in Second Life are really fat naked guys in a basement -- sometimes, they're actually glamorous European women in a high-end fashion salon. (I say "women", because her sister Morana is also in Second Life, where she's known as Precious Restless.)

After a year exploring Second Life, Martina decided to try her hand at creating Second Life fashion, and the end result can be seen in her Second Life blog, called Vitabela, which features designs that only exist in SL, as well as fashions she and her sister made, that were first seen on the runways of Europe. Take this one:

"This dress was part of my 10. collection, called 'Victorian Dolls'," Vitabela tells me. "It's a silk plisse dress, decorated with a big blue flower... Some real life designs are very hard to interpret in SL, but some are easy." To create the Second Life versions of her work, she uses high resolution runway photos, and translates them to dress templates and textures for Second Life avatars.

Martina likes the challenge of bringing her designs to the Second Life market, which "is huge and worldwide, so I have the oportunity to present my RL/SL designs to many people." Other advantages: "Once I create a dress, I'm able to sell it countless times... there is nothing you can't make in Second Life, almost every idea is feasible." However, the veteran fashion designer does find marketing more difficult in SL, than real life: "It's much more hard to reach target costumers, but not impossible."

One more spectacular mash-up of real and virtual fashion after the break:

This design's called "The Importance of Being Called Alice", says Martina, "which was the name of my actual collection for Spring-Summer 2010, showed on Cro-a-Porter in Zagreb. This dress is one of the replicas of my RL designs I used to do sometimes in SL. However, I [also] love to create dresses which would be hard to produce in real life. (The blackface was the part of fashion show styling -- face without make up, or 'no face', [as] we were putting clothes under the spotlight...) 

"The Boudoir style is very romantic and fairylike, so we often mix our clothes with morbid or dark elements. Once, we mixed latex fetish elements with our elegant couture dresses and headpieces."

See more of Martina Karapetrić's gorgeous and striking real life designs on her Bouidoir site. (You may want to click the English button on the top right corner first.) See her Second Life fashion on the blog of her avatar, Vitabela.

Update, 11:50pm: Eshi Otawara, another Second Life fashion luminary from Eastern Europe, visited Boudoir last year and shot this video interview full of haute couture awesomesauce:

Images and photos courtesy boudoir.hr Hat tip to ColeMarie Soleil, who's making a machinima of Vitabela fashion as you read this! Hat tip to Crap Mariner for the Eshi video.

Comments

[Crap Mariner]

When Eshi was in Zagreb last year, she visited their shop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRaP6hSEwc

-ls/cm

[Arcadian Vanalten]

..."Once, we mixed latex fetish elements with our elegant couture dresses and headpieces."

RL fashion designers often have a lot of trouble "getting" SL, but somehow I think they've got a great grasp of our offbeat little world here.

[Hamlet Au]

Great link, Crap, thanks!

[Mariko Nightfire]

Martina's collection at Boudoir is a definite must see for the Second Life fashion aficionado as well as for fashion divas and shopaholics. On my fashion blog, I paid homage to two of her fabulous creations:

http://marikomagic.blogspot.com/2010/02/avatar-inspired-second-life-fashion-at.html

http://marikomagic.blogspot.com/2010/05/creme-brulee.html

[Adeon Writer]

Can't wait for mesh's clothing physics. (Unconfirmed, but you can always hope, right?)

[Harper Ganesvoort]

Sounds like Eshi and the House of Nyla may have some friendly competition now! I look forward to the excellent fashion.

[Chenin Anabuki]

That white number on the window display with black outlined flowers is a winner. US$1,000 for the RL version and L$600 for the SL version is a steal. These women are talented. Great i-reporting Eshi!

[Moria]

ok this bashing that youre doing here Vaneesa this is to get some attention around and show how shallow and jealous soul you are? why are you buying people's items if you dont like them? But overall posting private conversation you have had with anybody in world is just NO! I hope you get reported pretty soon for this harestment.

[Hamlet Au]

I agree, that comment's gone. I generally don't recommend posting chat transcripts without permission.

[Vaneeesa Blaylock]

I don't see how it's bashing... I bought the dress because I thought it was beautiful - it is.

Unfortunately it's unwearable with the alpha problems... at least as I see them in Emerald and SL Viewer 2 on 3 different computers.

After 2 minutes of "that's the way it is" she said the conversation was pointless. That's not my idea of customer service and I certainly think it's relevant information.

The design IS beautiful... talking someone's money for unwearable fashion is not fair business practice.

[Moria]

And how is that only YOU of all ppl complain on this! i do not know what youre talking about and i m in SL for 4 years. you should really know where to stop. but you obviously, somehow, do not know.

[ColeMarie Soleil]

They are nothing but lovely and enjoyable creatures and anyone bashing needs a good slap upside the head. That is all.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Ooooh I'm so out of touch with SL fashion lol — since late 2004 that I've been dreaming to see RL fashion designers starting to come to SL, partly to have fun, but partly to show off their talent and skills as a "visiting card" for potential RL buyers. And in the mean time, allowing regular SL residents to buy their awesome designs too!

We had a few early experiments done by Rivers Run Red eons ago, which sadly didn't work well (too expensive and the quality of the designs was really hard to distinguish from regular SL fashion creators); American Apparel pretty much had the same issues. It took us half a decade to get RL fashion designers to really experience SL, understand how the fashion business in SL actually works, and start bringing their talent and know-how to SL!

I feel very, very encouraged to see this happening, and I certainly hope that the trend continues, capturing more and more RL fashion designers and encourage them to do the same. After all, at least the younger generation, they have all the necessary skills to work in the SL fashion industry (at least from the curricula I've seen — well, at least in Europe — most will have some familiarity with Photoshop and modelling tools), they just need experience to apply the talent they've got to the tools that allow them to create fantastic things in SL as well.

I definitely wish Vitabela Dubrovna & Precious Restless all the success, both in SL and in RL, and hope that at the very least, even if they don't become millionaires selling SL fashion design, that they at least get a lot of fun out of it :)

After all, in the tough and demanding world of RL fashion, designers also need a break too, and a hobby as well. What could be better than enjoying themselves by doing what they professionally do best — but having extra fun doing so? :)

[Angie Mornington]

I interviewed Vitabela on my show last year, Iris was also the Guest Stylist for that episode, you can watch it here:

http://fabulousfashiontv.com/2009/11/02/designer-brings-real-life-collection-to-sl-on-tonights-fabulous-fashion/

Or here: http://treet.tv/shows/fabfash/episodes/ep042

I also used some of Eshi's footage for the show. Vitabela is a great lady. I love when I have the opportunity to interview designers who are also a part of the RL fashion industry.

[Ian Wright]

Gwyneth,

I hate how you bash on other people, considering you've done little work of note yourself.

I digged around, finally finding this link:

http://www.coolhunting.com/style/further-forward.php

I personally think for August 2004, this was pretty neat; considering the early tools, lack of sculpties and the other early issues of creating stuff in SL.

I personally don't like it when the pioneers are bashed. Whatever you say, it was very early days, reflecting the 2004 era. Having been in SL from late 2003, this was an amazing groundbreaking project. It was also the first brand in SL. Literally the first commercial project. The reported cost the clothes was also wrong, as the economy wasn't like it is today. If you're going talk about such stuff Gwyneth, get your facts right!

The sad thing? There should be a museum of website where we can visit all these timelines and archives.

[Deborah Stephens]

Gwenyth,

I also think you're on shakey ground, especially as your own Beta Technologies has always felt like a 'second rate' developer. Especially when compared to the great builds and artists working in SL.

Do dream, but please don't throw stones in glass houses!

[Hamlet Au]

Keep it civil, please. Whatever the quality of the work, Gwyn is right that those prominent RL to SL fashion transplants didn't gain much traction within the community. As Angie notes, Vitabela has already built an organic following among SL fashionistas.

[sasha debretton]

This is quite a feat and a good showcase of talent and design. Similar to these are the Sims clothing pack that was from a well known designer.