TED Star & Media Maven Johanna Blakley on Second Life Fashion: "Offers Tremendous Insight Into Fashion Zeitgeist"

Remember Johanna Blakley, the Los Angeles media maven and USC think tank director whose recent TED presentation on the importance of free culture in real world fashion spurred an energetic conversation across the Internet last Spring? On New World Notes, we had a long, provocative conversation on the implications of her insights on Second Life fashion. But as it turns out, Johanna is already well-versed about Second Life fashion. We got to talking after that post, and I learned she even has an SL avatar, Johanna Annenberg, named after USC's Second Life island.

Johanna just shared some of her observations on Second Life fashion on her own blog, featuring the cover of SL fashion magazine Second Style. I asked her if she thought real world fashion designers can learn from virtual fashion designers, and tantalizingly, she e-mailed back: "I think that smart real world designers are already checking out what fashion designers are coming up with in Second Life." (I wonder who?)

"There are couple reasons that they should do so," she continued:

"First, more and more people will become participants in virtual worlds and the real world designers who understand the virtual space will have a tremendous leg-up over their competitors," she told me. "I’m frankly surprised that more real-world labels haven’t tried their hand in Second Life. It’s an excellent low-cost way to market the brand." (Notwithstanding American Apparel's half-hearted attempt in Second Life back in 2006, and Ann-Sofie Back's somewhat dismissive London Fashion Week show, Johanna's right.)

"But another even more pressing reason that they should pay attention to virtual fashion is because it offers tremendous insight into the fashion zeitgeist," Johanna Blakley added. "Compared to people in the real world, participants in SL have an inordinate amount of control over the design of their physical presence – not only their clothing and the animations that may be embedded within them, but their bodies, skin, hair and eyes, all of which can be adjusted for each and every outfit and occasion. It’s the best imaginable petri dish for anyone interested in how humans wish they could look."

Which, again, is why some established designers are already scouting the SL fashion scene. Given that Johanna knows some of the best names in real world fashion, you have to wonder whose brands will show hints of the metaverse in future releases.

Comments

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I agree, but with caveats. There's a lot of SL fashion that's popular because the style works well with the limitations of the avatar mesh and prim behavior.

Solids are more in evidence than prints and plaids because they're easier to work with at the texture seams.

Strapless is popular because straps are vexingly hard to do well.

Open-toed shoes are rare because avatar toes are not well-formed (some incorporate prim toes, but these can be challenging to match to skin tone across differing light conditions).

And we wear a lot of items we'd never wear in RL because we're anonymous. That appears to be great liberator for many to sport a deep neckline, visible thong and booty shorts.

I'm hoping future upgrades to the SL engine provide us the opportunity to expand the range of well-crafted possibilities, from the mundane to the utterly fantastic.

[Vivienne Daguerre]

It opens door to many fashions we would never wear in real life. We can be more daring in how we dress as our anonymous avatar selves, and sometimes you dress according to what you are doing in Second Life. There are many role play worlds, so you can dress as a fairy, an elf, a medieval peasant woman or a queen, a scantily clad Roman slave, and you can even cross the gender line and make an avatar of the opposite sex.

It is very addictive and fun!

I specialize in role play fashion. You can see my designs at MyBlackRose.net.

[Johanna Blakley]

I wanted to respond to Arcadia's comment in particular -- I think you're making an excellent overall point, which is that fashion is always in dialogue with its material environment. One reason that the courts haven't granted copyright protection to fashion designs is because of the narrow range of material conditions for the human body. The vast majority of us have 2 arms, 2 legs and a torso and so the dimensions and shapes that have emerged to cover them are fairly limited in range. And so I think it's really exciting that designers can dip into an alternate world where real people are paying real cash for their own clothing, but the avatar that they're dressing has a far broader range of physical dimensions than we have in the real world. SL gives real world fashion designers an opportunity to think about bodies in a different way, in a material environment with a very different set of limitations. What an opportunity for inspiration!

(And I can't wait for the fabulous shoes that are going to come out in SL when we have decent feet...)