Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
After a brief summer hiatus, Draxtor Despres is back with a new episode of our favorite mixed-reality mini-documentary series. The latest installment of The Drax Files: World Makers features Elie Spot, one half of the wildly popular brand Mon Tissu, one third of the wildly stylish sim Mayfair, and one of the sweetest digital designers you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. Watch the full episode after the cut!
As always, Draxtor doesn't disappoint. As much as I love just about every episode of World Makers to date, obviously the fashion-focussed ones have to be some of my favorites. It helps that Elie (a.k.a. Tiffany) has a very creative and engaging personality, as well as a healthy perspective on why people often gravitate to games and virtual worlds. You can find her SL work at the Mayfair sim, and her RL work at Offbeat and Inspired.
Please share this post with people you like:
TweetIris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.
I've been to that shop a few times.
Now I'm not sure if my memory is all wrong here or not... but I recall two very different visual incarnations of Mon Tissu. Both with a lot of ambiance - a highly themed shopping experience.
"IF" this is the place I think it was (because the first example in my mind is now gone), then in the early days, Mon Tissu was a thin vertical building with a lot of things crammed in and was very difficult to maneuver around in. Had to actually give up and just TP out a few times. I think the first building was like a small 'old main street' boutique building.
But later when I went to the place I'm thinking of, it had either moved or been redesigned, and was a lot better.
In fact if you watch the video, you can see a spread out shop, with, as she notes, a lot of style in the ambiance. That is CRITICAL in today's Marketplace world.
Shops like this stand out because their inworld experience is just that, an experience. You can go there and feel the brand.
Even when it was small and crammed I'd keep going back because it was themed so nicely.
I know of late I've been championing small shops and above I just said one was bad - and I think that's one of those things where a fine line can flip the balance (small shops work if you fill them with less than 5-10 products per floor and more flat-picture / texture ambiance... Avatar Planet is like that one most of its floors).
The current version of Mon Tissu, or at least as of the last time I went there which was early this year before my semi-break from SL, felt a lot more easy to move around in.
It looks like its not that large there, and I'm going to have to go again now.
I think a LOT of people wondering why their shops are struggling should look at this place. Not from a 'copy that' perspective, but from a "notice how well the layout, colors, and 'junk lying around' fits in with the personality of the products."
- And if you look at products and don't see their personality... you might want to team up with someone that does and have them rum a shop for you that you just help create goods for...
There are plenty of shops one can find all over the grid that have great stuff for sale, that nobody buys... because its not branded well. Sometimes its even packaged in really shoddy noob looking displays.
If you want to get better results out of SL, you need to keep both ends going well: the products should be current and well branded, and even packaged well. And display matters... Department stores and shops in RL-malls spend so much on display for a reason...
- Ambiance of your shop is what will push you above the rest.
Its also interesting that the owner of this place defies a LOT of stereotypes about both SL, and gamers. It would be good if some of the outside world media could see this video... Because a lot more folks defy those "stereotypes" than fit them...
(my own shop is not to be used as a good example BTW, but in some ways it matches my notions of 'how to do it wrong'. :) If intended to be an active merchant, it is not how I would go about things.)
Posted by: Pussycat Catnap | Monday, August 19, 2013 at 09:02 AM
Mayfair (the sim Mon Tissu as well as Celoe are located in) is beautiful. It's not just a place to go in, buy your stuff and get out. It's perfect to just hang out with friends and take pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracyredangel/9441722769/
Posted by: Tracy RedAngel | Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 06:39 AM