My dear friend, Caer Balogh, gifted me a sitting with Harlow and the photo above is the result. In addition to being a talented blogger, Harlow offers her photography services to individuals, couples and businesses. You can find information about her rates and packages here, or visit her Flickr stream to see more examples of her work.

Thank you, Harlow, for the gorgeous photo and for making the experience so much fun! And a double thank you to Caer, an excellent photographer in her own right, for the very generous gift!

Style Notes:
Jacket: BP* Denim Jacket/Vintage – BettiePage Voyager
Shirt: Last Call Gabrielle Lacy Beater – Ginny Talamasca (no longer available)
Necklace: Yummy Best Friends Trinket Necklace – Polyester Partridge (Caer has the companion necklace)
Skin: Exodi Sylvan Lumier 5 (Lt/F/C) – Ryker Beck
Glasses: Mon Tissu Favorite Readers (group gift) – Elie Spot
Hair: LeLutka SJ Hair in SoySauce – Thora Charron
Flower: Nylon Outfitters Headband Pink Rose – Polyester Partridge
What you don’t see:
Skirt: So Many Styles Chiffon Skirt Red-Blue – Irie Campese
Belt: Miel Troupe Belt Natural – Mika Nieuport
Shoes: Zero Number Petanko Cross Aza – Mai Runo

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: BP*, Caer Balogh, Exodi, Fashion Feed of SL, Harlow Heslop, I Heart, Last Call, LeLutka, Miel, mon tissu, MV-SL-Fashion, Nylon Outfitters, Shopaholic Feed, So Many Styles, Yummy, Zero Number

bul·ly –noun
a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alaMood, Bella Di Notte, Coquette, Exodi, Fashion Feed of SL, LeLutka, Maitreya, MV-SL-Fashion, Pink Shirt Day 2010, Scribble, Shopaholic Feed, Spica, Truth, Zaara

World Zombie Day™ will be a day when all fans of zombie culture can join together. There will be an international charity event done throughout the cities involved to help alleviate world hunger, and this will be a first.

In-world, the Hot For Zombies group is organizing Zombiefest 2009 to support this RL event. There will be a zombie ball, a kissing booth, and a zombie date auction…you don’t want to miss this one!

There will be a store and all proceeds will go to the International Red Cross. Interested in participating? Great! Please send a notecard to Gattina Dumpling, Stein Shilova or Putrid Gloom. Putrid, by the way, has generously donated a space for the event and we have some fantastic content creators preparing a wonderfully dismal display for the undead celebration.

Read more about World Zombie Day™ here and remember…

Dead is the new black.

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Charity, Event, Hot For Zombies, World Zombie Day, Zombiefest 2009

Whether or not you choose to make a donation is entirely up to you, but please take a moment to choose today’s look with a little extra care that you, too, might help put the spotlight, just for one day, on another malicious member of the Cancer family.

Read more on Sanura’s blog, here.

Also, Stacia Villota, an amazing little Neko blogger whom I adore, has also listed a few stores with participating items. You can read about them, here.

As for my gray look…it’s coming. I promise.

Happy Friday,

Gabby

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags:

I posted today on my “other” blog home, Atomic Valley, about the price of vanity. A pretty performance penny paid, not by the wearers of Anti-Inspection Shields, but by everyone in their vicinity.

Here’s one of the snapshots we used to illustrate the point. Mind you, I’m wearing the shield, but it was Codie who suffered the 90% Frames Per Second loss.  (I’m still a little jealous that she starts at 40+ FPS to start with, no wonder I lag through the floor when faced with one of these things.)

Click over to Atomic Valley for the full story and how you can render Anti-Inspect Shields completely useless in 3 clicks.

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anti-Inspection Shield, Atomic Valley, Caer Balogh, CodeBastard Redgrave, Fashion Feed of SL, FPS, Jacek Antonelli, Lag, MV-SL-Fashion, Performance

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Argrace, AVANISTA, ETD, Fashion Feed of SL, Flirt, Kookie, LeLutka, Moonshine, MV-SL-Fashion, Pretties by JB, Shopaholic Feed

Its no secret that I’m a fan of the original Eden and Candace skin lines.  Ryker has built upon the Eden base to add depth and detail, refining her first skin into Eden v2.  She’s a little more grown up and a little more sophisticated.  The under-lip shadow is a tad pronounced on my shape, but the texture of the lips is so soft and satiny, I can definitely overlook it.

Shiloh is brand new, Ryker’s third official skin line, and the first released solely under Exodi.  She has pouty lips and eyes that seem a bit more exotic.  The release line of makeup options features enough variety for everyone.(...)
Read the rest of Mass Exodi (290 words)

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Eden v2, Exodi, Eyes, Fashion Feed of SL, MV-SL-Fashion, Shiloh, Shopaholic, Skins, Vetro

A thousand “thank you”s to the fashion designers in Second Life who put their creativity and talent out there for all of us to enjoy; who work tirelessly to make each release better than the one before; and who spend precious personal time responding to their clients, managing update groups, dealing with failed transactions, upload issues and all of the “stuff” that goes along with running a business in SL.  I know you don’t do it for the money, but for the love of creating and the joy that must come from sharing your creations with the grid.

So Thank You!  Not just for these gifts, but for everything you do, everyday, to satisfy the shopaholic and wannabe-fashionista in each and every one of us bloggers.

I wish I could share with you all of the gifts that you have so generously given in this post, but there are simply too many and I’m still opening and trying on much of it!  But here are a couple of looks that I put together using items that caught my eye right off the bat!  Don’t worry, I’ll get to all of it…its just going to take some time!

Oh! One quick note. The cool frame on the top photo was created with the MechanizedLife FilterCam HUD. Its a great little tool that lets you jazz up your in-world snapshots with frames, textures, designs and other effects. You can read more about it here. Also, there’s a little contest going on for you Photoshop/Gimp types who want to try your hand at creating your own custom masks for use with the FilterCam. Read more about the L$40,000 in cash and prizes that Codie is giving away!

Style Notes:
Bottom Photo (left to right)
Jacket – Malt Fashions SE Antique Gold Suede Jacket
Shirt – Hoot Red Penguin Tee
Jeans – Ibizarre Rockstar Groupie Boyfriend Jeans
Lingerie – Insolence Dolores
Shoes – Pretties by JB Risque Pump, Wish Diamante Heels in Lush Merlot
Skin – TeaLane Amanda Skin in Honey, Symphony Skins Risky Business (2009 Ltd Ed) in Contralto
Hair – House of Heart Tilda in Bitter Chocolate, Philotic Energy Portia in Cocoa

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blogger Appreciation Week, FilterCam, HoH, Hoot, Ibizarre, Insolence, Malt, MechanizedLife, MV-SL-Fashion, Philotic Energy, Pretties by JB, Symphony Skins, TeaLane, Thank You, Wish

On 3 April 2009, just days from giving birth to her first child.  She was struck down while crossing the street.  Her death, we are told, was quick and for that I am grateful.  I’m not sure that I could bear the thought of my friend suffering.

Rheta was remarkably brilliant, her’s was the winning entry in Dusan Writer’s User Interface Design contest, she was a vocal advocate for avatar rights, and she is loved by a great many people, most notably her devoted partner, Thaddy.  To me, she was the voice of reason. Always talking me down from my ledges, making sense where I found none, and, in turn, allowing me to do the same for her.

Though I will miss you terribly, I know that the things I’ve learned from you will always guide me.  Goodbye, my friend.

Valérie M./Rheta Shan
† April 3rd 2009

                        

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Rheta Shan, RL

Recently, the metaverse has been abuzz with the heated debate surrounding the value and effectiveness of freebies, group gifts and hunts.  The hunt after hunt after hunt.  The are everywhere, a new one every week it seems.  I don’t know about you, but my inventory is still clogged with unopened gifts the grid wide Easter hunt…last year’s Easter hunt.

Watching the hunt debate unfold, Rika Watanabe started to formulate an idea.  What if there was a system that connected designers and consumers directly, allowed content creators to provide samples of their work to potentially new customers, and gave these same customers time to try out the item, decide they liked it and visit the store to see their other products?  I know what you’re thinking, this sounds a lot like another hunt, right?  There’s more.  Now imagine that the system automagically sends out one item per day, randomly selected from the pool of creators, to each list subscriber so that every creator’s work is exposed to a new group of customers everyday, and, over time, customers receive a product from each and every participating creator.  Starting to sound more interesting, isn’t it?

This concept is the Designer Showcase Network, and it launched today! Rika and her partner in this project, Peter Stindberg, have worked tirelessly to create a system that takes the hunting out of hunts, puts samples of a content creator’s work directly into the hands of potential customers, gives shoppers a new gift item everyday while eliminating that dreaded chore of opening hundreds of hunt boxes, weeding through the schlock and sorting it into an already-overloaded inventory.

(...)
Read the rest of It Lives! Designer Showcase Network (549 words)

© Gabby for Couture Conundrum, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AVANISTA, Designer Showcase Network, Fashion Feed of SL, mv-sl-business, MV-SL-Fashion, Peter Stindberg, Rika Watanabe