HOUSEKEEPING NOTICE: I am off sick from work today, treating a pinched nerve in my neck with rest, heat, some strong painkillers, and muscle relaxants, which is another reason why I have gone missing from this blog. My body is a bit of a mess right now, folks! Working at a keyboard (both at home and at work) makes it worse, to the point where I have numbness and tingling along my right arm and hand.
So I have been visiting my local physiotherapist once or twice a week over the past month, and I have received some daily exercises to stretch my tight neck, shoulders, and back muscles. I’ve also bought a new mattress, new pillows, and a new backpack, and I also had a professional fitting for a new, ergonomic desk chair for work, which I hope will arrive soon.
Thank you for your patience. I currently have about 20 draft blogposts in various stages of editing, on a variety of topics, and I hope to be back sooner rather than later.
Unless you have been living under a very large rock (or perhaps somewhere in a dark cave), you are probably aware that there is a Barbie movie being released today. And—let’s face it—a lot of what I, and hundreds of thousands of other people, do in Second Life is play with digital Barbies of various kinds. (Hey, no judging; we all have our weird, obsessive little hobbies that help keep us sane! I still get a lot of personal satisfaction from completely styling a wide variety of Second Life avatars from head to toe, as I have written about before on this blog.)
One of the keys to the success and longevity of Second Life, as its blow-out 20th anniversary celebration wraps up, is the lucrative fashion ecosystem which has sprung up around the platform, with tens of thousands of creators selling mesh bodies, heads, eyes, hairstyles, apparel, footwear, tattoos, etc. There are even stores which specialize in fingernails and toenails for your avatar! All this contributes to a vibrant economy with an annual GDP of US$650 million, which is more than some real-world countries (e.g. American Samoa, Dominica, Tonga, and Micronesia).
One thing that I have been paying attention to is that nothing ever stays the same in Second Life fashion. Much like the real world, fashions, fads, and trends come and go. At one time Catwa ruled the mesh head market, but now it seems that everybody you run into is rocking a LeLutka Evo X mesh head. I myself have purchased an Inithium Khara mesh body for my main avatar, Vanity Fair, who normally wears Maitreya Lara (there was a one-hour flash sale at the Inithium Event, where I was able to snap it up for L$1,000, and you know I love a good bargain!).
Vanity is wearing the Khara mesh body in the picture above, along with the Catwa Kimberly head she has been wearing for many years now (some things never change). All I had to do was buy a new, matching Bakes on Mesh skin at Vanity’s skin store, The Skinnery, and she was all set to go!
Anyway, my neck is still bothering me, so I will end this blogpost here. I’ll be back soon, I promise!
UPDATE July 22nd, 2023: I neglected to mention that many stores on the grid are giving away new group gifts or throwing special sales to mark the release of the Barbie movie. For example, the womenswear store Glitzz has a new Barbie-themed group gift out, and they are marking all pink items in the store to only L$50 each, from July 20th to 30th, 2023. If it’s pink, hot pink, bubblegum pink, or blush, it’s on sale! The Glitzz store group costs L$300 to join, but you can pick up many previous group gifts on their generous gift wall:
The Barbie-themed Baby Set outfit includes the top, the matching skirt, and the (rigged) pink neck ribbon, and comes in sizes to fit the following mesh bodies: Maitreya Lara, Petite & Smash Boobs; Meshbody Legacy, Perky & Push-Up; Inithium Kupra; eBody Reborn, Juicy & Waifu; and Belleza GenX Classic & Curvy.
UPDATE July 23, 2023: Another store with a Barbie-themed group gift is Ewa Boutique, which you can pick up if you join their store group for L$300. There’s also numerous other group gifts on their gift wall, plus a Daily Prize Board with a L$400 gift card!
Ewa’s Barbie outfit includes everything you see here: top, skirt, belt, shoes, purse, even the funky hot pink rectangular fur earrings! The purse includes the Bento arm pose shown in the picture. Sizes: Maitreya Lara, Meshbody Legacy, Belleza Freya & Isis, and Slink Hourglass.
