One of the great stores in Second Life is Style Extrem, Upper Man and Happy End who stock many items worthy of inclusion in a revivalist, casualist, indieNeoMod wardrobe. I have several items from here, and one of the best features of the store is its weekly FREE gift. Free clothing is always nice, and should always be appreciated but when its FREE cool and mod our gratitude should enter the realms of monstrosity. My latest cool freebie is an excellent track jacket very casuals or indie and thus an ideal NeoMod item. Worn with a classic pair of Hoorenbeek trainers and my favourite Unknown Boutique white jeans it helps create a very sharp casuals look. I have also received several cool sweaters, shirts and other jackets. All this can be yours if you join the group and teleport over to the store and grab the selected freebies as they are announced. Be sharp, be mod be free!!!!
Hunting prizes seems to be an endless activity in the virtual world, with hunts organised for fashion items on a regular basis. Some are themed for specific genre others are based around the stores on a sim and they are generally heavily biased towards items for the girls. However a while back a few hunts started targeted directed at men, the prizes all being for men. One such hunt is the Mens Stuff Hunt currently running until the 3rd of July 2011. Whilst these hunts are stuffed to the brim with items to find, spending hours scouring various stores to locate the gift item its not often that there are items suitable for the aspiring virtual mod. I had a brief potter about and located the odd one or tow items. So, if you're bored and fancy a look why not participate, join the group find the Blue T-Shirt symbol click on it and away you go.
So what did I find, I liked the Alphamale prize, the preppy sweater which had a revivalist feel to it, I also liked the trousers from another prize, the Brocade Tiger cargo shorts looked good for my Style Council Long Hot Summer romp, plus the Philo shades looked awesome contemporarydesign but so sharp I'd add them The Duh shoes look cool plus I'm sure there'll be a few other pieces out there just need to filter through the items to find them. Have fun.
Enjoying my Carnaby moment I went delving into my virtual wardrobe to pull out an old favourite that met the pop art Carnaby mod criteria. A nice piece of crafting from Meriken, the "Napoleon" jacket comes with a sharp prim collar, hem and sleeve cuffs. All needed slight adjustments to fit Albion's Hyperion Studio Endymion shape. Its a simplistic design without too many frills but still very sharp and eye catching. The subdued black and subtle tones allow for a splash of colour elsewhere. Therefore, its well suited to the dazzling range of trousers supplied by Armidi. Both the flame orange and vibrant green are able to lift the dull black of the jacket and are a nice match. Worn with a cool mod graphic T-Shirt the Meriken jacket fills the pop art mod niche beautifully. Nice trainers/shoes from J's add to the look whilst the classic Strike bowling shoes [unseen] look as cool as ever.
were you Paul Weller in a previous life, perchance?
The T-Shirts from Action (The Jam) and Juice (the target) help the look achieve a stylish indie Britpop NeonMod style that looks cool and marries sixties fashion classicism with the more gritty indie look of the nineties. The Carnaby Street look popularised in the media is for several the mod look of the sixties, reinforced by the Austin Powers franchise, whilst not classic mod [as seen in Quadrophenia et al] its still a legitimate mod look as its what many sixties mod fashionistas developed as their style and so its suits my NeoMod fashion etiquette sublimely. As mod fashion moved into the brighter pop art period the classicism of the look may have been lost but other fashion possibilities were uncovered, and this is replicated in Second Life. Modernist fashion encompasses much more than drab grey and brown suits, with white shirts and ties; explore the fashion possibilities whilst remaining in the modernist culture and further fashion options become apparent. After all its not real life and we can afford to be far more daring with an avatar than you can with the frail ego of a forty seven year old.
Continuing the rummage through my engorged inventory I discovered other Armidi outfits, including a wonderful NeoMod styled leather jacket that Albion wears with the Armidi green trousers and Strike bowling shoes. Another neat mod visage following more nineties NeoMod design than classic early sixties mod, but nevertheless easily achievable and worth taking on if you're looking to expand your virtual fashion profile.
Was kind of fun rooting through old purchases to see if any would fit the mod style, and talking of fun Soul Mods regular Josie sent me a YouTube link of a great tune, with plenty of old scooter action, and I have been listening to it quite a lot. Check it I'm sure there's plenty of Soul Mods sods who appreciate this kind of tune. So 1..2..3...hit it!!!!
Why all the YouTube stuff and other fillers? You may be asking yourself that question more likely you're not. Anyway, I think a conversation with myself is often the most entertaining of the day and so I'll keep tapping the keys and explain to myself, if nobody else, why I keep stuffing up tunes from the vaults of YouTube. Primarily I want to keep the blog ticking over with fresh posts every now and again, but my dilema is that the virtual scene has gone into hibernation. This hibernating state means I am often repeating myself, indeed I think I am doing that right now as I'm sure I blogged this before, when I waffle about club nights. Therefore if I wish to keep a current posting schedule alive I have to come up with something and I decided that sticking up tunes or interesting real life mod news or trivia is an option thats both easy and effective and doesnt lead the blog away from its virtual mod brief. Well not too much anyway. So, the lack of posts for club nights and fashion too is the primary reason.
Its getting harder to locate decent mod style fashion items in Second Life, sure there's plenty of suits and a few dozen T-Shirts out there but distinct mod items are getting harder and harder to find, plus in the current economic climate I'm getting more reticent about spending real money on virtual clothing. I have plenty of stuff in my wardrobe and so am buying merely to give myself something to waffle about ... true vanity projects. So I have got choosy and therefore the purchasing, and thus blogging has slowed down.
However, there is a secondary less cynical reason for sticking tunes up on the blog. It too is wrapped up in vanity, like most of the blog,,,I mean must be a degree of vanity to believe anyone wants to read this rubbish. Not exactly Booker prize literature is it, more like bog door scrawl. Anyway, meandering and losing the plot.... Yes, the secondary reason is to throw out the kinds of tunes and music I would play at Soul Mods if:
I had the software
I had the brains to understand how any of it works
I had the drive to get my arse into gear and do something
On that basis I'll keep flicking yup the odd YouTube gem, in my role as virtual virtual DJ, wow thatrs complicated, have fun and see everyone later at the AAi for some cool sixties tunes.
Sometimes you have an item thats been sat in your inventory and you find that you forgot you had it and when you finally throw it on it opens up a wealth of fashion possibilities. I did this the other day with a simple but nicely textured white cardigan, I threw on a suitably mod T-Shirt with some wild free purple trousers I picked up free from the London Freebies Store and decided I was ideally equipped for that scooter rally to Brighton beach...sadly that sim is no more so I had to make do with a scooter ride around Moonletters. Despite the klack of a promanade I still felt cool on my Slate built Vespa, dressed in white like a mod icream-man, hell yeah babeee. One well made item can exhert a strong influence over several other items sharpening them up and imbuing them with a nice touch of class.
Then a quick change into the fabulous Armidi black trousers and a great black button down shirt from the Unknown Boutique, the all black look offset by the sharp white cardigan giving a more sophisticated look: sharper cleaner more cut for that dance at the local club cica 1964. The cardigan still retains the casualness of the look but the neat shirt and trousers upscale the clothing from the T-Shirt on the beach feel to a more,,all because the lady loves milk tray elegance ideal for a night at the Twisted Wheel, gone but never forgotten.
The shades are free too, a simple textured pair which look okay and suit these looks but there are better sculpted pairs of shades on the market but if you like them , they are yours at Alphavillain.
And, the cardigan, I almost forgot, thats available from Alienated.
A staple of virtual Male Fashion the T-Shirt is the crux of most male avatars wardrobe; however T-Shirts were not really part of the original mods fashion bible but in the world of virtual NeoMods we absorb and the eighties saw a change in attitude and Britpop as merely an extension of the indie movement flooded the NeoMod market with T-Shirt wearing pseudo mods. Besides they are usually cheap, but even so not any T-Shirt will do it must have some relevance to Mods. No matter how well textured a T-Shirt yelling "get yer tits out fer the lads" just isn't mod that's just laddish!
The easiest and mist obviously mod designs tend to be band T-Shirts, showing your allegiance to suitably mod bands illustrates your leanings towards mod culture. So look for the classic Who logo T-Shirts, or the Small Faces or The Jam, maybe you can slide a Blur or Oasis logo in, gut then you need to accentuate the mod in your other items or its assumed your an indie pseudo mod. Adding iconic mod graphics like a target or union jacket just adds to the mod look and increases your identification with the group. Ska logo T-Shirts are equally good, or anything in monochrome that has obviously links to the 2Tone movement that was prevalent in the eighties. Black and white contrast fashion also seems emblematic of sixties fashion and so this kind of texturing with establish links to mod, although in a causal revivalist sense.
While hunting through Second Life's Market place [aka XStreet] I found this very cool Jam T-Shirt. Its a classic image of the band from the seventies wearing their bleak sixties mod inspired clothing and is used on many real life modernist items. The addition of the union jack to the graphic adds depth to the texture itself and accentuates the coolness factor of the T-Shirt. If T-Shirts are your thing and you want to declare some mod credentials I suggest you get onto Market place and grab this T-Shirt. Albion wears it with some bright red sixties influence jeans from Juice [plus an underwear layer from somewhere to compensate for the low rider style of the jeans.] Great as the T-Shirt looks additional layers would be hugely helpful to aid the versatility of the piece, mod fashion [even Neo mod with its flouting of a few fundamentals] does not really account for bare mid riffs under scraggy T-Shirts. Hipster styled jeans are great but the T-Shirt needs sufficient length so needs to be a jacket layer or shirt plus underwear combination. Nevertheless its a great looking piece of mod fashion, grab one but don't wear it if I'm wearing mine.
Whilst wandering around the Moonletters hang out I stumbled upon Shauna's store, its got a few concession items in there for sale and amongst them was this very cool black denim jacket from UM. It has very nice texturing and a sharp well fitting prim collar. Matched with some uber modernist white jeans from the Unknown Boutique and a cool T-Shirt from Micio's Ready Steady Go shop, and the sharp mod bowling shoes which are iconic mod fashion items.
Perhaps not a strictly modernist look this is archetypal sixties fashionwear, strong bold monochrome coloured clothing is typical of this period of casualisation in sixties fashion.
I nip off-line for a bit and on my return I get told the Twisted Wheel is no more ... again! A pity but not unexpected. One good bit of news is Micio Braveheart of the Good Mixer Club has opened a shop above her club selling a few classy mod items for a fantastic price i bought a cool Lambretta T-Shirt for a throwaway 5 lindens, its a multi-layered piece and so is very flexible. There are some chilled earrings for the modettes plus a dress and the T-Shirt is unisex so once more plenty of scope for the modette looking to sharpen her style and the odd piece for the peacock mod geezers. So if you have a few lindens burning a hole in your pocket teleport over and make a purchase. All being well I shall make my majestic mod return tomorrow at the Soul Mods club, unless that's bloody shut down too.
One of the easiest pieces of mod clothing to acquire within Second Life is the classic revivalist monochrome 2 Tone black and white coloured items. There are several pairs of checkered trousers across the grid and this particular pair from Zoobong are a wonderful example of sixties styling matched with a classic modernist design. The trousers texture includes a neat belt on the hipsters which has been emphasised with a cool black/white ying/yang prim buckle. Hipster styling, classic colours sharp texturing and excellent design have created a fine pair of mod trousers, check them and buy yourself a pair.
Worn with the trousers are some old freebie shoes from Kalinswhich are scripted for size and colour, so worn in a monochrome black and white the beautifully match the sharp hipster trousers. The casual slip on style and the colour lend itself to a more dressed down look than a formalisation of the trousers and so the best option in this instance is a T-Shirt to be worn with the trousers but a sharp cut shirt and tie would suit equally as well. However, keeping to the chilled theme I opted for a classic white T-Shirt emblazoned with an iconic mod graphic of one of the foundation mod bands of the sixties - The Who.
The T-Shirt is one of several classic mod graphic based T-Shirts I bought from Arteeshirt Garden. This image has been replicated on a myriad of modernist items both in the virtual world and the Real World, the band in their hippest mod clothing posing somewhat artfully with a target background. Iconic modernist pop art which looks fantastic when textured and applied to a well created T-Shirt. The ying/yang buckle can also be clearly seen in the accompanying snap. Not an authentic mod style item it does however marry well with the checkered trousers [due to its shared monochrome look] to beautifully accentuate the contrast in colour and give more life to the textured items. A sharp chilled retro mod look, find the items and mix and match to create a cool retro look of your own,
Perusing the Second Life fashion blogs I caught sight of this cool hipster pair of jeans. They come in two version a dark striped pair and a white/black striped pair, its the latter that seems most apt for a mod fashionista. The trousers come with neat prim cuffs and various layer and styling variations. They have a cool sixties vibe and look very sharp with trainers and a suitable T-Shirt [this freebie from the Dyn treasure hunt with a rather apt slogan seemed perfect] you create a very casual retro look, or BritPop standard styling. Priced at $L150 I guess the jeans are safely placed in the middle of virtual fashion pricing, but with so few male classically retro style clothing on the grid they are well worth snapping up for you expanding modernist wardrobe. Matched with a shirt and tie, or the AAi shirt/sweater combination they create a wonderfully retro mod look. Get over there, it may be a surfer dude spot but it hides a few classic mod gems.
There I was looking to chill out in a T-Shirt, so I rifled through my inventory and discovered I was a touch short in that department. I have masses of them but they're either freebies plugging some store or unky or trance inspired spirals, only a handful of sixties or mod inspred shirts, so I went in search of some. Luckily in the Twisted Wheel where Dragon Bogbat was wearing a sharp Jam T-Shirt, so I asked for a lm which he kindly provided and I was off on a shopping spree.
There was a huge collection of T-Shirts available, mostly rock, film or comedy inspired but amidst the masses were some highly suited to the NeoMod looking to chill. The classic Union flag was an obvious buy, as was the The Who target shirt, I also grabbed the Oasis shirt as a nod to Brit Pop, and the revivalist royalty the Jam shirt was an essential. Two others with less than obvious mod links were the George Best and Ali T-Shirts but as iconic sportsman of the sixties I felt they were definitely suitable and obvious candidates for modernist pop art. Coming in a variety of layers the T-Shirts are very versatile, they are also tintable so you can colour them as you please or just stay with the standardised white. They do not come with a jacket layer so they tucked in look slightly formalises the style but thats ideal for a rather conservative retro sixties style. I like them a lot, indeed I also grabbed a Liverpool Football Club shirt, but the less said on that the better. So, if your looking to flake out whilst still upholding your mod credentials go grab a chilled T-Shirt.
There are some fine items on sale at Dym some classic casuals wear that has becoming even more appealing because they have knocked 50% off the sale price. Yes the January sales boom is in full virtual flow, get there and grab some cool stuff while the sale lasts.
I grabbed a couple of cool sweater and a nice duffle coat, but there is far more available, why not check it out.
This week is Menswear Fashion week a huge virtual male fashion celebration designed to highlight quality male fashion across the grid. Its well worth investigating, as there are some choice items on sale, many with a definite mod vibe. There is more on the fashion spectacular on the Moonletters blog. Grab a quick look at it and then go spread some linden love. The organisers are looking to maximise exposure for this event to highlight the great items available in the mens fashion stores across the grid, hence my double blogging. I urge you to check it out, and yep girls there's unisex stuff too.
As often happens on a dull grey morning I often find myself wandering across the grid hoping to uncover some hidden modernist fashion gem. The Ska Shack is hardly hidden but its most certainly a gem. So, what can you expect to find, some classic mod band T-Shirts, the classic Pete Townsend Union Jack jacket, an uber cool outfit from the cult TV series The Prisoner . There is a large selection of Union Jack T-Shirts that filter out onto the mod fashion scene, plus an awesome Soviet sweatwhirt, thats beautifully textured and a fantastic piece of casuals fashion. Worn with a well textured pair of jeans and classic trainers the sweatshirt is classic NeoMod style. The sixties jackets very rare items indeeed, being amongst the very few specific male mod fashion items on the grid, grab them if you can.
Ska T-Shirts at a very reasonable twenty five lindens each, throw on some jeans and big boots and your sorted, simple but effective fashion declaration. I often wonder if its worth actually forking out some lindens for a T-Shirt when so many are freely distributed all across Second Life; but, these smart T-Shirts with cool ska inspired graphics and full modification rights are well worth the splash of a meagre 25l.
Each of the T-Shirts carries a stylish ska/skinhead graphic, that is sharply textured and stands out clearly against the stark white or black cloth texturing. Beautiful graphic work on the ska man and ska girl make the first shirt in the sequence [top left]very appealling, whilst the great "Doc Martin" boot graphic on the skinhead "Oi!" shirt holds an equal appeal, for mods who spent their teenage years rampaging the stage of variouis revivalist ska bands of the late seventies and early eighties. The other two designs of big bold ska men graphics look great and stamp you out as an enthusiast. There's nothing subtle about these T-Shirt designs, nor does there need to be its a loud, proud declaration of love for ska and modernist fashion.
This cool jacket layered [I prefer shirt layer but its a cool graphic] T-Shirt is from Kennef Riggles and can be found on the XStreet shopping web site. The laurel leaf is a classic mod emblem due to its links to the Fred Perry label; whilst the Trojan helemt pays homages and links the graphic to the classic ska label of that name. It looks good with jeans or these wonderful ska pants from Helter Skelter.
Ska emblems seems to lend themselves marevelously to T-Shirt graphics and this cool white [shirt layered] item from STFU beautifully displays that through its use of the 2Tone geezer and Beat girl icons from the late seventies ska revivalist movement. Strong dynamic images they look great on this white shirt; which can be worn with a pair of jacket layered braces for an aunthentic skinhead look.
Another offering from STFU this simple black T-Shirt has a simplistic but effective graphic utilizing the iconic two tone checkered emblem that was adopted by followers of the ska revival, The simplicity of the design however should not disguise the quality of its styling: very retro, very cool and very ska. Another shirt layered creation this can also be worn with braces and as with all the ska T-Shirts I have found looks fantastic with the Helter Skelter range of ska pants
