Mens Stuff Fashion Hunt

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.

Modernist Fashion in SL

As the sixties progressed mod style altered severely, the sharp Italian influenced suits were replaced by more pop art inspired clothing. Carnaby Street shifted from sharp mod styles to poptastic flamboyance, as is often seen in period pieces filmed to reflect the changing times. An iconic Carnaby Street styling is the military dress jacket, preferably a chic Guardsman in vibrant red, or flamboyant Hussars; as the mods moved away from their style origins their fashion became more pop. But in the virtual world we can accommodate this playful pop style in our NeoMods fashion house; so I was happy to throw on a great vibrant red Guardsman jacket bought from WW2 and WWII; Military UNIFORMS which fits the mould of this period beautifully. The jacket comes with a sharp prim white belt, military trousers and prim epaulets, there are also some prim NCO rank insignia and prim cuffs for the jacket. For anyone hoping to capture that swinging sixties Carnaby Street look but wishes to avoid flower power US inspired hippydom this is a good starting block

Next. some classic mod fashion from SubVersion. This beautiful brown suit is beautifully retro and suits the mod or NeoMod hoping to achieve that authentic '64 mod look. There is a host of variants with this suit, different shirts, waistcoats etc allowing you to tailor your individual look. But, I believe the basic brown suit with white shirt and brown tie is the best look for the virtual mod. The suit comes in a variety of colours, including a wonderful deep red [quick confession I wanted to buy the red but clicked the wrong icon duh! The brown is cool too though] which give plenty of scope for varying tastes: subdued grey, black or brown and wilder reds and blues.

Alongside the suits SubVersion also sell some fantastic sixties looking pea coats which are also available in a variety of colours, several complimentary to the suits they sell. Having bought myself a brown suit I opted to buy a brown coat. This too comes with several prim attachments: collar, cuffs, belt and a hat. Unfortunately the hat comes without hair and when I wore it my hair was removed so a little tweaking with your a\ttachment locations may be required to wear the hat; personally, I think the coat looks cooler without the hat. It blends magnificently with the trousers and shirt/tie combination from the  brown suit and screams sixties style, very French I feel and so classically mod. To continue with the brown theme I hopped over to Action store to grab a tan pair of their ultra-sixties styled Chelsea Boots. The boots are scripted to alter size making fitting them a breeze and they look great with this low key sixties styling - conservative but sharp, the epitome of  the original British mods.

The final offering is a chic black suit from a newly discovered store called Savile Row, there are several items in the store that have a retro sixties feel but to begin with I opted for this neat black suit labelled Berlin. It is not a traditionally mod design but it does have an authentic retro style and in the virtual world of NeoMods we strive to stretch the modernist fashion boundaries whilst staying within the limits imposed by our pop-culture roots, so no leather chaps and studs thank you!  Double breasted jackets are not generally a feature of mod fashion but this germanic styled jacket oozed generic sioxties appeal so I succumbed and bought it; ok not strictly mod but like I said we can be flexible in the virtual world and its definitely sixties. So go check it out and the other items at Savile Row

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Modernist Fashion in SL

My absence from the virtual world lead to a pile up of freebie items in my inventory which needed sifting through to determine whether they were worth keeping or not. One of the folders [from Rodas Designs] contained a multi layered leather waistcoat, probably aimed at the leather clad biker market but it reminded me of an old media article commenting on early mods that I had seen on You Tube, a North London face had mixed a leather waistcoat with his sharp mod clothing to get a really cool look. Therefore I wore the leather as a shirt layer threw on my ultra reliable Josef white shirt/ black tie combination and searched for a few other items. The hipster Armidi trousers which i favoured were too low slung for this look so I opted for the higher waisted Hoorenbeek in navy. Having slipped on the trousers I then needed a jacket and after much deliberation I opted for a light grey King jacket from one of their suits which complimented the other items nicely. A suitable pair of shoes, a sharp hair cut from KMADD and I was set. Its interesting how quite an effective modernist look can be achieved without splashing thousands of lindens at one of the top end virtual designer stores.

Postscript the background for this snap was located at the gallery here

Modernist Fashion in SL

Mod Dandyism

The move into what I shall term Mod Dandyism, occured in the mid sixties as the mod fashion shifted on its axis and the faces moved to a far more flamboyant dress code. Frills, startling bright colours and a shift away from conservative browns and greys signalled the move towards psychedelia culminating in the abandonment of mod and the creation of introspective hippydom. Interesting the mod Dandyism style is easier to achieve in Second Life than the earlier retro dark suited style of the early sixties, as exemplified in this purple crushed velvet suit modelled on the Hollywood folly Austrin Powers. Its possible many will scream this isnt real mod fashion, and I guess they are correct, even borders on 1980s New Romanticism, but as virtual mods following the music into the midsixties period, I thought feck it lets extend the fashion horizons too. No need to follow, plenty of casuals or NeoMod options listed but if your coming on my fashion odessy grab your ruff and climb aboard the Vespa.

To achieve this mod dandy look I took a classy suit from Sartoria

and added a ruff to the shirt collar. The high chinese collar of the grey suit jacket easily lends itself to this brand of restyling. I grabbed the ruff from a random shirt in my inventory, and with more forethought I would probably have attached ruffled shirt cuffs too, in keeping with the Austin Powers inspired shagadelic vibe that eminates from the mod dandysism retroism. Some sharp shoes, and a rather severe hair cut from KMADD's freebie locker [remiscent of Sting in his Quadrophenia ace-face pomp] and a cool pair of coloured lensed shades and the image is complete. Mods on the road. Posing at the Twisted Wheel sim up against the graffitied alley walls always imbues snaps with a griity mod vibe, and that acts to tone down the frilliness of the danyism in this snap. See its all artsy fartsy today, ha haha.

In this ensemble, dandyism is taken to extremes of modernism. The trousers are from Hoorenbeek, as blogged earlier. The waistcoat, shirt and cravat/collar are from the steampunk store To-a-T and were picked up at the RFL Clothes Fair, but they have several stores across the grid. The texturing on the union flag waistcoat is wonderful and the fabric design is ideal for a popart inspired modernist dandy looking to accentuate the flamboyance of his style. Again its the severe KMADD cut and also a cigarette and pose the divas of male virtual fashion. The cuffs were FREE from SF Design, a neat addition thats gives the rather plain shirt a touch more life. The waistcoat and shirt come in varaiable layes, and also in female options too, affording the versatility I yearn for in my virtual tailoring. The cravat is also scripted to change colour, with charts and codes provided in the folder. The epitome of mod dandyism its unlikely this rather Edwardian look is for all but for mods with a mid sixties psyche yearning and a fashion boldness, grab what you can and stride out onto the floor babeee.

In essence this style is about bold bright coloured suits and shirts with ruffles, accessorize with other items of bling if thats your thing, think Austin Powers, only cool rather than a plonker and all will fall into place.