Dear Designers

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

3 hours ago, Talligurl said:

 the fact that a certain product is out there means there are people who want to buy it. If you do not want to buy it fine, don't. To go on a rant about it though is an attempt to get it taken off the market

She didn't say that at all. She said she won't buy it. Also, I think you should adjust your expectations of an online forum. Most people use them for ranting.

 

[Janet Voxel]

See here’s the thing: fashion is trend based. This holds true in real life as well as second life. In real life my boss wears 80’s clothing. As in, it’s clothing from the 80’s. That was her bag back then, it’s still her bag. Women’s clothes in the 90’s, 00’s and 10’s just didn’t interest her.

The beauty of SL is, you can wear whatever you want. If you decide the current trend is too *****ty, there are plenty of stores you can go to and not look *****ty. There are tonnes of stores you can buy from to look casual, Victorian, fantasy, sci-fi, etc.

I’m not into kawaii or goth stuff. It’s just not my thing. So, I just don’t go to the Kawaii fair or shop at Kawaii stores. I don’t care if other people like it or are wearing it, I don’t.

This whole thing is weird. A creator isn’t going to see this thread and say “Well, I guess I should start making more respectable looking clothing.” I’m sure the intent wasn’t to do that. If it wasn’t....then what was it? 

You can easily do a search for women’s pants, jeans, shorts, blouse, jacket and find something non *****ty. When you do....that’s your store!

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

7 minutes ago, janetosilio said:

 In real life my boss wears 80’s clothing. As in, it’s clothing from the 80’s. That was her bag back then, it’s still her bag.

I wish you could post pictures. What kind of stuff does she wear?? I'm picturing legwarmers.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

11 minutes ago, janetosilio said:

This whole thing is weird. A creator isn’t going to see this thread and say “Well, I guess I should start making more respectable looking clothing.” I’m sure the intent wasn’t to do that. If it wasn’t....then what was it?

I'm not sure but I reserve the right to b***h about ridiculous stuff here. 😁

Edited January 15, 2020 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Janet Voxel]

7 minutes ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

I wish you could post pictures. What kind of stuff does she wear?? I'm picturing legwarmers.

Hair and all! And she rocks it!

[Talligurl]

11 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

 I've read the posts as attempts to point out that there's an underserved market of customers who prefer other things. In other words, respecting and acknowledging difference.

You can point out an underserved market better by focusing in a positive way on what you want to buy, rather than being negative and saying you won't shop at places that sell what you don't want. Focusing on what you hate sounds like you are trying to get rid of what you hate. Sure many of the posters have done this, but the OP seems very negative to me.

[Janet Voxel]

The thing is...is it really an underserved market?

[MillyWH]

It isn't an under served market though.  I usually only wear sexy stuff for events or certain sims. If I'm running around then I'm wearing , I guess what you would call regular clothes, although my avatar doesn't look mature so I guess the way I dress skews y ounger. However I am in my late 40s IRL and tend to just wear jeans and t shirts so I'm not really a good judge of what a mature woman would wear. Just going by Honeybear's flickr page I've never had any problems finding clothes like that at all.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

15 hours ago, Talligurl said:

Focusing on what you hate sounds like you are trying to get rid of what you hate. Sure many of the posters have done this, but the OP seems very negative to me.

Yes, it was framed in a negative way but it's still a far cry from your claim that was an "attempt to get it taken off the market".

I read it as a shout of frustration, another venting thread. We see them often enough on a range of subjects here. Would you consider going back and rereading it with that sort of tone in mind?

You spoke against it, and with quite strong words. Were you trying to get rid of what you didn't like about it, or was there something else going on?

On 1/15/2020 at 11:58 AM, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Its not sounding like she wants it taken off the market, but there is a very definite threat there. A very dumb sounding threat... More of a "I won't shop in your store and neither will the other people you aren't catering to." Which to me is a "well, duh." moment. 

.....

To point out that there are other customers who want other things is IMHO, silly. Trust me, the merchants know. 

And here I've been all these years, wondering why I had such a small, niche customer base for ancient Roman art. Welll blow me down with a feather .

Anyway, if it doesn't really work as a threat, perhaps it wasn't so much a threat as a cry of exasperation.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

16 hours ago, janetosilio said:

The thing is...is it really an underserved market?

OK, let's go with this. Let's say that there is plenty of moderate-coverage clothing available. I can attest that I've had difficulties finding it, whereas finding revealing clothing is dead simple. The OP appears to have run into the same thing, others have said similar things too.

So maybe it's not lack of availability so much as some sort of communication bottleneck.

Most of the promotional efforts (blogs, front of store, notecard pics, marketing group listings, events, etc) I've come across seem to be targeting the sparser coverage crowd. (Fine, received wisdom is that there are more of them and they're bigger spenders. Great for them but doesn't help others like me.) Another thing I've noticed is how unorganised most of the clothing stores I've been in recently are. Like the creators are just filling the next bay with their latest work and not giving much thought to grouping styles or types of clothing together. Maybe this approach works really well for the heavy shoppers and impulse shoppers who go in for one thing and come out with five. So I'm not criticising it as a way of setting up a store. But whatever the reason is, it can make for a frustrating experience for someone like me who isn't particularly interested in the majority of what they sell.

Now I know I don't spend enough to be the kind of shopper anyone wants to cater to. But my frustrations are real and they are my usual experience of trying to shop for clothes in SL. As are the frustrations of the OP and others. (And the usual disclaimer, anyone who doesn't want to shop read the posts is free to skip past.)

At the December Shop & Hop, I saw a much better balance and more things I'd consider wearing. Previous S&Hs, I've felt lucky if I've come away with one or two store names to look into. This was more like five, so perhaps something has changed in recent months.

So my question for those who find it easy to find all of these stores with more moderate coverage items is - how do you find out about these stores? Is it just a matter of slogging through everything and hoping?

[Drake1 Nightfire]

 

1 hour ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

And here I've been all these years, wondering why I had such a small, niche customer base for ancient Roman art. Welll blow me down with a feather .

What?!?! You dont sell ancient greek art as well?!? Well, I wont be shopping at your store, and i am not alone!

[Chic Aeon]

There is plenty of clothing with lots of coverage. I most often hang out in leggings and sweatshirts and the like.  My wardrobe is full. This just out at Cosmopolitan for example. Go to Seraphim and cycle quickly through the items offered at the latest events.  LOTS at Cosmo this round. 

 

[Janet Voxel]

18 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

OK, let's go with this. Let's say that there is plenty of moderate-coverage clothing available. I can attest that I've had difficulties finding it, whereas finding revealing clothing is dead simple. The OP appears to have run into the same thing, others have said similar things too.

So maybe it's not lack of availability so much as some sort of communication bottleneck.

Most of the promotional efforts (blogs, front of store, notecard pics, marketing group listings, events, etc) I've come across seem to be targeting the sparser coverage crowd. (Fine, received wisdom is that there are more of them and they're bigger spenders. Great for them but doesn't help others like me.) Another thing I've noticed is how unorganised most of the clothing stores I've been in recently are. Like the creators are just filling the next bay with their latest work and not giving much thought to grouping styles or types of clothing together. Maybe this approach works really well for the heavy shoppers and impulse shoppers who go in for one thing and come out with five. So I'm not criticising it as a way of setting up a store. But whatever the reason is, it can make for a frustrating experience for someone like me who isn't particularly interested in the majority of what they sell.

Now I know I don't spend enough to be the kind of shopper anyone wants to cater to. But my frustrations are real and they are my usual experience of trying to shop for clothes in SL. As are the frustrations of the OP and others. (And the usual disclaimer, anyone who doesn't want to shop read the posts is free to skip past.)

At the December Shop & Hop, I saw a much better balance and more things I'd consider wearing. Previous S&Hs, I've felt lucky if I've come away with one or two store names to look into. This was more like five, so perhaps something has changed in recent months.

So my question for those who find it easy to find all of these stores with more moderate coverage items is - how do you find out about these stores? Is it just a matter of slogging through everything and hoping?

I understand your point and maybe I’m one of those people that has a fairly easy time shopping. So I’ll try to address your question. 
 

Before I do though, I have to get this out of the way. I have to say this because it’s a pet peeve of mine. People tend to come on here and say SL women’s fashion is *****ty, but what does *****ty mean? It’s a serious question, not rhetorical at all. Obviously, I’m aware of people who have avatars wearing a micro-mini dress or just a harness. Forget about them. Where is the ***** line?

Lets start with jeans. Is it because the jeans are too tight? Is it because they’re ripped? To me those are average women’s clothes and I see them everywhere! I don’t see anything *****ty about tight fitting jeans, same applies to pants.

Let’s move on to skirts. Remember, throw a micro mini. What’s the appropriate length? Knee? Past the knee? I see various lengths all the time....everywhere.

Dress? It’s similar to a skirt. Current styles are form fitting, some times they have cut outs on the sides but not always. Sometimes they look like this 

I don’t see what’s bad about that and I see things like that everywhere. All. The. Time.

See where I’m going with this?

So where to shop? You can find stuff at events, but it’s better to shop in main stores. Someone already mentioned Blueberry, but there’s also Just Because and they’re on the same sim. Tetra....CoCo....there’s lots and they’re popular stores.

This may be considered a little bit of a cheeky answer, but try to stay away from stores with names like smutcoochie and ‘howear.

Its really that simple.

[MillyWH]

I went to Seraphim and looked at a few events to see what places there were. I don't seem to have problems finding things so I was wondering how I was finding the shops. And it partly had to do with how I was looking, like events like Tres chic, C88, Fameshed and Shiny Shabby seem to have more stores with this kind of clothes. Although super low cut tops seems to be the norm no matter what.

 

Baiastice and Fashionably Dead were examples of that.

[Chic Aeon]

45 minutes ago, MillyWH said:

I went to Seraphim and looked at a few events to see what places there were. I don't seem to have problems finding things so I was wondering how I was finding the shops. And it partly had to do with how I was looking, like events like Tres chic, C88, Fameshed and Shiny Shabby seem to have more stores with this kind of clothes. Although super low cut tops seems to be the norm no matter what.

 

Baiastice and Fashionably Dead were examples of that.

Once you find your favorite designers you likely won't need to watch the events much longer.  Events -- in general -- move and flow and sometimes go "downhill" quickly. Watching them each month makes that easy to see.   Coco would be a very good place to start. I agree with the poster who mentioned that. Decoy maybe. I don't actually shop for clothes since I have a huge wardrobe already. Now and then I buy something on the Saturday Sale, but not that often. 

 ONE (and only one) of the reasons you see so many skimpy clothes is that they are easier to make than items that need to have "flow". Presumably they sell , but that coule be a faulty assumption as there are plenty of creators that are in events to get the "blogger packs" and don't really worry about making money. 

 

I agree that once you find possible stores to "fav", shopping at their main store is probably best -- or on their Marketplace site.  The good news is that there definitely ARE things out there!  

[Sofia Gray]

On 1/15/2020 at 2:15 PM, Tazzie Tuque said:

AMEN!  I find it really hard to tell just what an article of clothing really looks like when it is presented in a mega busy background, with harsh glaring lighting, on a way distorted body shape,  which seems to be the trend for some so called bloggers these days.  I will follow a blogger link, but the minute it shows up looking like some bizarre abstract it gets quickly clicked off.  Too many like that out there trying to be creative, but failing miserably, which does nothing to help the designer of the clothing at all!!    And this is sad, because that article of clothing might be awesome but you could never tell by the blog post.

See, this is where I have to disagree:  It’s really the job of a “blogger” to exercise influence and create quality content.  I want to see something that inspires an emotional response.  What you’re seemingly referencing is someone who catalogs.  In my mind it is the job of the “designer” to provide un-altered / un-obstructed imagery for their products, not necessarily the “influencer”.
 

If I am looking at the work of a blogger, I want to be influenced.  I want to be inspired.  I want to see something or read something that inspires me to investigate what they are doing / discussing / sharing / wearing a little further.  Having “authentic”’ influence is really the highest form of currency for someone who wants to be a blogger.  Those who can foster quality engagement can command quite a bit of power when they throw their support behind a brand.

That doesn’t mean to say that there aren’t good/quality “OOTD” bloggers, who jump into a white backdrop studio and snap a quick shot to share; I just think that there’s a step beyond that which requires a little more that so many fail to take in SL.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Sofia Gray

[Tazzie Tuque]

41 minutes ago, Sofia Gray said:

If I am looking at the work of a blogger, I want to be influenced.  I want to be inspired.

Hard to be inspired if it all looks like an abstract glaring mess!  But to each his own I guess.  Artistic presentation is something I would look at twice if it is tastefully done and does not offend my eyes.  And yes there are a handful of good bloggers out there who accomplish this...  but for every one of those there are 100 wannabes who are failing miserably at "influencing".. me anyhow.  But actually although I got into this side spin, I believe I got off topic here.. Sorry!  This is fuel for a whole different discussion.

 

 

 

[Raspberry Crystal]

52 minutes ago, Sofia Gray said:

 I want to see something or read something that inspires me to investigate what they are doing / discussing / sharing / wearing a little further.

I would really love to find more blogs with interesting written commentary. It seems to stretch the definition of the genre to provide a photostream with titles, and hopefully product links and call it a blog. Maybe it's a plog?

Edited January 17, 2020 by Raspberry Crystal

[MrsSeren]

39 minutes ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

I would really love to find more blogs with interesting written commentary. It seems to stretch the definition of the genre to provide a photostream with titles, and hopefully product links and call it a blog. Maybe it's a plog?

Touching on this; I never when I write my blog; call my entries LOTD #125 because I like giving them actual names as example one where I was emulating; Swan Lake... I called Kitteh Lake as I am neko girl so you get idea and I might be slightly cocky saying this however I'm proud of my blog!  

[Pussycat Catnap]

I've gone through 3 fashion stages in my time in SL.

1. Your basic club-goer nooblet... Wore freebies complimented by shopping a lot at Bare Rose back when that was THE place to get RP-themed outfits that would win me those X-lindens on the board contests. I think about 2 years of my premium allowance was basically given to the owner of that shop. Other than that SL fashion seemed to be run out of Brazil at the time so it was hard to do 'fashion' unless you wanted the look of Brazilian rich kids...

2. Very covered. Outfits with either a working look or emblematic of my faith. Club wear was taking off but I did most of my shopping at coldLogic for the working look and Sakide for faith-based themes because their goth stuff came in pieces so I could take a piece that fit and mix it with something else... That lasted until Belleza Freya came out...

3. When I moved to a mesh body, inspired by how well the body looked and how well certain anatomy responded to shape dials, and that there was almost no support for it for the first few years because they weren't giving out dev kits... I became an SL nudist...

Now that I'm in this third stage... most of what I find when I shop looks like what I see out on the streets in RL because... I live on the West Coast... where yoga pants is overdressed, and the blokes in management wear shorts, but sometimes forget the shoes and shirts... what I have trouble finding is this 'it's all hanging out' stuff... even when I shop at an adult monthly event... the parts are usually covered.

 

I had trouble finding club outfits back when that was my thing.

I had trouble finding more 'conservative wear' back when it was my thing.

I have trouble finding 'hanging out' wear now that that is my thing...

 

Ya'll saying all these shops have 99.9% stuff for people like me... send me some landmarks... I'm just finding coastal street/office wear at the big brands like Addams, Blueberry, and so on...

[Pussycat Catnap]

7 hours ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

I would really love to find more blogs with interesting written commentary. It seems to stretch the definition of the genre to provide a photostream with titles, and hopefully product links and call it a blog. Maybe it's a plog?

Yeah I agree... but if you write a several thousand word blog entry about something important in second life... you'll get 3 clicks. One of them is Hamlet Au, another is Daniel Voyager, and the third is somebody that got lost...

Post up a blog with this week's items from 'top shop (tm)' worn by an avatar with hips wider than Texas and arms shorter than an ant's legs, with hands that make Trump's look big... and frowning lips that look like somebody had an accident in the room of a blackface makeup artist... and ears that poke out at right angle with more piercings on them than your grandmother's sewing pin cushion... "photoshopped" in "Windows Paint" with the words "Kewl" onto it... and you get eleventy-million clicks...

 

[Tazzie Tuque]

3 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Post up a blog with this week's items from 'top shop (tm)' worn by an avatar with hips wider than Texas and arms shorter than an ant's legs, with hands that make Trump's look big... and frowning lips that look like somebody had an accident in the room of a blackface makeup artist... and ears that poke out at right angle with more piercings on them than your grandmother's sewing pin cushion... "photoshopped" in "Windows Paint" with the words "Kewl" onto it... and you get eleventy-million clicks...

yes!   that was my point exactly!  I just did not describe it as well as you!

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

On 1/16/2020 at 5:31 PM, Drake1 Nightfire said:

 

What?!?! You dont sell ancient greek art as well?!? Well, I wont be shopping at your store, and i am not alone!

Oh but I do, a lovely black figure terracotta plate (though anything mesh takes 10x as long to make and sells 100x less, which isn't exactly motivation to make more), a couple of Eleusian pieces and the frieze from one end of the Parthenon (labor of love for a friend's birthday, it took FOREVER). And Minoan, Etruscan, Egyptian, Gandharan, Renaissance and Byzantine too. I expect to see you there soon

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

On 1/16/2020 at 6:17 PM, janetosilio said:

I understand your point and maybe I’m one of those people that has a fairly easy time shopping. So I’ll try to address your question. 
 

Before I do though, I have to get this out of the way. I have to say this because it’s a pet peeve of mine. People tend to come on here and say SL women’s fashion is *****ty, but what does *****ty mean? It’s a serious question, not rhetorical at all. Obviously, I’m aware of people who have avatars wearing a micro-mini dress or just a harness. Forget about them. Where is the ***** line?

Lets start with jeans. Is it because the jeans are too tight? Is it because they’re ripped? To me those are average women’s clothes and I see them everywhere! I don’t see anything *****ty about tight fitting jeans, same applies to pants.

Let’s move on to skirts. Remember, throw a micro mini. What’s the appropriate length? Knee? Past the knee? I see various lengths all the time....everywhere.

Dress? It’s similar to a skirt. Current styles are form fitting, some times they have cut outs on the sides but not always. Sometimes they look like this 

I don’t see what’s bad about that and I see things like that everywhere. All. The. Time.

See where I’m going with this?

So where to shop? You can find stuff at events, but it’s better to shop in main stores. Someone already mentioned Blueberry, but there’s also Just Because and they’re on the same sim. Tetra....CoCo....there’s lots and they’re popular stores.

This may be considered a little bit of a cheeky answer, but try to stay away from stores with names like smutcoochie and ‘howear.

Its really that simple.

That kind of dress, yes. With a few exceptions, the ones I come across tend to be a good bit shorter and have a lot more of the breasts exposed. Speaking for myself (and to some extent for a friend), I like dresses which are long enough to cover my buttocks at least. A bit longer would be better but above knee is fine. Something I would have been comfortable wearing in public when I was younger.

Recently, I'm seeing cropped sweaters which don't show under-boob. Always having my belly on display would get old, but it's better than the old style of cropped sweater which stopped not far below the nipples. I understand how crop tops avoid mesh clipping, which makes them a useful style.

Each of my avs has an alright enough pair of jeans, more isn't a priority. Skin-tight, ripped jeans, leggings, those aren't necessarily *****, but they aren't really my thing. Tried on a pair of skin tight ones recently that I liked the waist on, it was higher and no butt crack, but the legs were so tight you might as well be wearing system. I'm not clever enough fashion-wise to find a top which suits that kind of silhouette. Especially when I'd rather not have as much breast on display as the norm in tops has been since fitted mesh for mesh bodies caught on.

Any suggestions on flat shoes? My plan to make some for myself hasn't come to pass because of poor health.

And to those giving advice, please be kind. I'm not stupid but my health is lousy enough that every minute I spend shopping is less time and energy I have for friends. I am truly not up to devoting hours to it and my "girl stuff" skills are as lacking in SL as they are in RL.

I'll look through the stores suggested. Thank you to those who took the time. Not a fan of Blueberry though, the fabrics on the solid-coloured singles tend to be a bit bland and the fatpacks to get the patterned ones are more than I can really justify given my limited income.

Edited January 20, 2020 by Bitsy Buccaneer

[hectic1]

Hello everybody, just my 2 cents...

In my experience both as a merchant and as a consumer, anyone can find pretty much anything in SL these days, and since a long time really.

A search on Marketplace for example, more often than not, can get you to what you are looking for in less than 10-15 minutes. Especially if a) you set the "Show Results" filter to 96 instead of the default 20, and b) you use AND and OR among your search keywords. Seriously, there is NO lack of any style at all! Usually there are way more styles than we ever thought existed at all lol

I don't mean to sound harsh, but if someone REALLY has trouble finding something as common as non-revealing clothing, then i think the first thing to do is asking themselves what they're doing wrong (before blaming it on the merchants, the Lab, or anyone else *giggles*).

As for quality/skin poking/piece matching/etc issues, the vast majority of merchants offer demos. If you buy without try, then it's on you again,. We do try our clothing before buying them in RL, right? And not every new buy plays well with every older piece of clothing we have in our closet, or we'll buy in the future either.

Regarding styles, and "tagging" clothing and people etc, I can only speak for myself but I can make a point I guess. There are times I feel like being totally s-l-u-t-t-y, and there are times I feel like being the most elegant in the room, and there are times I feel like being the most classy one in the ballroom, and there are times I feel like being seducing someone in darn revealing clothes or lingerie, and there are times I feel like just throwing on a hair tie, tee, jeans, & sneakers, and there are times I feel like being someone noone notices (well, that one not really hahahah) and so on. So, what am I really? A dirty ho, a ballroom diva, a tired wife, a sensual mistress? Is there just 1 shop or even just a dozen shops I should only buy from? And I haven't event touched the hair, shoes, makeup topics lol, Nor Roleplaying, this is SL after all.

Anyhoo, what I am trying to say I guess is that imo most people have more than 1 or 2 styles anyway, and the norm when shopping is to look for what you are after regardless of what other product the store sells (it could be selling dildos too for crying outloud, who cares?... I just have to have that dress they also sell or I am after).

Okeis now it seems more like 20 dollars than just 2 cents LMAO (sorry for the... essay *laughs*)

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by hectic1
typos