ICING Sequined Starlet, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I think I have about every piece that Miko Omegamu from ICING has in her shop. Maybe I missed one or two pieces, but I think I have pretty much the whole inventory covered. Yes, I’m a fan. And this sequined dress caught my eye for the season. What a perfect little cocktail dress. It has feathers, it has sequins, it has a fantastic butt hugging skirt and a delicious cleavage. What does a girl want more? Well, some stunning pearls, in this case the Margaux from Muse, some lovely satin gloves from Fleur (the white ones were a sim opening freebie and are not available in the shop, but do go for the other colours!) and some elegant high heels like Storm Schmooz’ Desir Noir (with matching seamed thigh highs). The clutch was a 2007 RFL special from Muse and is not available any longer.

The shape (shameless self promotion) is a work in progress and I really like how this voluptuous frame is coming along and how well it works with almost every skin in my inventory. I’m wearing it here with Jadzia Sol from The Abyss and the -excusez the pop language- absolutely friggin’awesome L$ 30 (no typo) No 37 hair from W&Y (oh, and that is for L$ 30 for 4 colours)

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Normally, I don’t use my blog for RL related items, let alone political issues, but I strongly feel this should at least have your attention. With thanks to Moggs Oceanlane for drawing my attention to this on Plurk, and Harper Beresford for letting me steal her blogpost:

Eshi Otawara is still pending notification about her status in the US.
While recent news has been positive for her, things are not as good for all
widows of American citizens.

Brent Renison is a lawyer fighting the Widow Penalty in the US. Eshi
contacted Brent a few months ago after listening to a podcast both Crap Mariner and

I [Harper Beresford] told her about, and he agreed to help her with her case. At
the same time, Eshi met my friend Mike in SL. Mike also contacted Brent, and
they put together a case for Eshi.

Mike forwarded this letter to me and asked me to forward it on behalf of
Eshi and the other widows who have been unfairly penalized because their
American spouses died before they were able to get a fair hearing.

Please join us in assisting Brent and Eshi in this cause. Click through to
the website, read about, consider if it is something you support, and contact
your legislator.

And Brent’s e-mail:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From: Brent Renison
Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 3:30 PM
To: brent@ssad.org

Subject: 60 Minutes Exposes Widow Penalty – from Brent Renison

Hello,

I promised to let everyone know when I would appear on CBS 60 Minutes. The time has come. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Bob Simon, the most honored journalist in international reporting, will expose the “Widow Penalty” to the nation this Sunday night, November 23rd on CBS 60 Minutes.

America is deporting widows of American citizens automatically and without appeal when their spouse dies during bureaucratic processing of the green card application. My sincerest desire is that, after watching the broadcast, Monday morning you will do something about this terrible practice. There are a number of ways you can help to end the widow penalty.

The most important is to tell your elected officials that a change must occur in the abysmal way that we treat widows of American citizens. Whether you effect a change in the way the current or future Administration handles the cases, or push through a legislative amendment signed by the President, this practice must stop. Click on the box to find out how you can help.

Please be a part of that change on Monday morning, and please forward this email to just one person whom you trust to do the right thing. Forward to more than one person at a time, and accountability is lost – people will delete the email, just as you might delete mine.

Brent Renison

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Cuteribbon, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Cuteribbon is by far the cutest dress I have seen in a long time. It’s from Acid and yet it’s so sweet (sue me for the pun). Acid is a group of Korean creators and their shop it most definitely worth a visit. Clothes for men and women, a nice selection of purses and some shoes that I absolutely need to look into, as well as skins and a few hairs.

Speaking of which, this hair is Dana, from Zero Style. The other week I ranted about the use of Renderosity hair on in world advertising, but here Rei Gully has made similar textures and actually built hair with it. And it has quite a lot of alpha, but in this case the cute factor is huge.

The shoes are from Shiny Things (Tuli pumps) and the bracelet and matching earrings are from Luc (Athena) the glasses are Role Optic (Clara) and the skin is from PXL Creations (Linda)

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LOTD081117, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I know this is for the boys, but when Aoharu released this luscious purple/dark red striped suit, I just had to have it. It takes some prim editing, but it’s another perfect outfit to match with the Dela Jape Stern boots, that I’m still smitten with. I was tempted to wear the Tumbled Stone necklace from Paper Couture with it, but I ended up colouring the frilly collar from Vette’s Boutique, because of the dandy twist. I did however wear the earrings of said set. The hair is BettiePage Voyager’s Autumn natural chignon in cocoa, and the skin is the new Alice, from Free Speerit.

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LBD time, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

With the holidays coming soon now, I thought I’d share some of my favourite little black dresses with you. Always stylish, never over or under dressed, is it the perfect party dress.

From left to right:
ICING’s Femme Noir is simply stunning. Wear it as simple or as glammed up as you like, you can’t go wrong… OK, you can.. glam it up with too much accessories and you’ll look like a christmas tree. One of the mistakes I see most often when people accessorize, is that they wear everything that comes with a bijou set. So not only the earrings and/or the necklace, but also the bracelets for both arms, the ring, the… well the everything. Just. Don’t. I picked the Florina necklace from Shiny Things for this set, and the matching bangles. The black patent belt from Fleur just adds a bit of spice. I chose the more outsdpoken Incanti shoes from Adam ‘n Eve to complete this outfit, they are covered with the tiniest multi coloured gems. The skin is MMS‘ Johannesburg, and the hair is Wild Orchid, from Exile.

The awesome Blame dress from Baiastice doesn’t need much to make you the star of the party. I wear it with the black Mary Jane sandals from Stiletto Moody and the Athena black crystal necklace and earrings from Luc fashion Jewelry. The skin is my favourite Allure from Fleur, Kitten 1 in Cinammon and the hair is Laine chestnut from ETD.

Next is one of the latest from Mimikri, Ma Chere. I just love the poofy skirt (there is also a long version, but that makes this less of a Little Black Dress). I paired it with the rather chuncky Dela Calla necklace and earrings and the lovely glamour heels from Redgrave. The skin is PXL Creations’ Linda in tan, with dark lips and natural eyes and the hair is the loose bun from Maitreya.

Far right is the scandalous Affair slip dress from Digit Darkes, which iI chose to wear with Digit’s Dictator shrug and Sheer‘s fish net tights. The shoes are from Storm Schmooz, Desir Noir, and the jewelry is the latest from Icon. The creamy pale skin is The Obscene Ciel Quartz Deity and the hair is from MMS, Sill in beach blond.

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Sometimes I don’t get what the fuzz is about. Like in this case. The designer of these outfits, Ziamela Loon of Jador, apparently is the next big thing in SL fashion industry… She was a top 5 nominee in the Merovingi Fashion Awards 2008 (what, who?), featured on SLCN.tv, mentioned on many a blog and in various SL magazines, and she’ll be featured in this Saturday’s Runway Best of 2008 Couture Revue.

Am I crazy or am I seeing bad textures and weird prims on my untouched (except for copy/pasting and resizing them) photos? Is it just me, or is the gold “Petal” outfit having prims sticking out of my bare back and shoulders like I’m some freak sci-fi humanoid? Do I need sunglasses or it is actual full force bling on my belt? And what is with the yellow prim thingy (full of bling, who needs face lamps) sticking out of my throat? Or the random green prims on what is supposed to be gold? I think I need to report myself to The Diva for even wearing this in the seclusion of my studio for the photos of this blog post. *sighs*

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Someone asked me the other day if I had a LM to Renderosity Hair. She’s fairly noobish and she saw so many of this creator’s hair on the various Flickr streams and in ads in a lot of shops. I chuckled and explained her that it is a set of images one buys from Renderosity.com to use in SL or other artwork, but that it was not hair that is available in SL to actually wear on your avatar.

Last year, I remember being utterly frustrated after having seen a photo of Ginny for a release at Last Call with amazing curly hair that vaguely reminded me of Analog Dog, but was like 100% better than the hair being in the shops, and we had a great laugh when I finally got hold of her and I was told that it was indeed Analog Dog hair, but heavily modded in Photoshop… grrrr… It still looked like it could be available in an SL shop though. Like a fool I had been TP-ing all day hoping to find that pretty hair somewhere. So I guess I can’t blame my newbie friend for doing the same.

It made me think though. Renderosity hair is making its way fast into SL, in ads and vendor shots, and everyone and their mother throwing it on their avies in photoshop for Flickr and Koinup and such. To be honest, it is a development that I don’t like. I almost consider it a bill of incapacity towards our hair makers, like their efforts are sub par to the brushes created for photoshop art. The first few time that I saw it, I was still, wow.. nice… but I’m growing tired of it quickly and I wish that the talented photographers of SL would be better patrons to the talented hair designers around especially when they do commercial work for SL content creators….. /rant off

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