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LOTD090811, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I picked Boom’s summer sarong in tan as the base for today’s look. I decided to leave the sash on the hip in my inventory as it makes the sarong more dressy, and that’s not the look that I wanted to achieve today. I’m wearing it with Tuli’s worn capri’s and Intimizzio’s (Armidi)  Chiara di Luna in black on the shirt and underpants layer. HUZ’ Ugra tattoo felt just right to wear with this. For the accesories I went with good ole Shiny Things stuff. The Zeyla necklace and the Nico bracelet, because they have this chunky, somewhat tribal look that I wanted.

I’m still wearing Lily, the new skin at Exodi from my review earlier today, and the hair is Truth’s Ingrid in Chocolate.

Lily Was Here

Well, she is, not was… but the name of this skin triggered some musical memories: Dave Stewart & Candy Dulfer

It’s fun to follow a creator in their new ventures, especially when they are talented like Ms Ryker Beck from Exodi.  Ever since she has created her first skin a couple of months ago, she’s been a force to reckon with, and with the realisation of Lily, her latest, I think it’s fair to say that she has deserved a place between the more seasoned skinners of SL.

Whereas a lot of people, who also do well in retail, and are blogged frequently, for me remain mediocre and produce skin with a lot of flaws and issues (but the face is cute, so who cares that the body is full of seams and the textures don’t match and the make up is a tad smudged and blotchy, right?) Ryker has been working her ass off to make every skin better, ironing out the things that she felt could be done better in her previous skins, and give every new skin which she creates a character of its own. Pooping rainbows much? Well, I think it’s some well earned praise for someone who’s working hard, and has made huge steps in the development of her product.

Lily is a beautiful skin, combining realism with the smoothness of a hand drawn skin. There probably will be some photosourcing in Lily, but it’s very well blended and never hard or ugly. Lily comes in 4 skintones, like shown on the above picture, and 8 different make ups… or should I say 16, as every make up has a faded version included in the pack as well?  Also, Ryker is known to make pretty dark eyebrows, but for the more fair haeded she includes a light brow version as well. Anyway, they are beautiful,  and they’re also a good deal. Retailing at 800L$ for a single skin (4 really, since you get the regular and the faded make up, in the dark and light eyebrow version) it’s really value for money and the fatpack for 5000 L$ for all 8 make ups in a skintone equals L$ 625 for a single skin.

Bootie shot after the cut, because Lily has a cute bum, and because this skin is about more than just the face! Continue Reading »

I’ll be on Fabulous Fashion Accesories Spotlight with Angie Mornington tonight!!! I’ve picked a couple of my fave, no clothes designers, to feature on the show, and I’m so looking forward to it.

If you want to come cheer me and London Dailey, the creator of Pink Outfitters, Cherry, Sugar & Spice and Chinese Takeout,  and this week’s featured designer, then join us at  the studio at 5:30 pm slt, or watch Watch Fabulous Fashion TV Live here: http://archive.treet.tv/programs/fabulous-fashion.

Hope to see you tonight!!!!

ssus-photo-competition-for-web-small

She’s So Unusual Shoes feels it is time to celebrate and hosts a photography competition with the sizzling theme ‘Unusual Summer’.

Rowan has put on her party hat and offers very exciting outrageous prices! She asked me to be one of the judges, so hey… gimme a hard time picking the winner, will ya!

THE RULES

– Your picture must focus on She’s So Unusual Shoes and/or other products from She’s So Unusual;
– Your picture must fit within the theme ‘Unusual Summer’
– Your picture may feature none, 1, 2 or a 100 persons;
– Creativity and originality are highly appreciated;
– Post-processing (in Photoshop or any software of your choice) is allowed;
– Maximum 3 entries per person;
– Pictures must be posted in the She’s So Unusual Shoes group on Flickr;
– Pictures must be tagged “She’s So Unusual Shoes Photography Competition Summer 2009”. (Please make sure you tag it with the quotation marks so the tag stays one tag);
-Pictures must fall within the ‘safe’ restrictions of Flickr;
-You agree your picture will be possibly used for several marketing outlets, credits will be given.
-Though the selection for men is smaller, we do encourage you blokes to participate as well!

The contest runs till August 9, 12am PDT. Any submissions after that are not accepted in the contest.

On August 16 we will announce the winners in the flickr group, on the SSUS blog and the inworld groups.

THE PRIZES

The Grand Winner:
– A gift certificate of 1000 L$ to be spend at She’s So Unusual Shoes
– 1 pair of shoes for each contestant in this competition*

Second Place
– A gift certificate of 750 L$ to be spend at She’s So Unusual Shoes
– a $500L Gift Cert to Tea Lane

Third Place
– A gift certificate of 500 L$ to be spend at She’s So Unusual Shoes
– A $300L Gift Cert to Tea Lane

*A minimum of 20, a maximum of 150 pairs of shoes. Count is by individual contestants, not submissions.

THE JURY

The competition will be judged by:

Rowan Carroll – Owner and Designer of SSUS
Grazia Horwitz – Blogger, Stylist graziasl.com (Yay… that’s me 🙂 )
Miskat Qinan – Photographer, Artist and builder of the store miskatqinan.com

Hey! You noticed the winner gets as many shoes as there are contestants?
Better get your friends involved!

If you don’t have shoes just yet from SSUS (shame on you!), visit the store and get a fab pair for as little as 95L

fri.day soon

fri.day soon, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Oooooh… such speculations… I’ve heard many… who are the people behind Fri.day??? It is the question of the week and of course I do have my own idea about the creative forces behind this brand, but, does it really matter? If a content creator, or a group of creators, decide(s) to startup a new brand, under an alt, breaking free from their previous image and conventions, or not, whatever pleases them… should it all keep us captive for days? I don’t think so, people. I’ve heard the wildest assumptions, culminating in the inevitable “it’s Ginny, I know for sure” . For me counts what I see though, and what I see is original and well made content. Basics for now, but with obvious feeling for style and a knack for crisp textures.

I’d like to congratulate the fri.day crew with what is already looking like going to be a very succesful launch of their brand, and can only express my hope that they will not neglect their original SL projects.

Clothes and hair by Fri.day, Accesoires: Scarf left by Très Blah, coin necklace by Armidi. Scarf right by Sey, belt by Nylon Outfitters. Skin Anne by KA Designs.

LOTD090803, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

A quick look today, equestrian inspired, since I love the elegance of that attire. I’m wearing Truth’s 2nd hand jacket (duck egg) with Michami’s Laila skinny pants and sheer shirt in cream. Not visible, but perfect to go with this are Tesla’s bronze Kensington boots. I’m also wearing Zaara’s latest addition to her awesome jewelry collection, the Sarayi wood hoops.

I have never worn KA skins before, but this fair Charlize looks cute on me I think. The blue manicure which matches the jacket perfectly is from PXL Creations and the black Faye hair is from Mirone.

LOTD090802, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Black and grey are always in style, and so are pencil skirts. Can’t go wrong. I’m wearing Artilleri’s Simplicity black pencil skirt with Whippet & Buck’s Taupe grey Hykova buttoned tank top today. The large belt is from Maiiki’s Strapless & Patent. The impossibly high heeled, lolita-ish Highschool shoes from N-core with tintable socks are perfect with this understated look. I’ve accesorised with one of my very oldest jewelry purchases, the Cameo & Sautoir set from Bong Fromage!, which, even though pre-sculptie, is still looking up to par to newer items. The cute clutch is from Adam ‘n Eve. Someone give Damen Gorilla an award for his sculpt work, or at least a bag of his favourite cookies! The man is so good!

I’m wearing Dutch Touch’s Dune Vamp tanned and Paper Couture’s Princess Heidi hair, which I modded to take the bun off and tinted the roses grey.

LOTD090801, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I was just pondering doing a nude colour look of the day and bought these creamy Mistral pumps at Adam ‘n Eve, when Twiggy Whippet of Whippet & Buck sent me their latest, a cute little frock called Haver in 8 yummy colour cominations. This one is Champagne and totally fits the defnition of nude colours! So that was element 2. While adorably cute as a frilly mini dress, I wanted to dress it up a little and did so with the bottoms of Michami’s beige Anouk Jump suit. The gorgeous necklace and earrings are the Anganasa set from Uzuri.

I’m wearing a natural blonde skin to go with it, Beauty T2 wild rose from Adam ‘n Eve and Truth’s latest addition to his obese hair inventory, Ashlynn, in dawn.

When Kira Paderborn sent me her first skins for testing and reviewing, I saw a nice one, but with still a lot of issues to work out. So instead of blogging them I drafted a notecard with my feed back, asked Kira if she’d appreciate receiving it and sent her my comments. And then I heard nothing, and thought I maybe had come across too harsh with my critiques. Until earlier today,  when Kira contacted me, telling that she had been working like 18 hours per day since her first one came out on a new skin, and that she thought she had pretty much adressed all the feed back that I had sent her… and OMG, the skin which for now goes by the name of Eva is so much better than the previous one! No more smudgy body parts, everything well blended, a mouth that is well defined and oh so kissable, just a few minor seams to smoothen out in the process of finishing the skin. I just had to take a photo of it to share on the blog. It is post processed, but not heavily photoshopped.

Big kudos for you, Kira… this one is going to be a stunner!!

NB: skin is not released yet, it is a beta and may change before its release.

UPDATE: I should have posted this before I went to sleep last night, but I was too tired. I have no idea what has happened, but   about 30 hours after I first discovered my inventory missing, it started to load, and load, and load… and as far as I can see, everything is back now. I have not yet received a response on my second ticket filed with LL, so I have no clue if it is something they have done, or that my SL has just been SEVERELY f*ckd up over the last day or two.

Anyway, I’m insanely happy that it’s all back. I did get myself a Bright Inventory back up system which  Miskat recommended to me and will be boxing and storing stuff over the next few days (both in world and in inventory)

As for my incredible sweet and supportive friends and others who cared enough to IM me or contact me otherwise with kind words, good advice or just a listening ear… you guys really rock my socks. Thank you so much for your support!

LOTD090724, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Yup, that’s right… all my folders are empty. All but a few. There are no clothes (bye bye LE Dazzles, LE Last Call and well, really almost everything), no animations (all Sinewave dances, my 1000+ modeling poses except for the ones I had in a stand in world), no skins (including several customs) no scripts, no objects (not even the boxes I have been meticulously saving in case SL would eat an outfit or so)….Basically, anything that was not directly put into a system folder (including sub folders in system folders) has disappeared.

Yes, I’ve cleared my cache, both in world, and from my HD. Yes, I went to beta grid and tried loading my inventory there, yes, I’ve tried tp-ing to an empty sim, and then tried clearing cache again… and again. So I have filed a ticket with LL and hopefully… miraculously, they will be able to retrieve it. I’m sceptic though. I’ve suffered inventory loss before, when I was still pretty new in SL, and nothing ever was retrieved that time as well. Cross your fingers for me that this time is different.

So what does a fashionista do when her stuff is gone.. right… you are, for once in a SL, really happy with busineses like Armidi and *coughs* Stiletto Moody.  “But… Graz… why?” Will you be saying you saying, since it’s known that I’m not particularly fond of either one of them. Well, people, as much as I like hanging around in my Blowpop undies (that’s what I was wearing at the time I discovered that my stuff was gone) I don’t like to go out in them… and both Armidi and Stiletto Moody have *drumroll* RE-DELIVERY systems!!!

I own(ed) a few of SM’s earlier shoes and got them redelivered after I went there and clicked on the items that I knew were supposed to be in my inventory. And Shoparmidi.com has a history of items that you bought from Armidi, both in world and via the site and so I got some decent clothes back to put on. I wish more creators would invest in a system like that. I bet it will save them a lot of CS time, too, when  clients can just come and retrieve from the vendor the stuff that they bought and got lost (or misplaced and went missing).

Stylenotes: The hair is Truth’s Kristin (I know it almost sound like a conspiracy, but my Truth and Exile hair is stil all there), The skin is Dune Cocoa Natural from Dutch Touch (<3 Iki for resending it), The blouse is the Aufren white from Armidi. The belt is a group gift from Coco that I went back to pick up, and while I was there, I could not resist these black pinstripe slacks, which I never owned before (you know… no doubles in case LL for once DOES work a miracle and finds my stuff back). Not visible, but very happy with right now, are the black Mary Jane sandals from Stiletto Moody.

Cupcakes Enchanted

Mimi and Rosemary of Cupcakes have made another skin, Enchanted. She’s gorgeous. For now there are 10 make ups and a natural face and knowing them, more additions are in the making.

Unfortunately SL decided to eat my entire inventory but for a few items today, and Enchanted is gone… *cries*.

Boobies after the cut Continue Reading »

Dutch Touch: Dune

Dune, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Well, ofcourse I could write again what a great skin creator Iki Ikarus of Dutch Touch is, but I’d so be parroting myself by now. However, every skin Iki has made lately made me squee with joy. Dune is no different… look at those brows.. it gives such an intense look. Not to mention the rest of the gorgeous face, the shading of the nose and the suberb pouty lips. On the risk of boring you with my superlatives, I think you really should go and demo Dune.

(I know I’m all about the face this time, but that’s just because Iki’s bodies are ALWAYS flawless).

Good Morning

Good Morning, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

OK, guys… here’s your wake up call… do you really think we dress up in lacy lingerie for your pleasure? To be your bonbon? You’re wrong! We like to wear the cute sexy stuff, even if you won’t see it, because, you know… even when worn under the simplest of tees and our old trusted jeans and sneakers, that frilly, lacy thing will make us feel good!

Of course we like it to see you swallow when, while leaning in, making conversation over supper, you’ll see that promising trim of lace; that your jaw drops when we undress, or that your eyes sparkle at the idea of peeling the lingerie off later… but we are also perfectly girly happy wearing it while laying idly on our beds, reading magazines, or the latest best seller and listening to our favourite tunes. Mine lately being the good old “you’re so vain”… You probably think this post is about you… Well it’s not…. it’s about my favourite lingerie from Blowpop, Yvette. Currently Annyka Bekkers has 2 sets out, Jolene and Yvette and a 3rd on the way, but Yvette is my favourite. I love lace, and I also love panties that actually cover some of my bum. I’m just not much of a thong fan I suppose.

For a long time Camilla from Insolence was my undisputed queen of lingerie, but it looks like Annyka is up to give her serious competition. Thumbs up Annyka, people like you and Camilla raise the bar!!

Other need to knows: I’m wearing Tiny Bird’s Love Letter to Japan in wheat, 5th & Oxford’s Audrey medion fresh 4 and Icon’s BM bracelet. The furniture in the pic is from Miabella foxely, and the poses in the collage are from Dove Swanson’s latest Wonder Girls pose set.

LOTD090719, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

The geometrical dress from Couverture and the Mugiwara hair and hat from Kurotsubaki make the perfect look for a country girl. Wear this outfit with some nice boots, like the old laced boots from Shiny Things and you’re good for a day at the farm… well… for sitting on the fence at the farm…I’m also wearing Maitreya’s coin necklace and Curio’s april 2 skin with freckles.

LOTD090718, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I’d never wear a tutu in RL, if not on stage during a ballet performance (and the last one was over 22 years ago), but hey… this one from &Bean is totally cute (I did however disable the glow on the underskirt). It matches perfectly with the Peggy tanktop from Dela and Pig’s Ladies Like Flowers cardigan (mud). I’m also wearing the thigh high dark chocolate socks from Dela and J’s 3-way engineer boots in beige. The necklace is from Pdiddle.

I’m wearing 5th & Oxford’s Audrey medium Fresh 1 and SLink’s Frederique in medium ash.