Fashion in Second Life
FASHION IN SECOND LIFE
The Fashion Runway with an International Audience
"We're in the virtual world because we're passionate about design – of products, places, and ideas." – Herman Miller
"I get inspired by pushing boundaries and this is one of those opportunities to experiment and learn." – Giorgio Armani on Second Life
Fashion enthusiasts of all kinds have found a new platform for creative and entrepreneurial expression in Second Life. Designers, models, photographers, agents, and marketers use the Second Life platform to develop exciting new work and expand their audience.
Designers
Second Life designers create a booming trade in fashion and decor. Looking to add style and personality to their avatars, Residents flock to inworld stores and buy clothes, hair, avatar skins and all the accessories to suit any tastes from casual to counterculture to couture. Designers get unique effects by uploading their own textures and manipulating hundreds of appearance settings built in to the Second Life creative tools set. Creating virtual goods has turned amateurs into professionals and resulted in real income for some designers. Their stories and more are reported with panache in Second Life fashion blogs and magazines like Second Style http://www.secondstyle.com/ and Linden Life Styles http://lindenlifestyles.com/.
Creative Tools
Built-in, easy to use creative tools give every Resident the power to change the world. Professionals and beginners designers alike can quickly learn to make anything from hairstyles to shopping malls, fashion photo galleries to elegant virtual runways. Second Life offers an environment unlike any other, merging many of the best qualities of the Web, online games, social networking, user-generated content, creativity applications and telecommunications technologies. Residents also benefit from these tools and features:
Build & Script
Residents use simple 3-D modeling tools embedded in the Second Life platform to create clothes, fashion accessories, buildings, landscapes, sculptures and whatever else they can imagine, and they can animate objects and avatars using the built-in scripting language. Because everything happens in real time, creative work can be highly collaborative.
Images & Textures
It's easy to convert digital photos and designs from popular graphics applications into a Second Life-compatible format and import them to the Second Life servers. All images can be applied as "textures" to objects and avatars for an infinite variety of creative results.
Intellectual Property Rights
Linden Lab, the makers of Second Life, decided in 2003 to break away from industry standards and allow Residents to have intellectual property rights over what they create inworld. Built-in features allow creators to label work as their own and flag it with the level of copy permissions they want to assert over their work, e.g., all-rights reserved or freely modifiable and transferable. You own your work, so you can start your virtual brand with confidence.
Micropayment System
Since they own the rights to their work, Residents can sell and trade their objects, scripts, and animations for pleasure or profit. The inworld micropayment system (Linden Dollars) allows Residents to easily pay other avatars for products, services and entertainment. Similarly, the audience at a concert or fashion show can pay a "tip jar," or event organizers can charge for admission. Some talented Residents have been able to quit their day job and live off what they make selling their goods and services in Second Life. There has never been a better time to start the fashion boutique you've been fantasizing about.
Second Life offers professionals and amateurs alike a vast canvas for imaginative expression. Fashionistas from around the globe have already made their mark on the virtual world, and the wonders have only just begun.