Illusions

The question came up recently as to why I am not included in the incredibly popular and very time-saving syndicate blog Fashion World of SL. Most bloggers who are members get a lot of traffic, because it gathers up the myriad designer and fashionista blogs all into one convenient location, so there's no need to open up 25 browser tabs, or get yourself an RSS reader just to make it through your blog roll. Well, there's a very simple answer why... Because I can't select which entries go through. For your own fashionable sake I have not unleashed the torrent upon the populous that would be my daily words! I update every day, and it'd practically become My Blog: The Return, with a bigger budget, more interludes and guest stars.

But... what I do say might be nice for you guys to know, because you enjoy my blathering and the little tidbits of news that might spring up and effect you and the speed with which you can get your hot little hands on the Pretties. Since you guys know you like reading my babble, I will keep writing it :)

A couple months back, I divulged in a couple of friends that I had a couple of dreams, a couple of aspirations.. a short list of landmarks that I wanted to reach as a Second Life content creator. These were things that I thought really put you on the map, showed you were a serious professional and put you into the mainstream of the fashion savvy, even if you catered to a niche as I do.

Here are the landmarks I felt at the time I needed to reach for, work towards, and aspire to, in ascending order:

1) Get Blogged - Absolutely number one, because it's the first one I needed to be introduced to the fashion world and get my name out there. I submitted my items tenaciously to Linden Lifestyles. Like most designers, I've come an incredibly long way from the items that were featured in that review, but if it weren't for them, I wouldn't have gotten the sort of encouragement I needed to actually start taking my business seriously. Getting blogged put my store on the map, even if it was only a street name and not a city.

2) Get Interviewed - I told my good friends that this in particular was something that I really wanted... I don't know, maybe it was my chance to pretend I was on The Tonight Show, or maybe fill out a survey that people would actually read the answers to. I just absolutely adore answering questions, doesn't necessarily matter what they're about, but it's just an enormous bonus if they're about something I love, like my work. I talk about my work endlessly to anyone that will listen... as... er... you well know.

The wonderful and ever encouraging Queenie Extraordinaire can say she was the first one to ever interview me; I'll be featured in the next issue of the Metaverse Messenger! Queenie, from way back, has always slipped my items into her blogging in a most flatteringly casual way, so that even when I felt like a very teeny fish in a big pond of publicity she would make me feel a bit more like a salmon.

3) Have a major, Non-Friend Designer Feature your Design in a Product Shot - Ok yes this one sounds a little bit too specific, and maybe something only I would want from all the things I could have. But I would be out shopping, like ya do, and there would be these pieces of jewelry that would just appear again and again in vendor pictures. A certain hat, or a hairstyle, that would circulate around the designers and fashion community. I wanted one of those items to be mine. I think like calls to like, and I have ended up being lucky enough to have a large percentage of my friends be fellow content creators... so having a designer whose work I adore and who isn't a close friend has become a rarity! A lot of these friends and I have a sort of free exchange, where we trade items, bounce ideas off of each other, give critiques and also end up using these items quite a bit in our vendor shots. This is why my dear beloved Munchflower didn't count for this, we're just too cuddly XD

So when Nicky Ree nabbed Gracile, and featured it in her absolutely perfectly synchronized release of her Swan Dream gowns, I had finally reached a goal that I had been quietly dreaming of for months. Nicky Ree is one of my all time favorite clothing designers, and I think she is definitely the designer of formal wear on Second Life... and while we've met we've just never really clicked into the "omg, you're awesome, flisted/IMolested" mindset. Being told that she was using my hat for her pictures was like... "oh gosh it's finally happened".

So you see? Dreams can come true ♥ ☺
4) Get Featured in Second Style - ......>.>