Styling your Secondlife with Firehorse

This week I styled a male av for L$500 from www.SLexchange.com.
Now the process of signing up is basically similar to last weeks signing up at www.onrez.com, go to the website, fill in the details, go to the email address you registered with to get your activation code, find a terminal in world (easier because the site has a massive list of terminals for you to tp to), activate your account and pay the terminal – now the money you deposited is available for use on the SLexchange site.
Personally I didn’t find SLexchange particularly easy to use, the search doesn’t seem very refined, and the site feel didn’t suit me. In the past I have had problems with SLexchange – or to be accurate, the people who sell on there – because of the ability to sell second hand goods I have seen freebies being sold for quite large amounts of money and I have, in the past been ripped off – the item I’ve bought being nothing like the description. To be fair this can happen even in world or on any other out of world shopping site and there are thousands of users who use SLexchange who have never had a problem. My other small niggle is that for some reason SLexchange doesn’t allow you to gift freebies. Right – on to the styling.

The first purchase was a Redford skin from Sane Krasins for L$40. Now this was a most pleasant surprise – this is actually a good skin, it has good facial detail and on the whole good body detail – the back of the skin looks a little odd and the hands lace any refinement. But having said that my guinea pig commented that this skin was at least as good if not better than the skin he regularly wears.
The next thing was the JPC Animation Overrider for men, sold by Jhary Priestly for L$49. If I were kind I’d say nothing – after all – you can’t have high expectations of an L$49 AO – but I am not kind and seeing how many wonderful cheap (and free) AO’s are available for women I had hoped that this would at least be an improvement on the duck walk. It wasn’t – not unless you want to look like a Thunder Birds puppet. It was so bad that my guinea pig was reluctant to put it on even to show me – he’d tried it at home and caused an outbreak of rather unkind laughter.
The next item was hair – and searching for cheap mens hair on SLexchange made my eyes bleed – I was a dozen pages in before I got past the various free demos – but for you dear reader, I persisted. As a fashion addict I know how much bad hair there is out there, as a mens stylist I know how rare good mens hair can seem so imagine my delight when low expectations were more then surpassed. I bought Cabelo Renegade from Lasher Oh for L$39. This is a lovely hair, well textured, well coloured and with a refreshing, young, devil-may-care feel. A bargain indeed – I have seen much, much worse mens hair for a lot more money – my only caveat is that it may need resizing to fit you properly – if this hair came in a choice of sized it would be perfect.
On to the clothes, and if clothes maketh the man, then we might be struggling but – hey – I love a challenge.
My first purchase was “man belted pants in brown” For L$100 from Patoula Yao.
They have some nice details, they aren’t outstanding but they are reasonable and for everyday wear they fit the bill.
Next was the Empire Dark Collar Shirt from Arron Dreadlow for L$30. This shirt is a bit of a must have for the price. The only flaw is it is too short if it isn’t changed so you walk around with a bare belly button – not wonderful.
My next purchase was a pair of Urban Shoes from Slworld Boa for L$10 – these are unlaced. Very well made, very well textured and a real bargain if the style suits you (the mother in me wanted to shout at my poor guinea pig to do his laces up and put his shoes on properly – I am just not hip and trendy!).
The next purchase was the *Karizma* Black Tuxedo, by Karmen Harris for L$125. This was a disappointment. The front of the jacket is beautifully detailed, but the back has an unfinished look and the trousers have no detail.
To go with the tuxedo I bought a pair of **MQ sculpted Men shoe black by Mira Questi for L$51. These were a reasonable attempt, sculpted shoes aren’t easy to make and although a brave attempt I couldn’t recommend these.
Next I ventured into swimwear. I bought a pair of FD Swim Trunks from Frisco Laguna for L$30. These were great – a good design that most men would be more than happy to wear on the beach – an unqualified success.
To finish the look I opted for a pair of sunglasses with a black frame from Zoltan Beck for L$10. These are well made and my only gripe is the lens are clear but never the less quite fetching, if a little bookish.
To conclude, this experiment was not a total success and I couldn’t, in good faith recommend anyone tries this for themselves. If you know what you want, or want to get ideas to shop for in world then SLexchange is a great tool, and I dare say we would have been more successful if we’d been doing the same experiment for a female avatar, but good menswear is hard to find at the best of times, and SLexchange (or any off world shopping site) probably isn’t the best place to try to get your look together.
Much thanks to Mr Neuron Bandit, my guinea pig for this article who was a good sport and didn’t object to anything I made him wear (except the AO).