You’ll know, if you’ve followed either SL-FKK or SL Naturist, that we do like to go shopping for clothes and accessories that may complement a naturist environment.

I know that I do check the blogs regularly for what’s new and exciting.

The answer, for me, is ‘not a lot’. I’ve all the jeans, bikinis, lingerie I’ll ever need in SL, and the clothes eventually begin to look very much the same.

When I started in SL there was greater variety in the clothes available, as designers would try to reflect clothing from different cultures. As time has gone on ‘the rest of the world’ has seemingly been squeezed out by a European/American brand of ‘couture’ (as have the various sims available…Islam seems to have been erased entirely from SL, for example. I’ve been looking tonight in respect of research for a future post, and find there’s one mosque in all of SL, and that built by non-Muslims!).

Aren’t clothes designers missing a trick here? Surely there’s enough regional differences in dress codes to allow people to embrace different clothing styles for SL and offer something entirely different. Some examples of traditional dress are offered on this page.

‘But there’s not really any profit in what’s going to be a limited number of sales’, designers might say. Really? It seems to me that elements of different clothing styles can be adapted for other use in SL.

For example, my friend Omar pointed me in the direction of a shop called 10sai, which is offering a free outfit which I guess is Afghan in intent (or at least from that area of Asia).

Here he is wearing the free (L$0, no group join fee) outfit.

I like it because it’s different, it’s non-western. I also like it because there’s one element of it I can adopt for a naturist setting…

I’m sure it was never intended to be used in such a manner, that of ‘the semi-permanent towel naturists sling over their shoulder’, but it’s necessary to ‘think outside the box’.

Omar agreed! 🙂

Well, he is a SL naturist, and I met him some years ago at, I think, Su Casa Naturist. He’s not from a country where naturism is possible, officially at least, and so he uses SL as a ‘second best’, to mix with others of a like-mind.

Again, this is feeding into my ‘nudity in different societies’ research, which we’ll address soon.

Consider the following…

I saw this on a pinterest board, of traditional costumes from around the world. The dress, the necklace, the hair, the headscarf, even the paint on the woman’s face (tattoo layer, anyone?) are all ripe for designers to use and broaden the scope of their work, and again this dress could be used in a variety of SL settings, not just within and African sim or on an African styled avatar.

So why not go to it, SL designers, and excite sometimes jaded palettes with the wonderful variety of clothing the real world has to offer?

Ella

There’s a story floating around the media about the death of Pakistani celebrity Qandeel Baloch at the hands of her brother in an ‘honour killing‘.

That is, a family member kills another because they believe the victim has dishonoured the family name.

Qandeel Baloch

Miss Baloch, aged 26, had become known as ‘Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian’. No lurid sex tape, no ridiculous nude selfies, of course, but some ‘racy’ (in the context of Pakistani society) photos and and a talent for self-publicity that ran counter to the country’s deeply patriarchal society.

She is not the first Pakistani to taunt conservative patriarchs, Veena Malik previously becoming embroiled in such ‘scandals’, and indeed Ms. Malik’s exploits were one of the first stories I covered on ‘SL Naturist’ away back in 2011!

Ms Malik appears to have got married in the interim, had a couple of children and, probably for her own safety, moved away from Pakistan.

Veena Malik

If anything, Ms. Malik was possibly more outrageous in her pushing of the boundaries, as with her infamous photoshoot in which she posed with a grenade and the letters ‘ISI’ (the Pakistani security services) drawn on her arm.

While this story isn’t directly ‘naturist’, it demonstrates how far behind some countries are in their acceptance of women as equal citizens, how the patriarchy fear a strong woman’s capability to have any sort of power  or independence (notwithstanding the fact that Pakistan previously elected Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister, with her subsequent assassination believed by some to have been ordered by then President Musharraf).

Benazir Bhutto

In many parts of the world, women continue to be ‘a threat’ to some societies and cultures, and the thought of a naked women -or a woman using her nudity- is anathema, with women always, always, always being subjected to lesser freedoms than the male of the species. It’s not even an eastern/Muslim/Hindu -don’t forget that the rape of young Indian women or tourists is a recurring theme in that part of the world– developing world phenomenon. While the west may be a little more enlightened than to indulge in ‘honour killings’, never forget that top freedom is anathema to many parts of the west, and nudity on social media is a taboo, while the same social media are content to permit depictions of medieval practice, such as beheadings.

All of this is filtering into the articles I’m currently working on, and it seems that parts of these now very long posts will have to be filtered off into standalone posts to ensure that the message isn’t lost.

Ella

It’s usually around about the New Year that I will take a look at my avatar and make a change or two, usually subtle ones. I don’t radically overhaul my avatar, but maybe there’s a slight shift in hair colouring, new glasses, the very same thing I’d be doing in real life.

Of course, any of us can overhaul our avatars at any time, and it can be unexpected things that see us seeking change.

One example is my friend Liz, who hasn’t been one for spending huge amounts of cash in her Second Life, being something of a scavenger when it comes to change.

Here’s Liz, sporting free hair, skin, clothes and tattoos (although they aren’t visible in this photo).

And here she is without clothes, sporting freebie tattoos which certainly look extremely dated.

I’ve not been able to get into the Hair Fair yet (‘sim full’ is the message I’ve got so far, not unusual for the first few days of this fabulous annual event).

Liz has managed to get in and her eye was immediately grabbed by a free gift at the Tomboi display, a hairstyle called ‘Glenn’, which she loved, as she says it gives her more of a, well, tomboy look.

It was this one item that convinced her to upgrade her jaded look, stopping off at Artisanna tattoos to join their free group, grab some free group gifts, and re-invent.

The tattoo she is wearing is called ‘Milky Way’. She suggests that other changes will now follow and, more importantly, she feels the new look has reinvigorated her Second Life. I suppose the lesson is that if you are feeling a little jaded, a new look, at any time, will help add a little extra something to your SL.

Ella