Guest Submission Dakota Buck 2/4/08

So I had most of this written up back at the end of October and I've only just found it in my email drafts. I started the outfit with the serendipity shirt from Decoy. I love all of Annette Voight's work and the colour of this top is one of my favourites. The attention to detail and colour palette of basically everything in her store makes me tingle in all the right places. Nylon Pinkney's Sequin Heart Jeans are definitely my favourite jeans on the grid. There are a lot of good ones out there and, heck, these ones don't even have prim lower-leg attachments but they do have gorgeous hand-drawn texturing that curves them around the body and makes them seem like they're actually hugging your hips. To continue the Autumn-esque palette I added a crocheted shrug in dark brown from MG Fashion. Voluminous knit-wear has been rather en vogue of late so it's nice to see pieces like this filtering into Second Life.

I wanted to bring another colour into the outfit  with the accessories, teal looks fantastic with burnt orange so I added a wide belt from caLLie cLine to set off my Autumnal hues. More teal with the Tart Bangle Stack from Culture Vulture. Sometimes when wearing solid-coloured pieces, rather than patterns, I end up falling into the trap of monochromatic outfits so I think it's important not to shy away from accessories that bring in a few more colours (so long as they don't look horrid together of course). My shoes and necklace bring us back to the orange of the starting piece. I love the Feuille Naturelle necklaces from EARTHTONES Boutique the tiny sculpted leaves remind me of a pair of earrings my mum once gave me in real life. A further RL correlation is that I like to add a few understated pieces of jewelery so they don't over-power the statement items. For this outfit I added studs from the Journey set by Lucas Lameth and the black metal Stardrop Ring - also by Mr Lameth.

I thought a nice neutral lip colour would be best for this look so I chose Almond Sultry 1 from Tete a Pied's Vivant skin line. I love the smokey eye and you can definitely see Roslin Petion's RL make-up experience in the execution. I think Tilly Tokyo makes gorgeous hair and Slow Jamz 2007 combines my two favourite hair elements - it's short and it has a head-band. The perfection runs the risk of shorting out my brain. My eyes are from Miriel Enfield's fantastic realism collection. I think this set was a really neat idea - particularly for someone like me - because while it's nice to experiment with things that aren't possible in RL it's nice to see a natural look in the final product.

Shirt: Serendipity Shirt - Orange by Annette Voight of Decoy at Alhena 218, 156, 23.
Bolero: Crocheted Shrug - Dark Brown by Maria Gherardi of MG fashion at Portucalis 65, 162, 22 .
Jeans: Sequin Heart Jeans by Nylon Pinkney of Nylon Outfitters at Tableau 153, 47, 22.
Belt: Fat Belt - Dull Teal Blue by Callie Cline of caLLie cLine at caLLiefornia 224, 194, 22.
Shoes: Spring Stiletto - Sunset by Fallingwater Cellardoor of Shiny Things at Shiny Falls 173, 181, 37.
Ring: Stardrop Ring - Multi/Black by Lucas Lameth of EARTHTONES Boutique at Muse 80, 166, 108 .
Earrings: Journey Studs by Lucas Lameth of EARTHTONES Boutique at Muse 80, 166, 108.
Necklace: Feuille Naturelle Necklace - Black/Sienna by Lucas Lameth of EARTHTONES Boutique at Muse 80, 166, 108.
Bangles: Tart Bangle Stack by Novi Gadsby of Culture Vulture at Froth 103, 222, 23.
Skin: Vivant Almond Sultry 1 by CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion of Tete a Pied at Fleur 222, 224, 23.
Hair: Slow Jamz 2007 - Light Blonde by Tilly Tokyo of Hiccup at Lions Shore 15, 105, 21.
Eyes: Eyes - Holly (Big) by Miriel Enfield of Miriel at Nouveau 117, 202, 23.