Fashion in the Real and Virtual World: Are They So Different?
Introduction:
Fashion changes like the seasons. Just like when dead trees cast away their tired leaves and regrow new ones, indicating that Spring is on the way, fashion likes keeps things fresh. Fashion evolves each season, while also drawing on old styles. Each season fashionistas strip off their old, tired, dead clothing and switch them for new ones. Changing styles renews a women on the outside. Fashion is a way of life for some women. It is as simple as that. Fashion is a serious business for some. Clothes, for some women, are one of the most important aspects of their lives and if they are not wearing the latest fashion, they believe the world will come to an end. The fashion industry is a multimillion dollar industry and designers come from all over the world. This is the what the real-life fashion world is like, but what about the virtual one? Second Life, a virtual world created by Linden Labs, has a fashion world almost identical to the real world. Fashion in Second Life is much cheaper, but even in a virtual world, clothes are very important. Some people that are involved in Second Life, have their own in-world business or have in-world meetings and need business attire, so where do they get their clothes? There are casual Second Life clothes and then there is formal wear, just like in real life. There is clothing for every purpose if you know where to look. Appearances in Second Life can sometimes be just as important as they are in real life. With all these similarities it is easy to see that the fashion world Second Life is practically identical to the one in real-life, expect for the way clothes are made, the price and the details of the clothes can differ.
Designing Clothes:
Conceptualizing and designing clothes is the most difficult part of fashion. Every season designers have to come up with new ideas and styles to keep the fashion industry fresh. In real life, clothes are mass produced with large sewing machines to increase efficiency (Frings 10). In the virtual world like Second Life, clothes are created by mapping out the clothes first on a virtual mannequin and patterns are created by using a back and forth 3 dimensional pattern (Julius 3). Virtual designers need to know how to perform challenging tasks such as designing sewing patterns and using simulation to obtain the garment shape (Julius 1). Unlike in real life though, Second Life clothes can be specialized to the wearer's liking. Designers design the clothes and then the person who wears them can customize them, if they so desire.
To begin making clothes, Second Life designers and real life designers have to create the fabric from scratch, but the pattern has to made in a compeletly different way in Second than in real life. In real- life, the process of creating clothing is much more complicated and time consuming. Creating an outfit in Second Life takes a few hours at the computer, but in real-life the clothes are first designed on the computer and then the actual creation process is initiated. After a fabric is picked, the fabric needs to be measured, cut and sewn together. After the outfit is assembled, the finishing touches need to be added such as buttons, ribbons, or any other adornments (Frings 60). In Second Life, an outfit can be adorned with much more creative elements, because the outfit does not need to be economical. "The outfit does not need to fit in the closet", jokes on an avatar I encountered on my travels, who gave me permission to quote her, but not use her name. The process of designing clothes in Second Life and real- life is one of the largest differences between the two worlds.
***Modifying an outfit in Second Life after purchasing it and putting it on my avatar
Choosing Our Clothes:
"Fashion expresses the the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, and in turn can influence it" (Solomon 29). As stated previously, fashion changes with the season, so how are clothes chosen? In the real world, some women choose clothes based on comfortability and others choose their clothes based on style, no matter how uncomfortable. When women get dressed they mentally ask themselves many questions, the most prominent being, 'is this me?' or 'could this be me?' (Woodward 10) What questions does a person ask themselves when designing an avatar? In an interview with the same Second Life resident that allowed me to quote her, the resident explained that she just chose the outfit that she liked the best (Anonymous). As a general rule, people usually pick clothes that they like, even the fashionistas, just with the exception that a fashionista's clothes need to be the latest style. Designers need to be sensitive to the meaning that clothes and fashion have to consumers, instead of just an outfit (Solomon 29). Even in Second Life, if the clothes do not evolve with the taste of the consumer, then their clothes will not sell. Style is a very important factor in choosing clothing. The style has to fit with people's personalities and appeal to their taste. Many Second Life residents are much more able to express their full personality in a virtual world, than they are in real- life. The prices are much easier on the wallet beacuse people who spend thousands of Lindens in Second Life are actually only spending a few real dollars (La Ferla 1). Real life clothes are much more expensive and need to be washed and they wear out after a while. "One of the great things about clothes in Second Life is that you buy an outfit once and you have it forever, because it never wears out!" said Anonymous, who allowed the use of this quote, but not her name. This is true, Second Life clothes can be worn for any amount of time and look the same, one of the perks of a virtual world. Avatars can look great all the time without all the work that goes with keeping up an appearance in real life.
What to wear to the office...Business Clothes What to wear to around Second Life normally...Casual Clothes
Reflecting Our Personalities:
Clothes have a lot to do with our personalities. Sport people like to wear sneakers and sweat pants, while more sophisticated people like more formal clothing. Women choose their clothes based on where they are going, their comfortability, their style and their affordability (Woodward 76). Avatars in Second Life, I have found, either mirror their creator's personality or they are the opposite of it. Clothing can affect personality too, when looking good, people's personalities turn more arrogant to those they think are not well dressed and vice versa, when a person does not like their outfits their personality is more subdued (Yee 19). Fashion is an ultimate expression of personality beacuse usually not two people have the same style. Second Life fashion includes all types clothing to accomodate subcultures like the Goths, Steampunks, Gorians and Furries that are not found in real life.
Appearance Matters:
One's style of dress is one's signature, a stand against the other people in society and makes a person unique (Solomon 30). Nobody really has the exact same taste in clothing. Women want to look beautiful without making it look like they had to put much effort into their appearance (Woodward 84). Some women spend hours working on their appearance and others just have natural beauty. Clothes are a part of women's beauty. Clothes in real life only fit the size person that they were sewn for based on norm for a person that size. Clothes in Second Life are sizeless. "Users can alter their avatar’s gender, age, height, weight, musculature, hair style and color, eye shape and color, lip fullness, cheek fullness, nose protrusion, freckles, baldness, and so on" (Yee 8). Real people have to correlate their clothes to match all these aspect of their body shape, but when clothing their avatar, the user can just modify the avatar to look the way they want them to in the clothes. This is how Second Life deviates from the real life clothing industry. Any avatar can be skinny or fat by a click of a button, to fit into the clothes that user wants them to, which is impossible in real life. Once a person has an attractively dressed avatar, they can explore Second Life with a better attitude than if they weren't attractive and make many more friends. Women are supposed to know and be able to interpret what to wear by correlating their body shape with the perscribed one for the clothing (Woodward 124). Some clothes are mean tfor certain body shapes like skinny or and others for larger ones. If a woman wears the wrong clothing, if it is too tight, the wrong vibe is given off. Clothing is much more than just fabric that women fret over, it's a science, because sometimes clothing can define a women, whether she likes it or not.
Target Populations (advertising):
According to a New York times article, clothing and accessories account for about 40 percent of the overall virtual marketplace in Second Life (La Ferla 1) Since this is such a high percentage, the question exists about what would happen if those designs had the ability to be transferred to real life. Some people have actually been able to transfer successful businesses they have in the real world, to the virtual one. Two such people, Vitabela Dubrovna and her sister from Croatia, took some of the styles in real life and transferred them into Second Life. They have a successful business in both worlds now. The sisters are not the only ones that have a fashion boutique in both the real world and Second Life. Their clothing, however, targets an older, more sophisticated generation of Second Life users. For the younger crowd, there is the American Apparel Store. The American Apparel store sells t-shirts and jeans and more casual clothing (Jana 1). Fashion in Second Life caters to all ages and styles just like in real life. Advertising in both worlds is very important for the fashion industry and it is estimated that twenty-five billion dollars a year are spent on advertising clothes in the real world (Thourlby 26). On my travels through Second Life, there was not too much advertising around for clothing, but by looking at the other avatars around, the style of clothing needed for the region was clear, especially if it was a club. Fashion in Second Life has to be a large industry, if even successful designers in real life want to design in Second Life.
*Television program and picture that shows real life designers getting involved the Second Life and creating their own stores.
Chapter 3: Formal Business Attire/Casual Wear:
**Clothing at SLeek, popular Second Life club
Just like in real life, there are some times when residents in Second Life need formal attire. Formal attire is usually required for those who own businesses or hold meetings in Second Life. The first impression is one of the most important for any business owner in Second Life or in real life, sometimes more than the ability to perform at the given job (Thourlby 3). This means that people need to dress their avatars in suitable attire and so that is why fashion in Second Life also includes proper business attire, just like in the real world. In the real world, to look professional, a man or woman usually wears a suit or a dress and the same applies to Second Life. Based on clothing, "psychologists tell us that forming a first impression is similar to peeling an onion. We scan the surface qualities of the individual (their outfit) and immediately form an opinion and do not until later look back for the deeper qualities of the person" (Thourlby 18). Dressing properly for the office or a business in Second Life or the real world is very important because in both worlds appearances matter and clothes are a large part of a person's experience. Clothes are one of the first aspects another person sees.
On the other hand, dressing to go to a club is the exact opposite of dressing for work. Avatars in Second Life wear minimal clothing, just like people in real life. As shown in the picture, one of the avatars is half naked. Cinderella was also dressed provocatively because this is the accepted dress code for a both a real club and a virtual one. While I was exploring Second Life to see the difference between casual Second Life wear and formal wear, I think I could add another category to that list, which is club wear. The avatar in the picture that I talked to at the club, who will remain nameless, told me that she was wearing that outfit to attract the opposite sex and looking for other possible activities, who allowed me to quote her but requested her avatar's name not be used. Clothing styles seem not to differ so much from world to world for club scenes.
Clothing Advances:
There are however certain advances in clothing that can be attempted only in real life and not Second Life. In real- life, there someday might be a jacket that as the temperature drops, the jacket grow warmer or even t-shirts that protect the skin from Ultraviolet rays (Minerd 12). There would be no need in Second Life to have a garment to become warmer because an avatar is immune to temperature changes, because they are not real. The real life fashion industry has a much more advanced spectrum to work with then the one in Second Life. Though in Second Life it is much easier and cheaper to experiment with different fabrics and more adornments, because the weight of the clothing or how complicated it would be to put together is not important. Certain clothes that could be created in Second Life would just not be profitable enough to create and sell in real life. They would be too expensive. Clothes in Second Life cost a fraction of the price that they do in real life. A designer outfit in real life would cost thousand of dollars, but one in Second Life would cost about 40 or so dollars. That is a big savings and when the economy declined recetnly, that is what most women resorted to for their clothing addiction (La Ferla 2). Saving money is definitely an advance in the fashion culture in Second Life.
SHOES, SHOES, SHOES:
Shoes are some women's guilty pleasures and some in real life cannot resist a sale. Shoes is Second Life are also a hot commodity, because many women know that shoes can make or an outfit or ruin it (Baudot 152). Shoes in Second Life are no different. In one shop I visited, there were more shoe choices than clothing selections. Shoes resemble real life shoes in many ways, with all their gilt and and glam. Shoes are more easier to make than clothing in real life and Second Life. They do not require as complicated a process to produce as an outfit does. Shoes are usually the last thing that a women adds to her outfit before she walks out the door. Female Second Life avatars seem to wear a lot of heels and there are very few flat shoes that I encountered on my fashion travels. Stiletto shoes are definitely a popular shoe for female avatars, but in real life women usually wear more flats unless they have to get dressed up, because many high heels are uncomfortable.
Is Fashion Worth Caring About?:
**Fashion shows in Second displaying unique Second Life only creations.
Fashion is just a series of trends that go in an out. Some take a while to catch on slowly and others quickly, all eventually fizzle out into obscurity (Baudot 8). Some trends transform into other forms and other just die out, but why care about fashion if it is so finicky? Fashion, as mentioned, factors into a large part of a person's impression of another. Fashion also gives people confidence, if they look good, they feel good. Feeling good in Second Life allows an user to go out and meet new people and from bonds, just like in real life. Fashion helps create these bonds, so it is a very important topic to worry about. Looking you best can also get you a job or lose you one (Bixler 29). Also, no matter what you style, clothing is a necessary part of everyday life, beacause nobody walks around naked in real life, so they do not usually do so in Second Life. Clothing is essential to everyone and every avatar.
Conclusion:
Fashion in Second Life and real life are very similar, besides differing a little in the way the clothes are created and how complicated they can be to design, there is one common element that links them, clothes are a very large portion of both cultures. Fashion in the future can only get more advanced in both worlds, since the fact that fashion obssession is not going to disappear in a few years. More real life designs will probably find their way intro Second Life and vice versa. Men's fashions will mostly evolve in the same as well. Women are more into fashion than men, but men are becoming more and more conscious of what they wear. However a man's fashion sense runs hot and cold, but women's desire to be in style will never diminish. Fashion is just beginning in virtual worlds, because virtual are still evolving and the designs in a few years will probably be even more amazing then they are now. Designers are constantly experimenting with new fashions (Baudot 372). Fashion will always be a large part of Second Life culture and real life.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.