Let's Visit Info Island International!

Second Life has loads of exciting places. When I'm not designing clothes, I spend most of my time on Info Island International. I serve as a greeter and as the day-to-day manager for the island, which was created as a gateway to international experience in SL. I took this picture in the German House, which has a cozy Musik Salon upstairs, lined with portraits of notable German composers. If you click on any portrait, you get a lengthy biography of the composer. Pretty neat. It would be a great place for a music history professor to bring a small group of students. I like to just come and relax or play a little Bach on the piano.


The skirt I'm wearing for this visit is one I call "Country Lace." It's made of a grass-green linen fabric with a wide Irish lace border at the hem. It's a nice everyday skirt, one that you can wear shopping or visiting friends, or if you decide to take in an afternoon concert. I sell it with a deep green V-neck blouse that has a narrow piping around the neck. I think green looks terrific on a redhead, don't you?


On the other side of Info Island International is Mi Pueblo, a southwestern-style cantina that features a dance floor and a bar where you can get a wonderful margarita and all the tapas you can eat. My friend, Marimar, has special events here almost every month. (Yes, that's snow in the background, but it isn't cold. This is Second Life, after all.)


When I visited here today, I decided to wear my long cotton "Floral Spring" skirt. Don't you love the watercolor flowers? I think they have a very soft, Spring-like feel. The pastel colors and wide flexi panels are very showy! I like to wear this skirt with my pale yellow keyhole blouse. The neck has a wide border around it and it's closed in front by a brass ring. I sell the skirt and blouse separately, but they go well together, don't you think?


I'll show you more of my favorite island in another post. Don't wait for me, though. Visit today. There are places to learn about many world cultures and languages, and quiet parks where you can sit and watch swans or hang by your heels from the branch of an apple tree. The people are friendly too.

About Size, Style and Separates

Don't you hate it when you see a beautiful outfit on a model and you just know it won't look as good on you? It happens to me all the time in RL. Fortunately, most of us look a lot more like models in Second Life than we do normally, so that's not as much of an issue here. Still, something to think about, so let me help out a bit.

When you visit my shop, or when I show you something on this blog, you'll see how my designs look on me. I'm the model, and if I didn't like the way it looked on me, I wouldn't try to sell it to you, .... honest. Just so you know, I'm 5' 11" tall (180 cm) in heels, and I guess I'm about a size 6 in SL. (No, I'm not going to tell you what size I wear in RL!) In the shop, I have rotating displays with life-size photos of some of my own favorites. If you like, you can stand next to a display and compare the two of us for size and shape. How's that?

It's winter in the corner of RL where I live, so my mind turns to thoughts of snow. I love it! Here's a skirt that I wish I could wear in real life. I made it mid-calf length to keep the breezes off my legs and to show off the fabric ... snowflakes falling across a graded blue sky, framed by a white hem and waistband. It swishes when I walk, the way snow drifts on some of our crisp winter mornings. I sell it with this long-sleeve blue blouse, which actually looks like a cardigan, now that I think of it.

Doesn't it make you want to find a wintery sim to show off?

Winter's not your favorite season? OK, I can live with that. How about a nice summery skirt? When I made the design for this one, I was thinking of the grasses that grow on dunes along the shore ... those sturdy ones that wave back and forth in the sea breeze. The fabric itself is a pleated white cotton. It has a ruffled turquoise hem and a pure white rolled waistband. I sell this one together with this simple white blouse that has little blue and white buttons and a tiny red flower on the lapel.

By the way, those really nice shoes are Corkys with a Flower, from AFantasy Emporium.

Welcome to my world. This is me, Rolig Loon.

There are so many great designers in Second Life, it's intimidating to jump in and start selling the things I create. Everyone has a signature style and creates a special niche. If you're like me when you shop, you look for a designer whose niche matches your own personality. Not just great fabrics and lines, but great fabrics and lines that say "This is me!"

So, OK, this is me, red hair and all. It's not one of my own dresses, though. This is a lovely batik summer dress that I bought from Nicky Ree's a while ago. I like it, and it does say "Me." I'm a lot more than this dress says I am, though, so I started designing clothes that express other facets of my personality. If I'm really lucky, maybe they'll match some part of your personality too.

This little black cocktail dress is me too, but a different me. It's the one I call "Sophisticated Night Out." It's for dancing, or wearing to someplace special that doesn't call for a fancy ball gown but where you want to feel feminine, a bit sexy, and well, ... sophisticated. The skirt

hangs just below the knee and has a flare that adds a bit of flounce when you walk. It's a smooth, silky fabric. The bodice is lacy -- just see-through enough that you'll want to wear a nice black bra with it -- over a pleated midriff. A nice, simple design with clean, classic lines. This is the kind of dress I wear when I want to look and feel pretty. When people see me, I want them to say, "Wow!" but I want that Wow to say more than "That's a great dress!" If the dress looks great, it's because it makes ME look great.

This Flowered Sun Dress has a different look. I like warm colors, and a pastel yellow makes me feel summery. This one's for wearing on a picnic, or shopping, or just wandering in an open-air sim with a friend. The yellow fabric grades from a strong pastel tone at the hem of the skirt to a very pale tone at the bodice and features stylized red-orange flowers. The mid-thigh length flexi skirt swings gently as you walk. If I could turn around here, you'd see that the straps come together high across my shoulders, and then the back of the dress is open from there to my lower back.

Finally, here's a blue-lavender summer dress that I really loved making. It's my "Summer Butterflies" dress. The hemline is below the knee again -- dresses swing better when they have a little length -- and this time the bodice is strapless. The fabric's background color varies very gently from one place to another, as if thin lavender clouds were blowing across the sky, and swarms of small, colorful butterflies rise from the hem to the bust line. I wanted to make this dress look especially soft, so it has two skirts with the same pattern: a translucent outer layer that responds lightly to the breeze, and an opaque underskirt that gives the dress body. This one is nicely feminine. You'll love it too, I hope.

So where is my shop? It's Så Roligt! on Elysian Isle (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Elysian%20Isle/145/76/33), between Chapeau Tres Mignon and Muse -- a wonderful location. Please come by to visit and, if you see something you like, take it home with you. Nothing pleases me more than seeing my designs on someone with good taste.