Don’t be insecure if your heart is pure,
You’re still good to me if you’re a bad kid baby.
Yeah, I know the lyrics are from a different song. Humour me ;-)
This look came together after I’d read that some guys seem to be struggling to get this gorgeous skin by KOOQLA to work on their avatar shapes. This could be said about any skin, which is why it’s so essential to always try a demo. However, when I looked at the promos for the skin, I could see that it had a very distinctive look and I could understand why it wouldn’t work for some people… which was why I was determined to get it to work for Skell *g*
I guess I must be lucky because it worked like a dream, without any tweaking whatsoever. In fact, it looks so good, I bought two shades, and it’s rare for me to do that with any skin.
I then started browsing Marketplace for some new clothing. For the longest time I’ve been wishing someone would bring the styling of Gareth Pugh and Rick Owens into SL (bring me Owens’ wedge-heeled knee-high boots into SL and I’ll buy every damn version, I swear. Bring me his thigh-highs and they’ll probably hear my screaming on the ISS). There are similar pieces here and there, but weeding them out of everything else can be hard, especially when you’re playing Marketplace Search Term Bingo.
By pure chance, I came across Lucien Marcelo’s store, and *ding ding!* We have a winner, Mr Dagger! I picked up several items from there (you’ll be seeing those in later posts) but kept on browsing. And then, bingo. By way of some classic old ‘BOY’ t-shirts that slammed me back to Camden Market in the late 80s, I found XIAJ by Superjaix.
Enter the Highway Unicorn ;-)
I don’t even know where to start with this look, because in all honesty, I love every part of it to bits. Not often that I can say that about anything I put together, but there you have it. We’ll begin, I guess, with the in-yer-faceness of the kilt and harem pants.
The symbols on this are influenced by Kokon To Zai’s Church collection (in fact, a lot of XIAJ’s clothing is inspired by KTZ). Great to see such innovative UK fashion oozing its way into SL!
The kilt and harem pants (yeah, Skell bought dropcrotch pants, but they’ll only ever be worn under this kilt) have texture HUDs to change the patterns, allowing for quite a bit of variation. The pants have three textures, and the kilt has both this pattern and plain black in its HUD.
Incidentally, XIAJ has one of the most innovative and brilliant store builds that I’ve ever seen in SL. Don’t just buy from marketplace here; check out his store. It’s absolute genius!
While you’re down there (*snort*) we’ll check out those boots. These are resize menu only and you might find it a bit tricky to get them to fit exactly over the harem pants. I managed it with only a tiny bit of the pants poking through (the image below is edited), but it’s so small as to be negligible. I’ll quite happily walk around with that ‘poke-through’ because it barely shows.
Moving back up, this hair is a 7th anniversary gift to the members of MADesigns group (free to join, search groups for kMADd Enterprise). There’s (from memory) three colours in the pack, plus three slightly smaller sizes of the same style for ladies. Also included are three pairs of eyes and several hairbases (the hairbase Skell is wearing here is the ‘bun’ version – presumably for the ladies).
Man, I love this face. So expressive! The Gray skin from KOOQLA comes in seven shades, with both shaved and unshaved (light shadow above the lip) versions, and both dark and light brows (this refers to the thickness, not the colour). You also get a brow shaper and a brow and chin shaper. In the demos you’ll find lip colours, which can be bought separately. Freaky boys (like me!) check out the rest of the store, because you’ll find some great makeups there, too.
The piercings are from Haus of Darcy (again, female, but with some resizing and moving the lip piercings around, they fit almost perfectly on a male avatar. Sure, they don’t quite reach the ears, so Skell has pierced cheeks instead, but they’re so gorgeous I don’t care ;-)
The eyes are from IKON, his latest Ascension line. From the moment when he burst onto the grid as Fashism, Ikon Innovia has just got better and better. This line is stunning.
Skell’s tribal makeup is from Nomine. Out of the box it’s a beautiful light silvery-grey, but it’s colourable with any tint that you like.
Moving down a bit further, we come to the collar and necklace. I was roaming around the KOOQLA store (another gorgeous build, btw) when I came across this unisex Atlas collar (script resize). Several colour variants are available, but you know monochrome me by now. You also have the optional ‘veil’ to wear underneath it, which I think sets it off beautifully. And the necklace is the Avain Necklace, which is KOSH’s offering (again, in many variants) for the current Mens Dept collection.
Finishing off this look are tattoos from Identity Body Shop (and I love how this version fades into the skin) and nails from Rozoregalia.
Now, get shopping!
Kilt: XIAJ – Symbols Kilt [ superjaix ]
Pants: XIAJ – Symbols Harem Pants [ superjaix ]
Boots: Lucien Marcelo – Black Ramones Boots 1’s [ lucienmarcelo ]
Collar & Veil: KOOQLA – Atlas Collar (black) [ rocketta.haven ]
Necklace: KOSH – Avain Necklace [ lynaja.bade ]
Piercings: Haus of Darcy – Chained (razor) [ aydan.darcy ]
Makeup: Nomine – Sonne (colorable)* [ munchflower.zaius ]
Hair: MADesigns – Lance (black & Silver)** [ maddox.dupont ]
Skin: KOOQLA – Gray (04) [ rocketta.haven ]
Eyes: IKON – Ascension Eyes (gray) [ ikon.innovia ]
Tattoos: Identity Body Shop – Black Stripes 1 (fresh) [ melissa.hindrabar ]
Nails: Rozoregalia – Gemma Ring & Nail 2 [ yumi.pausch ]
*Review copy
**Current group gift