I greatly admire anyone who tackles shoes in SL—they’re quite difficult to swing in a good way, to the point where there’s just four or five shoe designers I ever bother visiting with any regularity. A fresh addition to that small group, however, is 2REAL. These shoes are all over the feeds right now, and quite rightly. They’re exquisitely sculpted and textured by 2REAL Okelli, with a huge variety in terms of looks you can achieve.

The SL Clothing Fair benefitting RFL opens tomorrow at 3 PM SLT. Just as last year the fair will consist of a total of 9 sims, with 8 of them built to represent the theme of “fashion cities of the world”. Each participating designer will have at least 4 RFL items in their store (and do make sure to shop from these so that you can take part in the photo contest) and many also offer exciting new releases. Its a fabulous chance to browse some of the best designers in SL and raise money for an important cause at the same time. It is, of course, also a fabulous chance to experience first-class lag, so make sure to travel lightly in terms of attachments.

The press preview isn’t actually starting for another hour, but I am going to be a little sneaky and at least offer a look at some of the new items offered by Adam n Eve at the fair. I’ve been itching to share these for a few days now. Plus, a new Exile hair and a brief look at Tuli’s Eva skin, which will be released on March 18th. I expect to do a more in-depth review of that soon.

Quite recently, Ran reviewed the latest male skin from Nomine, Noam. The release saw some fairly significant changes in the style of the skin which we both felt made them work on more shapes, and naturally I started hoping that a new female release might be on its way too. I’ve liked the look of a lot of the previous skins too, but they’ve not quite worked for my shapes.

Yesterday, then, saw the release of the new female skin, Mosaic. I ran over to check them out and found a face with just the right blend of youth and attitude for me, so when Munchflower offered me a sample pack for reviewing, I was more than happy to say yes.

I do like an excuse to get naked save for some jewellery. In this case the excuse consists of Launa Fauna’s special Lapine skin for the thought-provoking Melt installation and Siyu Suen’s first new release for the Accessory Fair.

Tonight was one of those nights in SL.  The textures—especially the alpha layer for the boots—just wouldn’t load. At least not until it was almost bedtime for me. But, I just had to get this post out, with the latest and very cool release from Solange and with the sexy “Viewer 2.0 Ready” boots from Adam n Eve.

So…Viewer 2.0. Can’t say I like the UI (but until I get a lighter skin, I can’t judge it fairly; dark skins are devilspawns), but I can definitely say I like some of the new features, not the least the tattoo layer and the alpha layer. The best part is that there is already content out there for trying out how useful these layers can be, such as two collections of add-on makeups and face tattoos from sachi Vixen of Adam n Eve. Oh, and a 69 L Hump Day face tattoo, which you really ought to get even if you don’t have the viewer yet since it won’t be around later.

Its the season to don a mask and be mysterious and alluring. And when you want to do this in SL, where do you go? Why, to Illusions, of course, where Siyu Suen provides masks for all imaginable occasions as well as an array of other accessories, from sculpted roses worn in your mouth to horns in all shapes and sizes.

Siyu is very good about providing for both ladies and gentlemen, so it seemed fitting that when I dragged Ran into my post, we would use matching outfits from hyasynth Tiramisu of Silent Sparrow. She, too, is an excellent provider for girls and boys and everything in-between.

Alienbear Gupte has lately produced a number of jewelry collections in collaboration with clothing designers. For one of her Valentine-related releases, she has teamed up with Sparkle Skye, and the result is the Princess Venus jewelry set and the Ciara Fae gown. I was given the opportunity to review both.

This week is turning out to be quite the feast for a skin addict like myself, and the timing couldn’t be better. Ran and I have recently revived our project for creating character portraits for our MUSH using SL avatars (the first ones are up here and here), and that means we’re suddenly finding that we definitely can never have enough skins. So, we’re both on a hunt, and yesterday I struck gold when Dutch Touch released SjORs.

I’ve finally emerged from underneath a pile of Roman curse tablets, and gone straight into the future since it is apparently here now if Rezzable is to be believed. Their “The Future is Now” event opened today with a packed fashion show, and for the next 3 weeks items made for the show will be available exclusively on their Greenies sim.

I’ve got a couple of posts planned around some of the items I picked up, but the first one ended up looking rather more classical than futuristic. But that’s really more me anyway.

Ever since Ran could afford his first Scorpio skin, Abyss skins have been among our favourite male skins in SL. I still find the Scorpio very attractive on the shapes he has made for it (I think he really manages to make them his own, despite how common they’ve ended up being), though admittedly it does come in behind the newer male Abyss skins these days. The Dave Gears, in particular, is just amazing. The Adam Crius is also very good, but alas, he hasn’t bought that one yet because he is waiting for a darker tone that creator Khai Sinister mentioned having plans for. I hope it shows up soon, because I’ve got some thoroughly indecent pictures in mind…

But, this is not about the male Abyss skins, no matter how much I might drool over them. Its about the fact that although I have always loved the male skins, the female skins have not really grabbed me before. They’ve been well made and quite pretty, but not quite my thing. And then the new female skins started coming out. First Somber Mourning, then Ama Garijus and now Kass Calypto.

Recently, I showed Rfyre’s Oksana outfit. Now Raven Pennyfeather has released her second Russian-inspired outfit, Katerina, and if you were impressed by Oksana you are sure to find Katerina even more amazing.

I’ve paired the outfit with the latest skin from Adam n Eve, Sasha, a brand-new hair from Jolie Femme and the Riding Boots from Coco that I picked up at the Shoe Expo.

Prim feet haven’t really interested me much in the past. I am not a big shoe person, and the hassle of tinting the feet when you switch skins all the time has been a bit too much to contemplate for someone who tends to wear the same black heels for weeks on end. ;)

But then Kalnins sent out a giftcard to their group, giving 50% off on all their shoes. Considering their already amazing prices for high quality sculpted shoes scripted for numerous colour combinations, I just had to take a closer look at their prim feet too. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to show off a few of Luth Brodie’s excellent shoe poses, released at the Shoe Expo.

When I first joined SL, stalking the amazing Lucky Chairs at Alienbear Gupte’s store was all the rage. No wonder, given the gorgeous jewellery sets you could collect that way. And since then, Alienbear has just kept turning out wonderfully intricate designs, from wedding rings to royal crowns and everything in-between.  Whether you want something with an oriental flavour, something gothy for Halloween or just a stunning fantasy of precious metals and gemstones, you are likely to find it in her store. Her latest release, the Azucena set, is definitely fit for any queen. Do make sure to click the images to see the larger size for a better look at all the details.

The Skin Fair is still going on for a few days more, and now is the time to pay it a nice, pretty lag-less visit. I have a few more skins I am hoping to show off, though time has become a bit of an endangered species of late, so it may be that this look at Imagen’s latest release, Clara, will conclude my Skin Fair coverage.