My second life as a rl female playing a male avatar

I've been in one in the past, was run by Bacio Peregrine i think, i'm not sure, but i think it's closed now.
I do find malls slightly confusing though, so i rarely use them anymore, hoping (maybe i'm naive) that customers will find and come to my place

How we shop? Open a good hardware store and we'll disappear into it forever.



Seriously?

Most of the time women wind up doing the shopping for men because we won't shop until we can't wear the clothes anymore. I have a shirt that I think is close to 20 years old and I wore it today.

*covers Fade's ears*

Seriously though, and vaguely alluding to the original topic, Shiryu touched on something that is the main reason I created Velocity. I've become a bit fascinated with tiny prims lately, and Fade does buildings and furniture. I wanted to create accessories, but I had no interest in doing stuff for guys.

I studied drawing for years, and the female form was my subject. So to make things for the human body, the female form is my inspiration. It's like Shiryu said, I don't really get inspired by me.

Velocity is largely just me exploring that subject.

This is true and if I do this all my items will be a choice to transfer/no copy if desired for exactly that reason, lol.

(your wife dresses you funny...)

I might be weird but I'm so not like this. I loathe it when girls shop for me, I like to shop for myself and I like to buy new things. In fact, I'm not satisfied with just shopping for me. I also like to shop for the girl I'm with.

Well I wish I had I wife so you can say it's my aunts that dress me funny. I don't know how they do it but each time I was planning on changing the look of my wardrobe they knew exactly what I was planning even if I told no one at all. The bright yellow shirt took the cake. They're frightening.

But my clothes taste may be on the boring side. I'm seriously contemplating making myself in SL so that I can check out other clothing styles without spending too much.

If Velocity creates no or low bling quality jewelry for a reasonable price, she has a customer. Especially if it's creative and not based on big gems and such.

I don't have the patience, I think.

We are accustomed to viewing women and their bodies as well... ornamental. Or as a blank canvas. The female form is viewed more generically than the male, so I guess it is easier to be inspired to create your "version" of it or dress it like a doll.

I'm actually more incline to smaller stand-alone shops, something that has its own identity.

Velocity definitely won't be making bling. I'm more minimally inclined. The first things she made was a purse, and a belt made with thin brown leather strips, joined by a simple metal clasp, and some flexi leather strips hanging from the side. She's just started working on jewellery, but it's more about metals than gems.

Definitely I find it easier to view the female form as a canvas.

As a guy (insert derogatory title for a guy who buys a lot of clothes here) who shops alot, AND tends to notice how other guys are dressed (natch, I guess...), here are my observations:

1. For me, personally, my shopping tends to be fairly brand-based, but this is I think reactionary due to the nature of the clothes market in SL: I support those shops that make GOOD clothes for guys (or at least unisex) consistantly, in the hopes they will continue to do that. For instance, Pixel(insert suffix), BareRose, Barnes(I forget his brand name...), Robin Wood (Also forget the brand) are all good places for guys to shop. There are others too, I just can't think of them at the moment. This is not to say I don't shop outside of the big name brands - I do, and some of my favorite outfits are from smaller names, but the thing is, with the limited selection, guys tend to concentrate on the same stores more because we know we will find stuff for us there.
   
2. Women aren't the only ones who try to speak through their wardrobe - did you ever wonder why so many guys in SL wear tuxedos and fancy suits? Image. But not all guys want to project the tough-guy world-mover type image all the time. We come in as many varieties as women. True, a lot of guys don't give a damn, but an awful lot DO, too.
   
3. Diversify! For crying out loud, there are only so many ways you can do a black tuxedo. It seems like four out of five clothing designers for men only make formalwear or goth. That's two styles. There are lots out there. Unless you are the 2D artist-messiah for SL, you probably aren't going to be able to innovate much in either of these two fields at this point, no matter how good you are.
   
4. Related to the need to diversify: Guys clothes don't have to be boring! You can go beyond trenchcoats, suits, and t-shirt n jeans combos. There are other cultures you can play with (Classical asian designs are wonderful, for example), there are other time periods you can play with (Victorian, elizibethan, "wild west", 20s, 50s, 70s...), theres tons of fictional styles of dress (Cyberpunk, anime, fantasy, sci-fi, post appocalyptic, etc), and theres room for just plain out-of-the-blue designs. We're not that differen't than women, really - all of these styles exist in abundance for women already. But when you go to look for GUYS clothes, its basicly goth or formal, or "jeans and tshirt". One of the best designers for breaking the mold and introducing *fun* clothes for guys is BareRose.
   
5. Women come in many shapes: So do guys. A lot of clothing designers tend to use a very sterotypical model for designing clothes on, in the case of men, a bulky, muscular figure. This would be fine, but the clothing mesh doesn't always look right if you only design with one shape in mind. Learn to try your meshes on different sizes. (pet peeve)
   
6. Guys are not blind. I don't mean this to be critical, but I've noticed that some designers who do fantastic work for women, when they release mens clothes, seem to do a half-assed job - mismatched seams, blurry textures, etc. This is by no means universal, and I don't mean to be harsh, but I figured I'd throw this out there.
   
7. Related to clothing, guys wear jewelry too. But aside from ugly blingtard chains and spikey goth collars, theres very little jewelry out there for guys. Unfortunatly, as me and Fall have discovered when trying to retrofit some of her necklaces and stuff to fit me, the male mesh is shaped just differently enough that its not easy to just quickly resize stuff, so if you want to have men buy jewelry, it would help if you actually marketed a version of it for them - obviously not all jewelry would appeal to guys, but I know a lot of guys in RL who wear rings and necklaces, even bracelets.
   

Clothes that I like in RL:

- Normal looking boots without alot of buckles and snaps. Justin works boots are an example.

- Flannel shirts- I probablly own 20

- Levis, wranglers, dickies, whatever denim jeans

- Speaking of Dickies, they make cool stuff

- I like Carharrt jackets.

- Kahki shorts, t-shirts and sandals when the weather is hot

SL I wear Jeans, T-shirt, boots 99% of the time. Most the guy fasions in SL look like a woman is trying to dress up her man. Most are very effeminate looking (nice way to say it)

I'm a very boring dresser and have noticed zero difference how I'm treated in game based on how I'm dressed and a male. I think a female AV would have profoundly different expierence of how she is treated vs how she is dressed.

See how boring we men are in dressing?

I guess I'm curious too about how persistant the average guy in SL is when it comes to finding clothing they like. I remember dropping in on a mens clothing store, I can't remember it's name, with really well made clothing, modern, not effeminate or silly, but stylish. Really nice textures, well done. If this was a shop for women it would have been very popular, but it was empty at the time and I wondered then how much traffic it got, but didn't investigate.

Not counting the young adult males, and those dressing to impress, we aren't very persistent, if we can't find what we want after some effort we often make do or won't bother. For the older set, like me, making an impression with dress isn't a strong impetus. Usability is more important.

Where women spend time looking over dress styles, I'd be doing the same ... on tools, gadgets, and the like.

For clothes in SL I'm going to be making my own stuff.

I have read through this post and the one topic that I wanted to reply to (which most people have) are the limited items of male clothing. Here is a take on a male clothing designer

I actually love making male clothing, most of my clothing is goth/punk because I see WAY too many plain black shirts out there for men. But I offer a big thank you to the men in this thread who offered suggestions on some simple male shirts/outfits. I actually thought that they were being seen too often in the game so I wanted to create some diversity. But if that is the demand, I am in!!

My designs now are very detailed and yes mostly punk and goth but I made them that way because in the game, it was all I saw men wearing. And most of my male friends complained that every time they went shopping all they saw were black/red/white plain shirts. And they wished they had some diversity like women.

Also, just to be honest, I hardly have any men who actually do purchase clothing. Out of my sales (which my store is not extremely popular or anything ^.^) I would say that 15-25% of the revenue made is by males and that is a high estimate and on a good day.

I would absolutely make more male clothing if it sold! I just released three new male outfits, three others are now in the making to look more 'simple.' So, thank you guys out there in this post who are letting us female designers know what direction to go in. Maybe I will have better luck ^ ^

Sorry for the late quote, but yeah...this is what I thought/think when I design for guys. LOL I guess to get rid of the dilemma I may keep my detailed designs and continue adding the less-detailed ones too hehe.

I have some great male clothing made by some really awesome designers.

Personally, I really like Blaze designs.

It is much more difficult to find, but there are several stores that have a lot of quality options.

Shoes have been hard for me, I have two pair of nice boots, but dress and casual shoes kind of, for lack of a better term, suck.

It took me a month to find hair that wasn't "messy". I know that some people think having their hair sticking up and hanging in their eyes is cool, but jeesh...

I've had some fairly good luck searching with "male" and "mens" as key words.

okay I'm back! (This is Damien Ferris the discontinued experiment)

I have some ideas of new clothing line for men but I would like to meet with a few designers in game or that will carry out the ideas. I'd like to pick one designer for the task who would carry out the vision appropriately.

There is no hidden whining involved about "but but that was my idea wahh", no strings attached other than hoping you can carry through with it and later I'm hoping to recruit alot of people to SL so I might want a favor in the future for the future guests.

So who's up for the design challenge for poor fashion thirsty males who are drying out in the desert with no canteen?

Respond in topic, send me an Im on the forum or in game.

Just a quick note on how do men shop... in my limited experience here, they ask the women around them whose fashion sense seems to reflect their tastes... at least in what a woman should wear. Which beggars the question... when you market your men's stuff, should you market it to men? or women?



Char

I imagine it can seem like the mens market might be less... lucrative. Pretty much every woman Ive known in SL liked owning lots of outfits, of all different types. Some guys as well, but others like me tend to stick to a few standbys, rarely shopping for clothes and even more rarely actually buying them. At this point, closing on one year in SL I have about 5 outfits I ever wear. A asian pant/jacket combo from BareRose, A snazzy red powersuit, my loincloth for when I feel... loinclothy, and my RL attire consisting of khaki fatigue pants and a t-shirt or button shirt. Beyond that all I really want is a nice smoking jacket for when Im lounging in my study. Accessories usually are limited to my top hat(bought) and my Spider Jeruselum photospecs, which I made myself. I really have no interest in tight leather, mesh shirts, jeans with exstranious straps/chains or goth stuff, which comprises a good deal of the mens stuff out there.

So...dilemma still. Yes I have a lot of things for men that are goth and punk so I understand your compromise. I also see from your reponse Phant that you like the khakis and the t-shirts like some other gents are requesting in this forum - which gives me good ideas on what more to design at my mall.

My question is, you say that you have an asian outfit, a powersuit, and a loin-cloth. These are not the usual 't-shirt and pants' type of outfits. So what determines which 'out of the ordinary' outfits you DO buy? Is there a specific thing that you look for like when you mentioned you do not like the 'tight leather, mesh shirts, & jeans with extraneous straps/chains or goth stuff." Would you be happier with a pair of pants without those? Just curious ^ ^

May I make a few requests as well?

Let me preface this with the admission that I always scout clothes for my girlfriend... I've been in at least as many shops as your average female.

A pair of boots that doesn't have twelve useless buckles on each one, and yet won't be mistaken for Shaggy's black blobs from a Scooby Doo cartoon? Perhaps something "Doc Martin-ish" that won't poke through your pants at the shins? There are a couple of people selling decent men's shoes, but they tend to fall into either the "totally over the top" or the "so preppy it hurts" catagories.

Please, please, please no more "Fabio covered in Latex" displays! Most of us get over the huge shoulders/no hips look in a few weeks. Some texture, the illusion of depth, anything but another airbrush job!

Most the stuff that I've bought has come from Kishi Lightcloud and Munchflower Zaius because their stuff usually doesn't look like paint when worn. My one and only pair of shoes (!SF Designs) were purchased because they're simple, elegant, and only have one small buckle.

- History

PS - Bling bad, very bad. Ugly, over-used, and tacky. Yes, I used the "T" word.

I seldom shop for myself. I love building and scripting. All my clothes have been bought under advice from ladies.

Beckenbauer Productions Oi! boots are really good. They will poke through your pants though if they're not tight enough... jeans made on the underwear layer are the best solution. Lost has a pair at ND that also comes as an underwear layer that would work.

Barnesworth Anubis has the best men's dress shoes I've seen, if you like !SF you'll love these. You can find his store from the picks. I went for the 5 pack, and pretty much live in them.

OMG Fade I love you ... you're exactly like me.

I have often been told I'm even worse than girls when it comes to shopping. I can spend a whole day hopping from one shop to another .... and even in SL the least I have spent looking for mens wear must be about 3 hours.

I have really ecclectic tastes when it comes to clothing, I am often goth but I do like a nice suit that makes me look "serious" or a relaxed look with jeans, sneakers, and T-shirt.

I think I change clothes in SL about two or three times per day if not more same for hair sadly not for shoes as I only have 3 or 4 pairs that I like (hint hint : Z boots from Shiny Things or sneakers from FORM)

But if there was more choice in SL trust me my GF would have a hard time pulling me out of the shops lol.

On a side not ... probably half of my gf's wardrobe is what I bought for her