Clothing for furries

VooDoo Extreme magazine, at voodooextrememagazine.com, the general interest publication for the role player in all of us, is researching a story about how difficult it is for some animal avatars to find clothes that fit them. In some cases, furries have a larger head, feet and smaller body shape than humans. In other cases, digitigrade animals, or those that stand or walks on their toes, have trouble finding pants.
The question is, which SL fashion designers cater to this population? Do some fashion designers avoid these niche markets because they are not lucrative?
Please keep in mind, this magazine is for the fantasy lover. Can a dragon, for example, ever find a tuxedo to wear to a wedding?
Designers are invited to share their point of view on this topic.

Depends a lot on the furry avatar that you choose to use. A large percentage of furries that I know own several variations on their Avatar, for this reason. With a little work, I can wear almost anything I wish.

Most furry avatars can't wear prim skirts, because they usually attach to the same point that the avatar's tail attaches to. (Or to the point which, <ahem!>, some other body part is already attached to...)

Avatars that have prim paws or prim forearms have trouble carrying certain objects or wearing some sorts of bracelets. Jewelry like bracelets require major re-positioning to use, may need to be incorporated into a copy of one of the avatar's prim parts (like a bracelet being part of a fuzzy forearm), and often needs to be scaled larger to look right...

Prim parts on the lower legs make it harder to wear ankle bracelets or leg cuffs. Some avatars have so many prim parts that almost any sort of clothing is an impossibility. For example, the full-prim dragons and werewolves that Jakkal's Werehouse sells can't wear clothes at all, as far as I am aware.

The larger head and neck isn't usually a problem, except for wearing hats and jewelry or other accessories that go on the head. Often they can still be worn, with careful scaling and re-positioning. Sometimes I'll adjust a neckline to make it larger, so it looks more like the head can fit through the opening.

In my case, my main Avatar is the Jakkal's Werehouse red fox vixen, which has digitigrade legs and moderate sized prim footpaws. The hands and forearms are human style. That form can't wear long pants or any form of shoes, but can wear most other fashions.

I have a variation of that form that dispenses with the prims and invisiprims that make the legs digitigrade, but which keeps the large footpaws. That form can wear long pants, but not shoes. I don't use it very often.

Then I have a variation that has entirely Human-style legs. I usually use that one when I want to wear shoes, boots, or most outfits designed for Humans. If I am 'dressed up' to go to a club or other fancy activity, I usually opt for this form.

I have one chibi-vixen form that is almost covered in prim parts. She has to wear short sleeves and shorts or short skirts, as long sleves, pants legs or skirts run into her prim parts on the arms and legs.

Most of the fashions that I design work equally well on furries and Humans. I tend to design for shorter skirts and tops that have more open necklines, and tend to choose fashions that also offer those accommodations.

wouldn't a dragon look formal enough with a black bow tie? i mean, who's gonna argue with him?

It is not because people avoid it. It is because it is difficult to make a One size fits all shirt, since it must be made with prims and not only texture the avatar shirt or dress. And the other thing, putting various attachments as one piece of clothing usually looks bugged with the furry body, since it will be an attachment over another and they may not sync.

Many furries use common human clothings tho

> Do some fashion designers avoid these niche markets because they are not lucrative?

In this case you'd almost be making a custom item each time; that's fine if you're doing custom jobs, but not if you want to make a lot of standard clothing to sell.

It's the variety that makes furry culture so great, in my opinion, but that also poses challenges to designers. It does mean that if you make something for your avatar you are very unlikely to see someone else with it on, and that is nice.