An excuse to use the ‘poll’ function
I’ve been busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger of late. Running two businesses, spending time with my family, Plurking (bad Plurk’s stealing all your good blog posts – you know that right?) and actually hanging wallpaper (with two arms not one, thankfully) has drained me outright.
Witness:
Trust me to wander the grid looking for spooky haunted houses (the one over at Grim Babies was great fun) only to nap through all the fun. Well, at least I think it was fun – my host there in the background left some wicked bite marks on me while I snoozed, so I’m assuming it was fun for her. Hope she took pictures!
Though I haven’t been participating much in the ol’SL™, I have been thinking about a few things, and I wanted your opinion…
A quick run down on my thoughts:
* I love the Halloween costume collaborations that Torrid, Starley, Kari and Haver have recently put out, and I’d love to see more joint efforts from other designers that aren’t necessarily holiday-theme based. It seems to refresh their work and I think their offerings are stronger (if that’s possible) for their common theme and goal.
* Creative store designs = love. I think this stemmed from the Grim Babies haunted house, where everything was for sale and the shopping experience was entirely immersive, providing a great contrast to the Armidi-cloned shop layout that everyone now seems to favour. I feel like I want MORE from my designers than just good clothes. How much fun is shopping at Kurotsubaki, for instance?
* I included CSRs but to be honest I’ve never needed one. How do you use them? Do we need more?
* I have mixed feelings about designer superstores, a la Muism, Armidi, The Abyss … on one hand, if the designers are really so good at designing, why not try a hand at everything? On the other hand, people specialise for a reason, right? But on the other hand, convenient one-stop-shops are cool. On the other hand, dressing head to toe in a designer and MAJOR LAG = boo.
* Limited edition releases turn me on in the biggest way, especially when they aren’t priced exclusively for shipping magnates and oil barons. My budget’s been a little pinched of late, but I got so excited when Charlotte Morellet blogged about the orphaned skins that had no home after being ordered from SodaSkins.com - $399 for a unique skin, whenever she chose to put one out. Rare, unique and great value? Hubba hubba!
* I fear I’m going to be a little on my own with wanting more hand-drawn and less photosourced. Yes, I know it looks real, but does that make it better?
* It’s a been a gripe for a long time - insipid posts praising and fawning over less than good designs and articulations of designs. Though many blog only what they like, the singular lack of critique (not bitchiness, mind – others cover that department well enough) is a poor state of affairs – healthy and constructive criticism can surely improve everyone’s lot, no?
* Tuli’s launch of the Journey sim struck me as the best and most creative way yet to harness SL™’s capabilities to showcase new releases: “Instead of the typical runway show, the models of Second Look Studio will be displaying clothing from the participating shops for the duration of the event. See the models on display, pick up a style card, and visit the shops. The sim is beautiful, bring your camera!”… GENIUS! Actually, not really genius, more common sense than trying to recreate a pseudo runway where you hope less then 20 people show for the sake of photos.
A bit of a ramble from me, but I’d really like to hear your comments.
Also… I have a great selection of stuff to blog soon, from KessKreations, Pink Outfitters, SLink and YumYum. Pray the wallpaper stays up, and I should be back soon. Stay tuned!
♥ Genevieve
The number one thing I hate when it comes to fashion, is seeing everyone and their mother wearing an outfit I just bought. If I see the same outfit on somebody else more than three times, I usually retire mine. Maybe if there were more limited edition things, there wouldn’t be so much oversaturation of the same outfit.
I love designer collaborations.
CSRs standing in stores freak me out with their insincere greetings.
I’m sick of runway shows and although I didn’t get to the Journey opening it sounds like a good idea. I believe Fleur did something very similar and very cool when they were still Tete a Pied and opening the Nouveau sim.
I’d like to see more done about content theft. And re: CSRs — I say hello as a way of letting you know I am here, and I am *always* happy to help you!
@ the CSR bit: The necessity of a CSR staff really depends on the store. Stores with large customer bases will naturally have more instances of SL delivery bugs, people posing questions about items, requiring assistance with fitting prims, inquiring about gifting and custom orders… hiring CSRs to handle things like showing newbie customers how to stretch prim hair or look up transaction details saves the owner/designer time which they can use towards creating more content. Plus people do appreciate the service; I’ve worked CS for a SL store for a year now with half a dozen other CSRs on staff, and over that timespan I’ve heard countless customers express gratitude that there’s live people present to help them.
And what Samara said is very true, sometimes people don’t even realize there’s a CSR available to help them if they need it, until the CSR actually says ‘hi’.
Thanks so much for your comment about the Journey event. When we launched Second Look Studio, our major goal in planning events was to make sure that we actually achieve the goal of showing the fashion. All the best plans are wasted if everyone is gray for the 5 minutes that you get to see them. Besides…. who really has “fun” at runway events? (raise your hand if you use that time to catch up on IMs) Now, an hour or two of music and dancing, with fashion as the focus, THAT sounds like a good time?
^^ *raises hand* (even at my own shows LMFAO!)
Fashion at your (or your computer’s) pace – it’s less ’scene-y’ tho. Is that why the runway is still so popular – for who’s face you recognize sitting in the front row?
I hadn’t considered CSRs allow designers more (valuable) working time – that puts a different and happy spin on it for me! I’m one of those shoppers who, like boys at a urinal, can’t concentrate when I feel like someone’s watching me, but I think I can make the sacrifice if I know it’s for the good of my inventory!
* Collabs are fantastic, especially if they bring in someone you may not have heard of in the past, Black Swan wasn’t a collab as such but the people in that all on the same theme meant for some amazing looks.
* CSR’s have different purposes for sure, some as greeters to let you know they are there, some don’t get as much time in the store due to IM work, but I have never greeted anyone insincerely and can’t imagine anyone doing so, we don’t ‘have’ to do what we do, we enjoy it as for freeing up the designer , that has always been the reason for them, and it works.
*Limited editions are nice as you said if they aren’t out of everyones reach, but I’d prefer short time sold than volume sold. Plus when you have to tell someone they can’t have something because it was LE there are many reactions to that.
* As for the blogging thing, what exactly do people want critiqued and why, why do we have to take someones hard work and find fault with it in public for it to be seemed as the right way ? Everyone says this about bloggers all the time, and I just don’t get it, for one most don’t know what happens behind the scenes.
If I find a fault (and it would have to be a real fault not a pattern not meeting correctly under the arms, as in
@ Sasy, I don’t think to critique is to find fault.
For instance, I l.o.v.e. LOVE Thimbles, but desperately want for Apatia and Mel to redo all their vendors so there are fatpacks and maybe a slightly easier wall layout to navigate. In all the posts I’ve done on Thimbles, I never mentioned it, cos I didn’t want to call them out on what I saw as a problem. When I mentioned it to Apatia privately, she said no one had said that to her, and with her burgeoning inventory, could see how it was a good, though painful, idea.
It’s not always possible to do that face to face, so why not a blog?
I’m a big supporter of artists in SL, and agree that art is hard to ‘judge’ – that said, we buy or we don’t buy, and that’s the biggest judgement of all. Maybe some even-handed praise and commentary can help improve new and novice designers, or can remind established designers that we notice the minutia of what they do.
* Collabs are fantastic, especially if they bring in someone you may not have heard of in the past, Black Swan wasn’t a collab as such but the people in that all on the same theme meant for some amazing looks.
* CSR’s have different purposes for sure, some as greeters to let you know they are there, some don’t get as much time in the store due to IM work, but I have never greeted anyone insincerely and can’t imagine anyone doing so, we don’t ‘have’ to do what we do, we enjoy it as for freeing up the designer , that has always been the reason for them, and it works.
*Limited editions are nice as you said if they aren’t out of everyone’s reach, but I’d prefer short time sold than volume sold. Plus when you have to tell someone they can’t have something because it was LE there are many reactions to that.
* As for the blogging thing, what exactly do people want critiqued and why, why do we have to take someones hard work and find fault with it in public for it to be seemed as the right way ? Everyone says this about bloggers all the time, and I just don’t get it, for one, most don’t know what happens behind the scenes.
If I find a fault (and it would have to be a real fault not a pattern not meeting correctly under the arms, as in RL that doesn’t happen either) I contact the designer, there have been cases where an item has come back to me redone more than once, before it is fixed, and then it is blogged.
When I squeel and jump all around in glee over an item, I am literally that excited, bloggers don’t get paid, I don’t care if people say we do by all the free items we get, there aren’t that many bloggers out there that blog often that ever get to wear anything given other than on the posestand, yes sometimes you might see us flitting about in something because we are in the middle of pic taking and want new hair or something, but more often than not the items get pics taken and are put aside.
This time around I have tried to wear things that I just want to, like logging in to todays post outfit and standing around on my platform alone answering customer enquiries
and yes that makes me happy that I got to do that.
But as like anyone else , if we have bought an item and its got faults, it’s as upsetting to us as anyone and that’s yuck, but that should never go to the blog, it is between customer and designer to sort out, if the designer doesn’t feel the need , then that’s just a shame.
I have had experience with people stating that because they blogged they would destroy a business, that is the potential outcome of critiquing and such.
People will remember the bad, that a designer because of spending 58 hours hand drawing something didn’t notice that one of the 28 straps crossing the back didn’t meet, it gets blogged in the negative because a blogger decides that that is just wrong, and that’s a shame for not only the designer, but also all the customers who would have loved their work.
Had the same blogger IMd the designer and pointed out the non meeting strap because they understand that so much goes into getting an item up for sale, not just the first step of actually making it, but everything else.
The designer is so grateful for the information and the subtle and non accusatory way the info was given that they fix it immediately, and then at the suggestion of the blogger perhaps or just because that’s the kind of person they are, resend the item to everyone that bought it so they have one to the standard that that designer holds for themselves.
THAT kind of thing makes me happy.
Everyone starts out having to learn with Designing,also it’s not only new designers that make mistakes, but if it was a new designer a blogger could actually destroy their desire to create, many designers are that sensitive, and I have seen that happen to.
But take it on another slant, think about the designers you love, and imagine if a blogger came along and started saying all the negatives about that designer, wouldn’t even have to be done bitchy just well informed critiquing. Can you imagine the uproar, everyone says they want that kind of blogging, but imagine the uproar if the blogger was to point out fault with designers that everyone loves etc, then I don’t think it would be appreciated at all.
anyway sorry you got all that comment, it’s been building a bit lol, great poll
xox Sasy xox
DAYUM comments should tell you how big a comment is going to be, sorry
xox Sasy xox
realises when she accidentally hit enter it did in fact post much earlier and in part, sorry about that
xox Sasy xox
I think there is space for critique that lets everyone – not just the one designer – know that folks have a wish list of designer do’s. For example, I want at least two layers of each top. I want tops that don’t end at the waist (with the underpants layer or jacket). I don’t want designers taking my chest attachment – that’s where the necklace goes. and they better leave the ears alone, too. So, when I point that out, I hope that in the future, not just that designer, but others as well will leave my ears alone so I can wear my earrings.
I don’t think that CSR’s are unnecessary but why do they have to stand in the store and cut and paste greetings? I’d much prefer a system where you could IM one when you needed help?
re: the honest critique of items we blog
Imagine you are someone on a budget; you contemplate every purchase carefully. Any time you make a purchase that does not meet your expectations, you sigh, put it in your “i won’t wear this” folder, and get dressed in something you’ve owned for months. It can be pretty depressing.
Sure, you can get in touch with the designer, point out a flaw, and if it’s just something they overlooked, maybe they will fix it. Or maybe, you buy a fatpack, which you almost never do, but this time you really loved the outfit, and it was from a popular designer so, of course the work is going to be good right? Then you bring it home, and the transparency on one strap is sloppy, like really really sloppy. Must have been an oversight, so you IM the designer. She gets back to you and says “oh, hmm, i see that, do you want something else instead?” Not “oh let me fix that so others don’t buy it like that”. That fatpack is still in the store, as is. It isn’t fixed. It isn’t on the discount shelf. It’s there at full price. I wonder how many people have bought it and put it in their “I won’t wear this” folder. It’s not the only flawed item in this very popular shop. *based on a true story*
I won’t blog about it because I am afraid of alienating designers.
I do agree that blogging about one flaw on one item in a shop, when everything else in the shop is really well done might be pushing it too far. However, some of the most popular shops on the grid sell work with messy seams, unfinished edges, or other flaws that are clearly the result of lack of attention to detail. I wish someone out there had the guts to call them on it.
The unpleasant surprises with shoddy craftsmanship and store owners who really can’t see beyond a quick sale are what makes me loyal to designers who actually take the time a) to fix stuff if necessary, b) to speak to me as though I have a brain and c) don’t attack me for daring to be less than gushing.
Case in point: well-known store, outfit that was about a dozen time blurrier than the poster (as in unwearable). Reaction ‘well nobody else complained. Anyway, it’s close-fitting – you need to know how to adjust prims’. Oh please… Then I got ‘well, have another colour – I’ll give you two to try but you must send one back immediately.’ No thanks. Never set foot in there again!
What gets me is that ‘criticism’ is not necessarily bashing anybody but, if done fairly can be really, REALLY helpful. But then sometimes it’s not meant to be fair, or kind. Thing is, all a lot of SL vendors seem to want is cash NOW NOW NOW and who cares about customer loyalty or, y’know, quality. And however much you can say ‘quality is a question of perception’, just line up a well-made shoe with a badly-shaded monstrosity…
Sure, well-made stuff can be expensive and sometimes ridiculously so (a few names spring to mind). That’s the maker’s prerogative and I can usually find alternatives. However, let’s not forget that the difference between ‘expensive’ and reasonable may be, what, 50 cents? And if you get good customer service and a lot of wear out of something, I’d rather put my huuuuge 50 cents into that than into a bunch of cheapos by a designer lacking skill and often in potential.
Better not to get onto ‘those with potential, but it’s another can of worms. In short, potential is – IMHO – when successive releases are better crafted, different (just how many of those stick-out frilly mini-skirts can the market hold?) – and the maker is actually open to suggestions like, as somebody said, more layers or better finishing.