Virtual Gowns, Bag and Swag

Fashion week took New York by storm this week. Designers paraded out their latest offerings while fashionistas and celebrities from around the globe fought over the coveted front seats along the catwalks. iVillage, along with the virtual ASpiRE Modeling Agency offered an alternative to the crowded tents in Bryant Park with their first virtual fashion show in Second Life.

In the world of fashion - it's pretty good to be an avatar. No one is worried about your BMI index, you never have a bad hair day, you can change - with a few clicks on the keyboard - in a flash. Fashion is big business in Second Life, where creativity reigns supreme and real people make an actual living creating virtual haute couture.

iVillage presented three of Second Life's most famous fashion houses--caLLie cLine, Paper Couture and Simone Stern--to coincide with Fashion Week. I attended the event with Arianna Hera, the avatar of Arianna Huffington, in a Simone! Designs crimson gown and Paper Couture zebra bag. Arianna wore caLLie cLine.

Before being teleported from my virtual home into a special press zone to cover the catwalk, I edited my appearance to fit the gown and slipped on a pair of earrings with built-in bling that shimmered in silver beams under perpetually perky curls that never go frizzy in the virtual humidity, even when it appears to be raining.

Amazingly, the audience started showing up hours before the event--and I mean hours. Only a certain number of avatars can occupy a single space at a time, and it's not uncommon to get shut out. In real life, the murmurings of the fashionistas remain a low rumble from a distance, but in Second Life, anyone can read every word on the screen. A round of trivia while avatars waited for the show to begin yielded some gems: Is Viagra Kosher in Israel? I'm still not sure about the answer.

When the models started strutting down the catwalk to DJ Naydee McGettigan, the crowd didn't stop talking. The rules of etiquette in Second Life are still up in the air. When one avatar commented that she felt like she was at the Oscars, another replied that she'd actually been to the Oscars, and not even the line for the ladies' room was as slow.

Paper Couture, a fashion house made up of five "sisters," Ava Lu, Prue Lu, Mimi Lu, Mare Lu and Cora Lu, were up first. The crowd went crazy as model Honey Bender flitted out in an Anemone Gown, which reminded me of my favorite fairy tale in childhood, in which a girl asks for--and receives--gowns made of air, water and stars. Decadent, dreamy confections drifted in front of an audience of avatars, the likes of which simply cannot exist in real life. No matter how far fashion pushes the boundaries, it will always be a slave to the laws of physics, and no matter how many nips and tucks the women poured within expensive and beautiful garments are, they are still bound by time and shackled to reality. Fashion, it seems, was made for Second Life.

caLLie cLine, who has raised money for Steve Irwin's Wildlife Warriors and breast cancer research, plans to launch a Fashion Compassion line this spring. Yes, as in real life, there is the desireable swag in the virtual world. Swag bags at the iVillage event could be had for a click on a caLLie cLine box behind the seats. Her "Army Baby" signature ensemble in platinum drew cheers from the crowd, and her "SL daughter," Aradia Dielli, sauntered down the runway in a "sizzling" one piece suit.

Simone! Designs (created by Simone Stern, founder of "Ayeshe's Angels," a fund for the medical care of her friend) showed off a bevy of sexy, classy designs--a rare combination in Second Life.

The showstopper of the evening was Simone's wedding dress that had some exclaiming that they wanted to get married in Second Life--a phenomenon that stunned me just last week when an avatar sent me her wedding album and told me that already, she and her virtual groom had parted ways because he started acting too much like a real life husband.

No wonder iVillage's Girls Night Out has been experiencing such a massive turnout!