Paper Couture’s Seen By Moonlight

“Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

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Wright, probably the greatest American architect to date, had good reason to be arrogant. Visionary, inspired, and controversial from the beginning of his career to the end of his life, FLW also did much to influence the thinking and taste of architecture in this country during the 20th Century, as well as many elements of American aesthetics in general. He helped create a distinctly American style of building and decoration, the Prairie style, which shared many of its beautiful tenets of design with the Arts and Crafts movement, but brought a new, more modern language of form to the same concepts.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Virtual Museum in Usonia region (named for FLW’s designs for middle-class homes) exhibit reproductions of a number of his beautiful works, including one of his masterpieces — Fallingwater, the home designed for the Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh, executed in another of his styles, the Organic. The actual home is set in a well-forested plot of land, and seems to arise naturally from the surrounding limestone rock. The creators of the FLWVM have achieved something of this effect here with their virtual Fallingwater; and it is this background that I chose to pose against in this new gown.

If anyone in Second Life couture could qualify for the right to be arrogant and controversial about their talent — though as far as I know, they never have been — the designers of Paper Couture would. There is very little grey concerning Paper in the blogs, from what I’ve seen; either you love their designs, or you hate them, just like people did FLW’s work. Bad reviews have little influence on their bottom line, though — hordes have rushed each fall to purchase huge chunks of Ava and Cora Lu’s collections. I’ve lusted after them myself ever since I bought Magpie back in 2008, which I wore to New Year’s Eve that year. This year’s collection has hit a similar home run, as has been shown elsewhere, and as I’m showing here.

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“Simplicity and repose are the qualities that measure the true value of any work of art.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

Ava Lu struck the right note of simplicity in this gown, called Seen By Moonlight. The fabric texture of the dress itself is to swoon over, with royal blue dressed up with splashy diamond-shaped patterns of what appear to be silver paillettes over it. By itself, you’d have an excellent formal day dress or cocktail dress. Then you add in the full-shouldered cape, with geometric lines and feather shapes trailing behind you, and what was great becomes something spectacular. I dressed this dress up a touch more by adding a pair of leggings in midnight black shine; but they could be left off just as well.

A note on the shoes: These are slingbacks from N-core. They come with a skin-matcher HUD that I was afraid would be a little limited in choice of shade; but I think I came out good here, if my old eyes don’t deceive me. And they’re a lot more affordable than some other brand(s), even when those brand(s) are on sale.

A quick jump inside to before the fireplace, and you can see the jewelry that I chose — again Paper Couture. Cora Lu does a new collection every year that complements the gowns Ava comes up with. For this dress, I waffled between this necklace and a more elaborate jeweled collar, before choosing the simpler option of a knotted snake chain. There weren’t a matching pair of earrings, but the Organic Hoops made a good match to my eye — not too visible beneath my hair in this case, sadly, but worth your money. And as for that hair, I think this short-and-sassy style from Glitter is my favorite bob style right now. I went with platinum here instead of red; but I kept my freckles on my PXL skin. (Well, I am a natural redhead, after all….)

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” — Frank Lloyd Wright

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