Otherworldly

Historically-themed clothing always catches my interest, but not all of it takes my fancy…. but at the Seraphim Social event, which had a “Pride and Prejudice” theme, I came across this terrific ensemble from Heathcliff, Junbug Mantel’s line of male mesh clothing. From head to toe, the outfit is very sharp indeed, capturing early 18th century style very well indeed.

This outfit is actually sold in two parts: the base ensemble which provides the bulk of the clothing—including the boots!—and the Darcy coat sold separately, available in a number of different colors. The shirt is, admittedly, more Harlequin Romance than Jane Austen, but I can’t say Freyja had cause to complain…

Perhaps the one detail that I didn’t care about the outfit is that it looks as if you have padded shoulders. I know many male avatars in SL have disproportionately wide shoulders, but I’m not one of them, so this just looks like an inaccuracy to the era—early 19th century clothing didn’t have shoulder pads!

The nice thing about the ensemble is that not only does it provide the mesh shirt in a fashion suitable to wearing under the Darcy coat (and, perhaps, other coats—you’ll have to test and see), but it also provides this standalone version. Looking very Fabio here, I admit….

One hopes we’ll see more work along these lines, especially as the possibilities with mesh expand now that fitted mesh is being tested out by Linden Lab. The outfits are available in standard sizing, but with the possibility of forming directly to an avatar’s shape, this will surely make things easier for designers—letting them focus on other things, and letting residents have clothing really fit their shapes rather than being squeezed on to some standard model.