Striking the pose

---

Yesterday I discovered myself doing something rather odd in RL….....

I found myself casually flipping through a GQ magazine, pondering advertisements and wondering how the stuff might look on me. When I realized what I had been doing, I paused, looked around guiltily and laid the magazine aside.

I’ve never done that before! I am, maybe unfortunately, in RL the kind of guy who goes to the same stores all the time and when asked what I’m looking for points lamely at what I have on.
„Something like this. But, newer. In fact, do you carry these pants?“

I truly think I’m a bit better then most men and try to keep up with style changes, let’s say every five years. So what am I doing browsing advertising in GQ?

I think that SL has made me fashion aware, or fashion conscious or maybe just a fashion victim – take your pick. I used to think of clothes in terms of “shirt, socks, shorts, pants, shoes… dressed! That is slowly changing.. (And may I also insert that Tia has done more then her part too, explaining, for example, that a certain colour is “aqua” and not just “light blue - as I believed; that a cardigan is a type of sweater and not some backbench British politician; that my black hair allows me to wear “primary colours”, and then kindly describing what they are.)

I’ve always been taken back by people who write they love shopping in their profiles. It seemed too trite, trivial and even a little bit self-demeaning – a little dirty secret that one does not have to broadcast to the world. But, although I’ll never put that up in my profile, let me come out of the closet and admit: I enjoy shopping too.

And I’d almost say I love it - were SL a more male friendly shopping paradise. Case in point: I recently pointed out a dress that I liked to Tia and received the quick retort “I don’t want to look like an escort.” (Maybe in a later post I’ll delve into the subject of what men like and women want to wear and why the twain shall never meet.)

But to men’s clothing. At least Tia has the option! And so many more. She can buy anything from ballroom gowns, fluffy sweaters, latex jumpsuits, tops, blouses, skirts, mini-skirts, to things that look like they might eventually become skirts when they grow up. She can go in for the sweet and demure look, the aggressive vamp, the businesswoman attire, tarty and naughty, and on and on and on.

I’m not even going to mention shoes.

What do I have a choice of? Black Mad Max get ups, tuxedos or jeans and t-shirts!

I know there are some good designers in SL for men’s attire, but they are few and far between – and between them are usually miles and miles of very good women’s stores. Travelling from one place to the other I often get distracted and end up ogling, wistfully, women’s clothing. I feel like that guy who hangs out in the bra section at your local department store.

The unfair treatment of men doesn’t just stop there, Case in point number two: demos. I can’t remember the last time I actually saw men’s clothing being offered with a demo to check out before you buy. Probably because I never have. I see that sort of thing all the time at stores that cater to women.

And I fear, dear masculine mates of SL, that it’s our own fault. We just don’t buy like women do. Tia has a longer list of Demos in her Inventory then I have of clothes. I just buy, try it on, think “Damn that looks good”, but more often “Damn, another 250 Linden down the drain”.

And then I go off to paw the gowns.

---