Back again... again.

As some of you already know, I've had a lot of ups and downs with my health over the last year and a half, which has forced me to prioritize my time in SL and on the computer.

Thus the dearth of posts for the last four months.

I'm intending to give the blog a go once again, as I've had a couple people comment that they like being able to catch up on Montagne Noire news outside of SL... too often inworld group notices are missed, or never delivered, or offline email notices go into spam folders and are never seen again.

So please do keep an eye on this blog -- I encourage you to follow it if you're a Google or Blogger user. I intend to continue writing not just about Montagne Noire news, but also about issues in Second Life, when the mood strikes. ;)

Thanks all for your patience, and for reading. Cheers!

Easter Egg Hunt item preview - no foolin'!

So here's the scoop: Starting tonight at midnight (Friday, April 1), ten damask eggs will be hidden throughout the three floors of our Caledon Oxbridge Village main store through the end of the month.

Each egg will contain a 10L clothing/accessory item, all of which coordinate into two outfits!

These items also coordinate with our specially priced 100L Avril (April) ball gown!

A personal note: April is a special month for me because it's my birthday month and the one year anniversary of my mastectomy surgery.

In appreciation of the support of my patrons and friends in SL during the past year, I'm celebrating my recovery from breast cancer with this special event. I hope you'll stop in and join in on the fun!

Getting back in the groove

March 2011 marks a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer in RL. It's been a long haul, but my prognosis is excellent.

As you can see from the date of my last post on this blog, I had to stop posting last summer when I started chemotherapy. Treatment was a real struggle; I ended up going into the hospital twice, and eventually we decided to stop chemo treatment early, because it was making me so ill.

After some recuperation, I jumped head first into radiation treatment and that took a lot out of me too.

Throughout the last few months I've kept a low profile on SL, mostly focusing on maintaining the creative and business side of Montagne Noire. When I've felt well enough to sit in the computer chair for long periods of time, I've released some new outfits; when sitting was too tiring, I had to limit myself to addressing customer service issues.

So one of the things that fell by the wayside during the last few months was this blog. I simply couldn't justify the effort and time for it... but now I'm intending to make a re-commitment to it. While this blog has but a small following, I think it's an important exercise for me as a RL writer.

One of the lingering effects of treatment has been trouble with words... Word Amnesia would be a good term for it. There's a neurological condition the oncologists call "chemo brain" which affects different patients in different ways; it just so happens that it's affecting my ability to spell correctly and conjure the correct words for people, places and objects. What it hasn't affected fortunately is my ability to create clothing. That must go on in a different part of my brain.

My posts will likely be brief in nature, mostly announcing new releases, sales etc., as I did before. So please stay tuned!

A new ship captain's Davenport desk set!

New to Montagne Noire Furnishings, a replica 19th century Sea Captain's Desk. Also also known as a Davenport Desk, it's said to have been commissioned by a real life clipper ship captain named John Davenport.

Designed for optimal comfort in the close quarters of a ship, the desk typically stored the crew's papers, sealed sailing instructions, logbooks, charts, instruments and a pair of flintlock pistols in the locked drawers on the sides. The desk also featured a storage well beneath the hinged desktop, and a narrow hinged lid concealing a flat storage compartment for writing supplies.

Montagne Noire's captain's desk has been designed for the Second Life captain who, like his real life counterpart, has limited space to conduct his ship's business (in this case, prim count). The desk is seven prims, the chair just two. The chair features a writing animation and an inkwell that provides a quill pen, so you can write in your captain's log. Also included are maps of the Mediterranean and West Indies.

Of course, this desk is also very functional for other sorts of captains -- captains of industry, Captains Courageous, and captains of I-prefer-to-remain-on-solid-ground...

The desk set retails for 200L, and is now available at our Caledon & Antiquity locations, as well as on XStreet.

Expansion, 10L secret sale, discounted ball gowns

Montagne Noire is pleased to announce that we are making some changes to our shops in Caledon Oxbridge Village and Antiquity Township!

Our inventory has been growing quickly, and in response we have renovated each location -- our Caledon location will continue to specialize in clothing and accessories, and our Antiquity shop will now exclusively feature our Victorian & Old West low prim furnishings.

And just for fun, this weekend only, at each shop I have put one item at each location on sale for 10L -- items that are regularly 100-250L. It is up to your sleuthing skills to hunt the items out!

Also, the third floor clearance section at the Caledon shop now has more of our 2008 and 2009 holiday ball gowns available, priced at 20-50L, 80% off the original price.

We're in the process of adding more furnishings, and will announce new items as they become available.

For the ladies: new gowns on sale

Plenty of news to be had, so we'll start right off with our new releases for ladies:

Montagne Noire introduces the Cheongsam, a body-hugging one-piece Chinese dress for women in a vibrant red satin brocade.

The cheongsam is also known in Mandarin Chinese as the qípáo and in English as a Mandarin gown.

Also included are garment pieces to wear as an Vietnamese Ao Dai (Áo Dài), featuring a tight-fitting silk tunic worn over ankle length leggings.

Montagne Noire's version is designed with a Victorian eye for modesty, featuring long sleeves and ankle length leggings.

To celebrate the Chinese New Year on Feb. 14, the Cheongsam is on sale for 100L, 50% off the retail price. The sale price is effective through Feb. 14.

The next gown in our new ball gown line has arrived just in time for Mardi Gras.

To celebrate Mardi Gras on Feb. 16, Reine du Bal in amethyst is now on sale for 175L, 50% off the retail price. The sale price is effective through Feb. 16.

Lastly, there are four new gowns in our clearance section, marked down 80% off the retail price, making them just 20L and 50L!

New womenswear is located in the west wing on the ground floor of our Caledon & Antiquity shops; you'll find Clearance on the third floor.

Remodeled Caledon & Antiquity shops now open!

Renovations are finally complete on MNC's Caledon and Antiquity shops.

After a lot of research, I came back to my original choice for a new building, "The 1875 Shoppe" by Four Winds.

Four Winds makes some exceptional buildings, from many different eras, both residential and commercial. As I went around SL, I really didn't see anything quite as nice. That likely has to do with SL's Search function, which is frankly a rather frustrating and often futile experience. But that's a topic for another post...

The shops now feature a third floor devoted to our complete line of low prim Victorian & Old West furnishings, in addition to our regular selection of men's, women's and girl's Victorian clothing and accessories.

If you haven't seen MNC's furnishings before, the line has grown considerably, and includes everything from Victorian sofas & armchairs to a Chinese tea table & seat cushions. Oriental rugs, bookcases, English & Chinese tea sets, Edgar Allen Poe cigars, fireplaces, wine & liquor cabinets, shop counters, stained glass lamps, armoires, kitchen furniture are just some of what the line now offers.

All this I've designed over the last two years with Victorian & Old West role play sims in mind, where every prim counts. As I said in a previous post, they are simple, yet functional.

I'm very excited about the new buildings, as they give MNC more room to grow. They also have a more open feeling to them as you walk in -- large plate glass windows in front give visitors a picturesque view of Caledonian and Antiquity waters.

Please be my guest and stop by some time to say hello! I'm often at one or the other location, tinkering. :)

About Montagne Noire Clothiers...

If by chance you have randomly stumbled into this blog, I am the owner of Montagne Noire Clothiers, a Victorian clothing shop in Second Life. I've been designing Victorian clothing for women and men (and now children) for a little over a year now.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a fashion designer in real life, though I have acquired enough seamstressing skills over the years to have designed and sewn several historically inspired garments. I would (very humbly) describe myself as an amateur historian, so in researching and designing historical costumes, it followed that I began to study the history and progression of fashion.

Now how does this translate to designing Victorian clothing in Second Life? Good question. I am not an artist in real life, I can't draw worth a damn. But I do have some graphic design skills that I use in my real life job.

Before I took the plunge and tried designing, I traveled through a number of the historical realms of SL, picking up a variety of historically themed garments, both free and Linden purchased, along the way. But it was often a painstaking and frustrating process.

While there were an abundance of shops out there advertising era specific clothing (Victorian, Medieval, Renaissance, etc), more often than not the outfits were an amalgamation of different eras and styles.

I've come to call it the "Sinderella Syndrome" -- more (adult) fantasy than reality, the gowns generally feature giant swirling crinoline (hoop) skirts and very lowcut necklines.

First, let me say that there's nothing wrong with wanting to dress like Cinderella in Second Life. SL is a place where you can realize your fantasies, and for many women, that's dressing like a princess. I myself readily admit to having a few Cinderella gowns in my SL inventory.

But it's problematic when you are the owner of a historically themed role play sim and want to provide visitors an authentic experience. That, however, is a topic for another blog entry...

Some of this homogenized look is the result of technical limitations in Second Life. It's very difficult to recreate some garment styles because of the way the UV body templates are mapped. For those who aren't familiar with how clothing is created in SL, it involves layering textures two-dimensionally in a graphics program like Photoshop. That final texture is uploaded to SL, where you apply the textures onto the three dimensional body of an avatar.

Sometimes the translation isn't what you expected.

So, armed with my interest in fashion history and a copy of Photoshop CS3, I began to tinker to see what I could come up with. And the rest, as they say, is history.

A mountain by any other name...

The redhead steps down from the stagecoach, gazing at the rough-hewn frontier town ahead of her, drawing her cloak around her as the bitter winter wind greets her. Mais, fait-i, fré, ogniet [But isn't it cold today] …. She hopes the welcome she receives is not so chilly … Vère dja, mais pas tant comme hiaer [Oh yes, but not as cold as yesterday] …

She wonders to herself if it was the right decision to come here… to start over … but it is too late for doute.

Where she should even begin? something to eat, perhaps…. Then enquire about available properties. Yes, that is it, she thinks. Make introductions, settle in, get to work, put my mind to other things…

Later in the day, she is standing before an empty building in a quiet corner of town by the river, imagining the interior adorned with lace curtains, Oriental rugs, racks of rich fabrics and... rows of dresses. An abundance of gowns. She had seen the attire of some of the ladies in town as she made her way down the street with her new landlord. I have my work cut out for me, she mused.

But what to call this place? She stood in silent contemplation for some time. As her eyes lifted to the stark hills surrounding her, her mind wandered back to a time and place on another continent, where she could see dark peaks rising out of the earth with the same kind of defiance.

Ah... Montagne Noire [Black Mountain], she said out loud, the sound of her voice drifting off into the hills. She smiled to herself as she turned to make her way back to Main Street. There were so many things to do now.