Tomb of Ligeia 10L Halloween Hunt starts today

"There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream — an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos." 

-- Edgar Allen Poe, "Ligeia," 1838 

"Ligeia" is one of Edgar Allen Poe's early short stories, telling a woeful, gothic tale of the unnamed narrator's love for his wife Ligeia, who dies a wasting death. Later he marries Lady Rowena, who also falls ills and dies... and in death, an eerie transformation occurs.

To read the tale in its entirety, visit The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore's website dedicated to all things Poe.

This year, Montagne Noire's 10L Halloween Hunt celebrates Poe's tale with the theme "The Tomb of Ligeia," An homage to Poe (with a nod to Roger Corman, too).

There are six black cats hidden in our shop, can you find them all?

Hunt items include a Lady Ligeia gown, a Lady Rowena gown, "The Narrator" suit, Ligeia's gravesite, a stone fireplace featuring a portrait of Ligeia, and the marriage bed with a side table of Poe-ish accessories.

FIFTH SL Rez Day 5L Sale on now!

Today, Dec. 20, I'm celebrating my FIFTH SL Rez Day, and to celebrate, Montagne Noire is hosting a special 5L sale now through Dec. 26 at our main store in Caledon Oxbridge Village.

A total of ONE HUNDRED items have been reduced throughout the store to 5L!

 No, I haven't gone off the deep end -- everything from women's, men's and children's Victorian and other role play clothing, to accessories to furnishings to holiday decor are featured in this sale -- gifts for yourself and gifts to give to your family and friends.

One of the 100 5L items you'll find at the shop through Dec. 26.

I just want to thank all my customers for their support over the last five years, especially during my treatment for breast cancer.

What a pleasure it has been to be a resident and content creator in SL for all this time. I am still in love with the place after five years. 

I hope you'll stop by and share in my celebration. Very Happy Holidays to you!

Get your Pilgrim on!

Okay, I confess that updating this blog hasn't been at the top of my priorities list since returning full time to SL... for one thing, they changed the template on me, and because of my cognitive issues it takes forever for me to get used to changes like this.

Also, I've been concentrating on creating content, and getting ready for the holidays, which this week includes Thanksgiving.

Two new additions to Montagne Noire's role play clothing: "Le Pieux" (The Pious) and "Le Petit Pieux", two 17th century costume sets depicting the American Pilgrims, part of the reason why we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November each year.

The Pilgrims arrived on America's shores in 1620, in the the small 100-foot ship the Mayflower, where they founded the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Legend has it that it was the native Wampanoag people who helped the Pilgrims survive the first winter in Plymouth, teaching them to fish and later grow corn in the spring.

The "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated in 1621, and the feast lasted three days, providing enough food for 53 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.

"Le Pieux" features male and female costumes for adults; "Le Petit Pieux" is for male and female children. These sets, like our other "couples" sets, are mod/trans, allowing you to transfer the second costume to your partner, friend, a fellow actor or role player, or other avatar.

This costume set can also be worn in other role play environments, or modified to fit other eras -- for men, the pants can be lengthened, the collar resized, and your own shoes and hat added.

The woman's costume is also generally representative of many other "plain dress" religious movements, such as the Quakers, Mennonites and Amish.

These sets retail for 250L, but as new releases, this week they both are 50% off -- just 125L, ONLY at our main store in Caledon Oxbridge Village. Enjoy!

Montagne Noire Merchantile in Deadwood

The newly reset Deadwood western RP sim has a great little merchants section within Fort Laramie, the starting point of your journey to Deadwood (in real life about 400 miles, I think).

When the sim owners rebuilt the sim recently, one of the things that was important to them was to get as authentic a look as they could get from their merchant "outfitters," those businesses that in the real life Old West set up adjacent to such places at Fort Laramie to provide prospectors and travelers with the supplies they needed to survive their long journey. So you won't find any flashy or modern looking vendors here.

I finally updated my little outfitter display with vendors that resemble dry goods crates (an idea encouraged by the sim owners). I narrowed the clothing selection to what I thought would be the best fit, so to speak, for role play in Deadwood.

Stop by and see what you think -- and check out the amazing reset of the Deadwood sim at SURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Phoenix%20Pass/116/170/767. Its focus on authenticity and providing visitors with actual historical background about the real town without a doubt make it the best western RP sim in SL. The role play is a blast too!

A Green Sale for St. Patrick's Day

Just for fun, Montagne Noire announces a special St. Patrick's sale - all regular priced green clothing is 50% off now through Wednesday, March 17!

This sale is taking place **ONLY** at our Caledon Oxbridge Village main store:

Green being one of my favorite colors, you'll find that there are several dresses on sale, from 100L to 175L.

Also included are three Le Petit girls dresses and a mens suit on the second floor.

The sale also includes some winterwear accessories in our seasonal section on the third floor.

And don't forget to visit the clearance section, where last year's promo St. Patricks Day ball gown is reduced to just 20L!

While you are shopping, be sure to check out the Steam Hunt display as you enter the shop. More than 100 Victorian and Steampunk merchants are participating in this month long event (including Montagne Noire), and from what I've seen there are some amazing items to be had.

New to the Role Play Collection: miner & soldier

Two new additions to the Role Play Collection are now available: Le Mineur and Cavalerie.

"Le Mineur" is a well-worn outfit based on the clothing typically seen in historical photos of 19th century miners.

This outfit was deisgned specifically with the Deadwood 1876 sim in mind, which will soon be "resetting" itself to 1876.

In the summer of 1876, thousands of prospectors flooded into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory (where Deadwood is located) to seek their fortunes placer mining in the gold fields.

As larger mining interests entered the picture, men were employed to work the large underground mines bored out by large machinery. Before the invention of the carbide lamp in 1892, miners lit the dark passages of the mines with a small oil lamp attached to their cap.

The lamp on the cap in this set is a working reproduction of those 19th century oil lamps. Simply touch it to "light" it, and a flame will appear that will also provide some light for you in the dark. Touch it again, and the flame will be extinguished.

Mr. Ernst Osterham, the building wizard that he is, deserves sole credit for the lighting effect, as my grasp on scripting is still rudimentary.

The outfit also includes a cap without the oil lamp attached, for those evenings your character spends in town, and not in the mines.

Also introduced to the collection today is "Cavalerie," based upon the actual U.S. Army Cavalry M1872 and M1874 uniform pieces worn by enlisted soldiers during the "Indian Wars" of the 1870s.

This uniform was also designed specifically with the Deadwood 1876 sim in mind. In real life, there was a notable military presence in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory (where Deadwood is located) during the 1870s because of continued conflicts between the United States and the Indians of the northern plains.

You'll find two crates in this set: one uniform set is clean for garrison duty and formal events, the second crate contains battleworn garments for the "veteran campaigner."

The "clean" uniform features multiple versions of the sack coat and "pattern" shirt: you can wear the pattern shirt as an undershirt layer, with the sack coat as a shirt layer, which will allow you to wear a large overcoat or poncho for a jacket layer, creating a multi-layered look.

The pattern shirt is also available as a shirt layer, and the coat as a jacket layer. Depending on your physique, one combination make work better for you than the other -- all garment pieces are modifiable.

The "dirty" uniform in the other crate is designed to resemble a uniform that has seen months of service, with dirt, mud and perhaps some dried blood on each piece. It too features multiple versions of the coat and shirt layers.

The set also includes the traditional "kepi" cap, and Mr Osterham deserves credit for creating the sculpty that makes the "slouch" look much more authentic than the prototype I initially built out of standard prims.

New menswear just arrived!

By request of our gentlemen customers, Montagne Noire has just released a new suit and two classic hat styles.

"Le Mountebank" (a huckster or charlatan) is a Western Victorian sack coat style suit completed by a string tie & basic black derby (bowler) hat. The suit comes in two colors, coal and bronze, and retails for $225L.

Gentlemen now have two choices of hats at MNC -- the basic black derby/bowler hat (available in the Le Mountebank set) can be purchased separately for just $50L. Also available is a traditional black Western wide brim hat.

All these new releases are currently available at our Caledon Oxbridge Village and Antiquity Township shops, and will be coming to soon to our other locations and XStreet.

Introducing The Role Play Collection!

Montagne Noire Clothiers is excited to announce the launch The Role Play Collection, a new line of garments designed specially for the Victorian and Old West RP community!

Over the last two years I've released several "themed" outfits to correspond with the needs of my SL friends (and myself!) for clothing appropriate for role play.

The new collection consolidates and updates some old favorites, while introducing brand new uniforms, costumes and thematic garments for Victorian and Old West role play.

The current lineup includes:

• An updated version of the popular "Le Domestique" day and formal maid uniforms
• Majordome, a formal butler/manservant suit
• La Nourrice, a nurse's uniform & cap with two aprons -- one clean, and one stained
• Le Clerge, a clerical tab collar shirt & cassock for priests and clergy
• Shan Ku, an Asian immigrant workers garment, in blue or green

More RP garments are in the works, including military uniforms and tradesmen garment sets.

You can currently find The Role Play Collection in the upstairs north wing of my Caledon Oxbridge Village main store.

The complete Collection will be available soon at most of my other locations and on XStreet as well.

If you have any suggestions for RP related garments, please don't hesitate to send me a notecard, and I will add it to my idea list!

The Union Suit now available!

Another new product rolled out today -- Old West RPers will recognize this one: the classic "union suit" one piece wool long underwear (also called longjohns, depending on where you are from), featuring the buttoned "drop seat" or "escape hatch" in the rear. Now in red AND grey!

This winter essential is not only for the Victorian gentlemen in the Old West, ladies will find it a practical item as well -- in fact, historically, the union suit was originally created by women, for women, as part of the Rational Dress movement of the mid to late- 19th century.

"The first union suit was patented in 1868 as 'emancipation union under flannel.' Traditionally made of red flannel with long arms and long legs, it buttoned up the front and had a button-up flap in the rear covering one's rear end (colloquially known as the "access hatch", "drop seat", "fireman's flap", and other names), allowing the wearer to eliminate bodily waste without removing the garment.

Depending on the size, some union suits can have a dozen buttons on the front to be fastened through buttonholes from the neck down to the groin area."

Introducing: The Mackinaw

There's a distinct chill in the air, which has put me in the mood for making winter clothing.

Right out of the gate I've finally completed a jacket project I tinkered with all summer, a Mackinaw coat. A gentlemen's double breasted woolen work coat, it's available in red plaid and blue plaid.

According to my research, the Mackinaw, a heavy dense water-repellent woolen coat, is said to have been invented by native Metis women in 1811, when John Askin, an early trader on the upper Great Lakes, asked them to design and sew woolen jackets for the army. "They were all to be blue, but when this colour ran out they used red and then the black-on-red plaid cloth that we associate with the jackets of today."

Mackinaws later became an indispensable accessory of American and Canadian loggers in the northern and northwestern part of North America in the mid to late-19th century logging boom. "The term later spread to be universal, and in Canada the "Mac" is regarded as a marker of national identity and working-class values."

MNC's Mackinaw is modifiable, allowing you to tailor the garment to your proportions. The coat top comes in both a shirt and a jacket layer, depending on what you wish to wear underneath. It retails for 100L. Enjoy!