ARTIFICIAL ISLE - The Second Convention Fashion Show, the crown jewel of the Second Convention Weekend, was held on Saturday before throngs of happy fashion fans. In fact, there were so many fans the sim had to be restarted and then capped. At one point, as many as 85 people crowded ZATZAi Asturias’ Artificial Isle trying to get a peek at this year’s most anticipated fashion show to date.

Event organizer Caliah Lyon packed an unprecedented 26 different designers into the evening, which helps explain how the show lasted for almost four solid hours. 

In order to account for lag and the large number of people in attendance, Lyon came up with a new idea for presenting the models. Instead of having them walk a catwalk, Lyon had them stand in place and then ran a script that rotated the stage out to the audience. In this way, the Second Convention was able to run three stages simultaneously, and even rotated the audience’s seats to see the stage that was currently showing. The audience responded well to the stage set-up.

Sensual Casanova of Sensual Designs is no stranger to SL fashion shows, having even participated in the giant Linden sponsored SL Fashion Expo of 2005. She enjoyed the rotating stage as a means of presenting the models. “The revolving stage is a great idea, I love it!” she said.

Valerie McDunnough of the Atlantis Modeling Agency, the group that provided the models and much of the logistical support for the show added “It’s a great idea, one we plan on using ourselves on occasion. It shouldn’t replace the models moving and walking, but it’s certainly useful for high lag shows or shows with a lot of sets like this one.”

The idea for the rotating stage and the rotating audience seats came from Lyon, who explained, “The format of the show was unconventional since we had to take grid issues and sim limits into consideration, so we had to rethink more along the lines of showing within SL rather than imitating a rl fashion show. Hence we decided not to go with the traditional runway but a tableau-style stage.The format allowed us to showcase more outfits, and thus more designers - I'm not sure a show this large has been done recently.”

Designer Torrid Midnight explained that she came out to see the designs, and that she was especially impressed with the stage “I think it's very cool,” Midnight said. “I've not seen it used before and it definitely keeps the models from having to survive a walk in lag.” 

The evening, however was all about the fashion, and there was enough variety in the show to provide something for anyone. "Rl fashion seems to have made its way into SL as there were several businesswear designs shown.  The show covered  a wide range - men's, women's, casual, and formal,” Lyon said, “I'm hoping that this will bring more brands to public attention as well as highlighting the versatility of established ones.”

For the newer brands, as well as the older ones, nervousness was prevalent among the designers. One would expect the newer designers to get nervous as their creations make their way onto the stage, but even the seasoned veterans still get butterflies. Said Sensual Casanova, veteran of even the biggest shows, “Of course I get nervous, I am nervous way before they even go up on stage.”

First time fashion show designers Kenny Sleeper of Kalico Kreations and Lucas Lameth of Earthtones Boutique expressed a mixture of nerves and excitement as they prepared to watch their creations take the stage. “My shop’s only eight weeks old,” Sleeper said, “I’m very excited about it, this is a huge opportunity.” First time fashion show designer Lucas Lameth echoed that sentiment but added that the excitement and nerves just added to the fun.