One of the problems that many men face in Second Life is the quality of male clothes. Whilst fashion stores can be found almost everywhere in SL, quality is harder to find. I have on many occasions regretted the Lindens I spent to buy clothes that failed to come even close to my expectations. And many of those clothes were not cheap at all.

In this article I present a casual urban outfit which I made using clothes from various designers who I think meet the standards of good design and quality.

First, I needed a nice pair of classic blue jeans. It was not difficult to find them. Armidi offers the required design and quality. From their jeans collection I picked up a pair of regular classic jeans to complete this part of my outfit. The jeans’ file contained both loose and skinny versions. Sculpted cuffs are provided for the skinny version. For my outfit I used the loose fit, which fit my avatar perfectly. The price of the jeans was 145L.

Next I needed a nice turtleneck sweater. My market research led me to Aura. Aura is a brand selling casual clothing, hair, skins, shoes, jewelry and furniture for men and women. The sweater can be found in the male section and comes in six colors – black, brown, bordeaux, violet, blue and green. It comes with sculpted cuffs and two versions of collar, a basic one and one with a belt, all resizable. I want to draw your attention to the quality and the depth of the colours and the perfect fit of the sweater on the avatar. The price of the sweater is 300L, and it can also be found on XStreet.

Next I needed a nice scarf. Argrace was the brand of my choice. Argrace is a total lifestyle brand designing high-quality male and female clothes, accessories, furniture and other lifestyle items. Their clothes are mostly casual, highly detailed with realistic colours, shades and wrinkles. To achieve this, Argrace makes extended use of sculpted prims. When you wear them, they provide you with a sense of comfort and a real life taste that make them attractive to SL residents who seek quality SL clothes. The prices are affordable. The brand is celebrating its second anniversary in SL and offers as a gift the nice scarf in the photo. You can use the gift to test the quality of their scarves and then select from the range of scarves offered by Argrace. The prices of the scarves sold separately from outfits range from 150-180L. Note that the Argrace items come as transfer, which is very useful as we approach Christmas.

I also needed a fine jacket. I picked this awesome jacket from Gabriel. The jacket is made almost exclusively of sculpted prims that are finely linked. The realism in the details is stunning, as you can see. The jacket comes in four different colors in male and female versions, and its price was 450L. In Gabriel’s store you can find awesome clothes, and jewelry and some nice Christmas gifts. You can also find his products in Mimi’s Choice store.

The next stop was Redgrave, where I picked up this riding knit cap. Simple, stylish and realistic, it had all that I needed for my casual winter outfit. Its price was 80L.

Hats and caps sometimes cause you problems when you have to get them to fit over your hair. Though both hair and hats usually come in ‘modify’ versions which allow you to stretch them to fit your avatar’s head, this outcome is not always easy to achieve. On a number of occasions in the past I spent hours trying get a hat fit my hair but finally gave up frustrated. Though many designers offer solutions to this problem by offering hairstyles with built-in hats or hats with built-in hair, the problem still remains. SF designs offers free hair in various sizes and colors to be worn with hats and caps. Don’t miss the opportunity to visit the SF store and grab the hair. I suspect you will need them.The last piece was the boots. For this outfit I used the brown urban tactic boots of Tesla. The boots are fully sculpted and use impressively realistic textures with baked-in highlights. The senses of realism and depth are particularly manifested in the hard leather used to make the boots and the stitches used to link the leather parts. The laces are flexi. The boots are a bit shiny but look very nice on the avatar. They are scripted for easy resizing. A demo is available, and their price was 399L.