It seems you cannot get through an hour in SecondLife without receiving a notice or an invitation to another party. Parties follow runway shows, new product releases, and almost all events where we are asked to sit still for a while before cutting loose on the dancefloor.

Are these parties just fun and laughter? Is there more going on there?

The life of a real life model (from the outside anyway) appears to be travel, fittings, shows, shoots and parties with plenty of photographers always around to capture their latest look (or latest antics) to be splashed across the pages of tabloids and magazines.

In SecondLife, there are certainly parallels to the real world–.  Successful models in SL are busy with fittings, photoshoots and castings. They are being given gorgeous clothing, shoes, skins, and hair by designers almost every week. They always look amazing (and never have to go to the gym!)  and they will often have items to wear before they have been put on the shelf for the teeming masses to purchase. They are also photographed at social events and those photos appear in online publications and blogs.

And the parties! One or more each day!…Do they serve a purpose?

In SecondLife, a party is a chance to be in the same room as designers, models, photographers, and other creative people who are there in a more relaxed frame of mind. The music is great, the jokes and comments are flowing..and you can finally meet some of the people whose work you have admired. I have met models, agency managers and owners and photographers at parties and later these same people have become business associates.

Networking at parties is really the game within the game.
Exactly like the realworld cocktail parties where the executives and spouses are all dolled up and a bit relaxed from the liquor… SecondLife parties with their intoxicating blend of beautiful avatars, thrumming music and a well-designed surrounding are conducive to the forming of new friendships and contacts.

The room chat is greetings, clever remarks. and laughter.. the IM? (OK I am not going *there*) is often many introductory chats, requests for friendship to contact each other about a project, or just mutual admiration being expressed so that the proximity to that person isn’t a lost opportunity.

We no longer must justify our parties and hours spent dancing.. we are networking! We are increasing our contact base within a social milieu (OK, maybe that’s stretching it)

The intended point of this missive was to say that business is often done outside of the confines of a business meeting. All of us who work in the modeling and fashion arena of SL are aware of people via their flickr pages or runway events or any number of places we become familiar with their work, but we haven’t met them personally. Attending parties is a great way to finally get some “face time” with that person and can lead to friendships or future collaborations.

So party on, SecondLife fashionistas! Increase your visibility and increase your list of business contacts.  Those hours spent dancing and joking are not wasted, they are invested!

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