2008 Round Up

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for all their support over 2008 - from the Platinum Design Team to all our loyal and fantastic customers. Its you that makes Platinum the great brand and place that it is!

We have lived through many Linden Lab induced events during 2008! Not withstanding the technical problems, tier doubling on open sims and popular places / new search functions.

Well we came out the other side and will continue to build and grow Platinum over the next 12 months.

The most recent event was that we have moved our Platinum Africa and Platinum Asia ranges to the Platinum World sim. These ranges are specialised African and Asian Skins, Shapes and Hair. Voted by the SL review community as some of the best. Unfortnately with Linden Lab putting the tiers up by 60% from the start of 2009, we had to disband the Platinum Asia and Platinum Africa sims. However to visit these ranges, just teleport to Platinum World and they are located in the shops in the corner of the sim.

So I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and I look forward to speaking to everyone over the coming months.......

Partnership with Awori Cassini

*** PRESS RELEASE ***

Platinum has entered into a partnership with the world famous shoe maker Awori Cassini. All Awori's items have been especially chosen for Platinum because of their amazing textures, sculpty shapes and modern look and feel!

Come down to Platinum World to see them for yourself. In the meantime here is a taster of some of the designs available.



Awori Cassini ankle boots at Platinum



Awori Cassini latex full length boots at Platinum

Platinum sponsors SL London Fashion Week!

***PRESS RELEASE***

Platinum's Rebecca Vacano today announces that Platinum has sponsored SL London Fashion week 2008, along side the Real Life London newspaper the Evening Standard.

This worthwhile event brings together the best fashion and avatar items available in Second Life. Not only has the event been a huge success, it has highlighted the talent in fashion currently in Second Life. It also sets the benchmark for SL / RL cooperation in bridging the gap between bringing talented RL people into Second Life and further supporting the growth of Linden Lab's goal of utilising Second Life for promoting and communicating SL and RL business's.

Platinum is aligned with this strategy and wishes all the designers, models and organisers the best of luck with the show! Also a special thank you to Debs Regent for her inspiration and ongoing determination to create a virtual London community at the London sims.

Kess Kreations at Platinum

Hiya! I am Kesseret Steeplechase and I run KessKreations at Platinum. Many people ask me how I come up with a lot of my designs and how I can handle tiny prims without going crazy and I always say, "A little bit of patience and a lot of beer!". I consider myself proud to be part of the Platinum team, as this is a very talented group of people!

Some of my items available at Platinum are:

For the Ladies:





For the Men:









All items metal/gem change with blue dialogue and are very affordable considering they have this feature.

Can't wait to see you at Platinum!!!!

xoxo,
Kesseret S.

Platinum Coffee Shop

The Platinum Coffee Shop is perhaps one of the best known places in Second Life for socialising and making some money. It is also one of the oldest places, now over a year old and still one of the most popular places. Everyone in the Coffee Shop is a customer, we don't condone bots like our competitors for two reasons:

1. We strongly believe in supporting the Second Life economy by giving money to people that need it. It is businesses like Platinum that give Newbies and others money to circulate Linden's back into the economy and allow people to spend this where and as they like. Without businesses like Platinum the economy would suffer and there would be less money for everyone to spend.

2. Using Bots is plainly cheating. It is nothing more than land owners putting their own avatars on to parcels to make it seem like they are more popular than they are. It gives nothing back to the community and breaks TOS given from Linden Lab that states you can only have up to 5 Alternative Accounts.

The Platinum Coffee Shop continues to be one of the most popular places despite having to compete with most of its competitors that use bots.



Platinum Coffee Shop at Dawn.......

When you arrive at the Coffee Shop you should pick a table and seat to sit on and start making friends with the people around you. Not only have some of my oldest customers made some really good friends, a couple of them are getting married in-world!

Enjoy!

New Skins at Platinum!

We have a new special skin collection at Platinum Women by Charlotte Morellet. Charlotte is extremely well known within Second life as the owner of Soda Skins. Kira Paderborn our resident Shape expert has teamed up with Charlotte to create some of the best avatar collections in Second Life.

The new shapes and skins are located in the entrance hall of the Womens Store at Platinum World.

As always, let me know what you think!

PLATINUM AFRICA OPENS!

*** PRESS RELEASE ***



Thursday July 3rd Rebecca Vacano announces that Platinum Africa, the newest Company and sim to be formed by the Platinum Family has offically opened.



Vacano said "Platinum Africa has been introduced to Second Life, to fill the gap of hundreds of people Globally wanting a choice in the colour of their avatar skins - for some time now we have had a range of colours of skins at our main sim, Platinum World, but due to popular demand we decided to create a specialist Skin & Shape sim, primarily focussing on coloured Skins and Shapes. Platinum now is formed of three businesses:



Platinum World - The main universal sim with a full range of fashion and avatar products

Platinum Asia - A specialist sim focussed on Asian fashion and avatar products

Platinum Africa - A specialist sim focussed on coloured and African fashion and avatar products



Platinum strives to be as diverse and universal as it can within Second Life and our latest additional to the family, Platinum Africa builds on this diversity and dream that every avatar within Second Life should be given the best quality and choice possible at the most reasonable prices. I hope you enjoy what we have created and look forward to your feedback"



CLICK HERE TO TELEPORT TO PLATINUM AFRICA

Manicures by Platinum

Platinum today launched our range of luxury manicures. Available in a complete range of 16 exciting and vibrant colours, these nails are already creating a stir in the SL shopping community!

The manicures are available in the Women's Skin hall and as always we look forward to your feedback.

Platinum now stocks it's own Men's Skins!

They are here. A little bit later than advertised (*doofus smiles sheepishly*) but hopefully well worth the wait.
The first of the male skins are now available at Platinum Men.

This release contains 4 skin tones each with 6 facial hair styles all available with or without hair on the scalp. There are a lot more skin tones to come, consistent with the large range we have available for women which comprises 18 different tones.

These skins have been made with the same care and attention to detail that was lavished on the female range, again 100% hand painted and made to the same philosophy to make them as versatile as possible. I hope to add some more facial hair styles to the range in the future, but next on my priority list is continuing this range into the full set of skin tones.

Here are a few shots of some of the details on these new skins.
I am sure you will like them, and apologies for the delay. :)

New Shapes by Platinum!

Launched today is the new Platinum Shape Range! I am very excited as these shapes are the best that Platinum has ever sold, I have spent a lot of time refining the old editions as well as creating new ones. The shapes are both sexy and classy and they have been tried with lots of skin variations so they work with lots of skin designers!

But best of all....... They are all completely modifiable! I still don't understand why some shape designers don't offer their shapes as modifiable. An example of this is Tracey Sassoon at Alady, she mentions she doesn't sell modifiable shapes as its because people copy shapes..... But how annoying is it when you cannot tweak your shape or adjust it to fit hair or clothes. When you buy a shape its a starting point to mould to how you want it! In my view, buying shapes that are not modifiable is a complete waste of time and money. My partner Kira Paderborn at Platinum believes the same thing and all her shapes are modifiable too!

So here are a few samples of the new shapes and enjoy!




Kelly is the perfect shape for a supermodel or escort! Beautifully crafted and one of the sexiest shapes in Second Life!




Abi is an old classic at Platinum - we have given Abi a make-over and she is even more high class than before, just look at those face lines and the definition of the shape!




Cara is the girl next door - beautiful but an understated sexiness that Guy's will go wild for!

Platinum Changes in May !

Changes at Platinum in May!

Boy its been so busy I haven't sat down on my virtual sofa for days!

Here is a summary of the changes and upgrades we made in May:

1. We launched Platinum Asia. Set in beautiful Japanese gardens - this sim is dedicated to providing the best Asian skins and shapes and hair in SL. Come down and have a look !

2. We upgraded the Platinum branding - including an exciting new logo - you may have already seen this inworld. I look forward to your feedback.

3. We upgraded all the hair, included mens and womens. We have a wonderful new hair designer called Kristel Wunderlich and the hair is simply amazing. All the demos are free so if you have a few minutes to spare come down and try it!

4. The Hub (Mens and Womens clothes) launched their Summer 2008 collection, including a selection of sexy and provocative bikini's!

5. We launched our Platinum Supermodel of the Year competition 2008. The results will be announced in a couple of weeks.

All of this can be found at the platinum world sim!

COMING SOON!

Platinum Africa opens in 3 - 4 weeks time. This sim will be themed on an African Safari complete with animals and a hunters lodge! Its currently being built adjacent to the Platinum World sim.

Mens Skins! Yes I know we have said this before, but they are finally done and the packaging being put together as we speak!

I would like to thank you for continuing to support Platinum, we do appreciate your custom and you help us keep the dream alive, which is to offer SL residents with the best collection of fashion and avatar designs at the most affordable prices.

Thanks

Rebecca Vacano x

Platinum Asia Launches! 白金亞洲發射

PRESS RELEASE - 26.05.08

Platinum Asia has opened is doors to the public!

Speaking about its launch, Platinum founder Rebecca Vacano said "Platinum Asia has been built to represent the diverse society we now see within Second Life. There is a huge Asian community within Second Life that we believed deserved the same quality of avatar products as everyone else. Platinum Asia is the first step in our global expansion plan to build a diverse Second Life community. I am excited to announce this launch and I invite you to explore Platinum Asia !

CLICK HERE TO TELEPORT TO PLATINUM ASIA

NEW - Hair Designer at Platinum!

I am very proud and privileged to announce the new Platinum Hair range by Wonderhair!

Wonderhair is some of the best hair in Second Life, amazingly detailed and textured, its simply beautiful!

Come down now to Platinum World to try a free demo and more detail to follow......

Platinum Supermodel of the Year 2008

Announcing the

Platinum Supermodel of the Year Contest 2008

Amazing Prizes:

1st Prize - L$25,000
2nd Prize - L$10,000
3rd Prize - L$5,000

To enter the modelling competition submit a full perm pic of yourself modelling a Platinum item with a notecard explaining what you are modelling to Rebecca Vacano.

I will then post your entry on the contest boards posted on the outer walls of the Platinum World sim.

Its then up to the public to vote and decide!

Voting closes on the 15th June 2008 and winners will be announced to all the platinum groups and on the website.

Remember - you must be modelling a product bought at Platinum World to qualify!

Good Luck

Rebecca Vacano x

Indulgence Skins @ Platinum World

Hi everyone. I guess its about time I introduce myself. I should have done it earlier but I am busy creating a range of male skins at the moment and a completely new skin range is a very time consuming thing.
My name is Doofus Mayo and I am very proud to be the skin designer here at Platinum World. It is an amazing sim with a great collection of designers and I am honoured to be a part of it.

A little history of me.
My born date is 6/2/2007 which I guess makes me still quite young as a skin designer, but I kind of have a head start over most people. I have been working as a freelance 3d modeller and texture artist for about 6 years now after being a hobby 3d modeller for about 5 years before. Mostly my work is architectural stuff, but the hobby side of 3D has always been making characters and animating them. So becoming a skin designer seemed perfect for me when I arrived in SL.

I use a few tricks of the 3d gaming trade to perfect things like seams which looking around I guess a lot of skin designers don't know about. Most skins you see in SL just kind of fade away at all the areas that might cause the designer trouble like the hips, but I like to paint detail right up to the edges of the texture maps and then go back and fix the seams properly.

I still spend a crazy amount of time in Photoshop though, cause I really believe in hand painted skins over photoedits. Even more so since Windlight came into general circulation.
SL has a great lighting system that casts accurate highlights and shadows, but with a photo skin the highlights and shadows from the original photo too often remain and override the SL lighting. When viewed from the perfect angle and with coinciding lighting these can look really good, but much of the time, the baked in lighting doesn't match the SL world lighting and then things start to look strange. Also you get much more pronounced problems with clones.
In a photo skin, the highlights and shadows are as I said, often too prominent and become 'Shape Information'. Something like the shadow under a nose actually defines the shape of the nose. But in SL the shape should define the shape of the nose, not the skin. That is why people look so similar even when wearing vastly different shapes. So I paint my skins 100% by hand using photos only as reference and I strive to remove anything that will come across as shape information and override the shape that the avatar is wearing. Hopefully this ends in a far more versatile skin and one that allows more control over your look by adjusting your shape.

All in all, in the time I have been in SL I have created over 2,000 skin variations (not counting demos). Most of these have been discontinued over time or reworked and I have come down to a fine collection of high detail, hand painted, realistic skins. One of the things most important to me personally is to have as wide and as realistic a range of skin tones as possible. I am sure we are all familiar with the stories of unfair representation for ethnic minorities and I dare say that was once the case, but as a half English, half Jamaican artist, I am very proud to say that I cover as many skin tones as I can, from the whitest (so white it is almost blue) Willow selection to one of the darkest and most natural looking black skins around, Sauda.

Take a look at my skins. Try on some free demos. (They are actually free. I wont charge you a L$1 to take a look) Indulge yourself!

Here are a couple of my favourites. Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoy the sim. :D

Yukiko

Mariella

Drew

KessKreations at Platinum

Hiya! I am Kesseret Steeplechase and I run KessKreations at Platinum. Many people ask me how I come up with a lot of my designs and how I can handle tiny prims without going crazy and I always say, "A little bit of patience and a lot of beer!". I consider myself proud to be part of the Platinum team, as this is a very talented group of people!

Some of my items available at Platinum are:

For the Ladies:





For the Men:









All items metal/gem change with blue dialogue and are very affordable considering they have this feature.

Can't wait to see you at Platinum!!!!

xoxo,
Kesseret S.

All Eyez On You

Realistic, gorgeous and affordable eyes now available in twelve colors at Platinum. Each pair is available individually :) Be sure to drop in and take them for a spin. New colors to be added soon, and if you have any color requests feel free to contact me so that I can add them to the list.


Happy Shopping :)

Alexxis Laszlo

Platinum's reaction to traffic announcement

Platinum would like to convey how pleased it is at the recent announcement from Linden Lab about the removal of popular places and potentially traffic. See link below:

The Future of Popular Places and Traffic

It looks forward to trading without having to utilise camping and compete against parcels farmed by Bots.

Lets just spare some sympathy for the hordes of campers that have benefited from the Platinum Coffee Shop for the past year. You have my commitment that I will continue the camping for as long as traffic exists.

If you are concerned at the plans that Linden Lab have - they have announced there is a group you can join as below:

"We are opening up the discussion about the future of Traffic: anyone from our community who is interested is invited to join the “LL Traffic Future” group for further updates and info about inworld brainstorming sessions to come. To find it in Second Life:

• Click Search button on the toolbar at the bottom of your screen, then click All tab (on the left).
• Search for “LL Traffic Future”.
• Click the match that comes up in results, then click “View Full Profile”.
• Click the “(Join L$0)” button and you’re in! "
  

New Clothes!

We have restocked the entrance hall of the Women's Shop at Platinum in line with the Spring fashion season.

Featuring brand new clothes items and sunglasses from both Jessie Gervasi and Adam Soler.....

I look forward to seeing you soon.

Rebecca Vacano x

Platinum Coffee Shop

The Platinum Coffee Shop is perhaps one of the best known places in Second Life for socialising and making some money. It is also one of the oldest places, now over a year old and still one of the most popular places. Everyone in the Coffee Shop is a customer, we don't condone bots like our competitors for two reasons:

1. We strongly believe in supporting the Second Life economy by giving money to people that need it. It is businesses like Platinum that give Newbies and others money to circulate Linden's back into the economy and allow people to spend this where and as they like. Without businesses like Platinum the economy would suffer and there would be less money for everyone to spend.

2. Using Bots is plainly cheating. It is nothing more than land owners putting their own avatars on to parcels to make it seem like they are more popular than they are. It gives nothing back to the community and breaks TOS given from Linden Lab that states you can only have up to 5 Alternative Accounts.

The Platinum Coffee Shop continues to be one of the most popular places despite having to compete with most of its competitors that use bots.



Platinum Coffee Shop at Dawn.......

When you arrive at the Coffee Shop you should pick a table and seat to sit on and start making friends with the people around you. Not only have some of my oldest customers made some really good friends, a couple of them are getting married in-world!

Enjoy!

Platinum Website Opens!

Welcome to the Platinum Website!

Platinum is one of the best brands in Second Life for Men's and Women's Fashion and Avatar Items!

We are also known for the world famous Platinum Coffee Shop!

Our website is designed to keep you up to date with the Platinum business and provide you with an area to give us feedback and help contribute towards making the Platinum World sim a better place!


Enjoy reading all about Platinum and our designers and ideas. We hope you visit us in-world soon and if you drop by send me an IM to let me know.