Meet "Bryan"...

Hey everyone...

It's certainly been a while since I've posted anything here. April and May were rather busy months for me in SL as well as RL. As many of you know, we had our "Ancient Pleasures" party over at our Warehouse Plaza location. Those of you went know it was a rousing success. I'd like to thank the IronWorks Staff, DJ Gregster Kidd, and all of our wonderful guests for making it possible :)









Another activity which kept me busy was the construction of our new Agape Mainstore (more on that in a future post). It turned out rather nicely if I do say so myself and I'm very pleased with it. So far we've had almost 140 visitors at that location and I haven't even begun promoting it properly yet. Thanks for all your support!



Now we get to the main subject of this post - our latest shape, "Bryan". Standing 2.3 meters tall, "Bryan" has just about everything a guy could want in a shape... clean-cut good looks, a beefy yet not overly muscled body, and well balanced proportions. Well, don't just take my word for it. As they say, a picture's worth a thousand words...









Designed for Signature Skins' new "Ocean" line of skins, this shape is perfect for those who want to create a surfer boy or college jock look. Bryan hit the shops last night and is here just in time for your Summertime makeovers, so head on down and pick up a demo.



Til next time...

-Zim

PS: The shape is out at all shops except Aussieboys and HnH. Here's the SLURL to our Mainstore if you'd like to see "Bryan" for yourself..

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Creamy%20Shores/80/106/23

The Return of DJ Kadie

Not that she was ever completely gone, mind you. Last Summer, one of our personal faves, DJ Kadie Pinkenba decided to take a little time off to try a little game known as WoW. At the time she told me, "I'm sure I won't be playing for long, " thinking to herself "I'll just give it a little try and be back soon. It can't be THAT addictive." Well several months and several high-level characters later, DJ Kadie is back and she's in top form.






It pleases me to announce that the one and only DJ Kadie is back and will be playing at the Agape Mainstore's Grand Opening at Gaytown Mall this Saturday, March 14th from 1 - 3pm SLT. The store is ready (and it truly is something special, folks) and all that's missing is your presence. Please do plan to attend as this really looks like it's going to be a very special afternoon of entertainment. The store has moved 2 doors down, so be sure to update your LM's. You can find us here:



http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Highlander/89/86/578



See you Saturday!



-Zim

Hot Boots

Yep they sure are! I bought them a while ago and wore them a few times, but only recently have I begin to realize just how well these boots are made. They're sculpties of course, so they will take a little while to rez (particularly the toe section for some reason - but baybee... once they've rezzed - Phwoarr! I proclaim these to be the hottest cowboy boots on the grid. Take a look at these puppies...

They're called "Catbash boots" and I suppose they're intended as some sort of Neko paraphernalia, but you certainly don't have to be Neko to wear or appreciate them. the level of detail is pretty astounding if you ask me. the scripted bandana around the right ankle is a great touch, but IMO it would have been great if the colors available weren't all similar. Still at about L$480 they're a great value - not only because they look spectacular, but because 5 sizes are included. That's pretty awesome in my book.

You can find the "Catbash" boots at WMD.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Schreckhorn/14/95/37

Hasta la proxima, baby!

-Zim

The Cat is out of the Bag...

Yep, I can finally talk about this it seems :)

Some of you may already know about this, but Jake's Club has now expanded into the all new Jake's Club Resort, featuring a beautiful new Mall and an Amphitheatre for community events and Agape Men's Store is proud to be a part of it! We've got a beautiful new 450 Sq meter store there and if I do say so myself, it really looks wonderful!

The new location will feature all of our great shapes as well as the new "Agape / Signature" series of shapes designed around... Oh wait, I haven't mentioned that part yet, have I (hehe)? Well, now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag as they say, I suppose I should mention this. You may remember that earlier in the month I'd blogged about the shopping experience a friend of mine had when I sent him over to Signature Skins for a "Blaze" skin. Since then, I've been in contact with Mr Spad and he has graciously allowed me to design a line of Male body Shapes around his fantastic skins. You've really got to see these to believe them!

The "Signature Series" shapes are designed around three specific skins from Mr Spad's collection - "Blaze", "Rage", and "Vain". You really owe it to yourself to check these out. The shapes themselves have not yet been released, but you can check out previews of them at our Jake's Club Resort, Gaytown Mall, and Warehouse Plaza locations; or better yet, head on down to Signature Skins and try out demo's of the skins themselves. You will be amazed at the level of realism Mr Spad has achieved with these skins - and once you've worn them with one of our new shapes, well... I'll be surprised if you wear much else for quite some time (I think you know what I'm talking about here ::grins::).

The Shops at Jake's Club Resort is currently in "Soft Opening" mode, but watch for the "Grand Opening" announcement to appear sometime next week. We have a few more announcements to make over the next few weeks so keep watching this spot for updates!

See you soon!

-Zim

Kudos!

No picture with this entry. I just wanted to take this opportunity to mention an awesome example of an SL content creator helping their customers to solve problems. Recently a friend of mine went to Signature Skins for one of their "Blaze" skins (which is very hot IMO). Basically what happened is that once he bought the skin, the SL asset servers ate it. I'm sure many of you know how frustrating that can be.

What did he do? Well, to his credit he didn't freak out. He went through the usual steps one should take in order to try and retrieve the item. He used the search and filtering functions to make sure the folder/skin was not still in his inventory somehwere. He also cleared his cache and re-logged, hoping that this might bring the item back. When it was clear that his purchase was really, truly gone from his inventory, he took a deep breath and proceeded to write a calm factual non-accusatory notecard detailing what had happened and sent it off to the creator, Simple Spad - including the details of his transaction from the LL web site.

By the time my friend had gotten home from work yesterday, Mr Spad had refunded the purchase price of the missing item and my friend was able to TP over to Signature Skins and re-buy the product that SL had eaten... and I must say he looks pretty damned good. So Kudos to Simple Spad of Signature Skins! Not only are his skins pretty awesome (and reasonably priced), but he takes the time to help out his customers when SL has a hiccup. This alone makes a world of difference and we are pleased to be able to recommend this vendor as a place to shop.

Ciao!

-Zim

So yeah...

Well I suppose that I have a bit of catching up to do now that I'm here. Where to begin? Let's see...


I opened my first Agape store last Summer in the mall outside of Romeo Reardon's Club Athens on the Thesoloniki sim (Unfortunately the store, the mall, and the whole Sim are no longer there). I started off with just 4 shapes (LOL), but I was damned proud of my little storefront and would spend hours just shifting things around, trying to make things look a bit interesting, but once I had a few more shapes under my belt it became clear that I'd need to expand. Soon after that an opportunity became available to open a location at Gaytown Mall.


John and Gully were in the process of renovating and expanding the mall, so I jumped at the chance and ended up with a wonderfully huge space with windows on 3 sides that would prove to shape the "look" for the other stores that were to follow. Even though the mall and that store have been redesigned yet again, Gaytown Mall is still my favorite location to date. I consider it to be my 'mainstore' even though I don't really have a 'mainstore' in the conventional sense.


Other stores in other malls would follow, leading to a total of five stores and one vendor Kiosk over at Impulse Isle. I've met a lot of interesting people and learned a lot of interesting things over these past 7 months (wow, it seems a lot longer sometimes) and I do have another new store in the works, which looks to be a very interesting place. I guess you could say I'm sort of addicted to opening shops; however after this new one opens I believe I'm going to just settle down for a while and concentrate on expanding my line. I'm in no hurry, and the slider combinations are infinite, so I can just focus on making you look as good as possible. See you at the malls!


-Zim

Greetings and Salutations!

Hi there! My name's Zim Gunsberg and I'm an avatar in the Virtual World called Second Life.

I'm not a Fashionista by any means, but I do have a better than average eye for what looks good. I'm also the owner of the Agape Men's Store, where I sell male body shapes. Yeah, that does sound kind of strange, but this is a Virtual World we're talking about here - You can pretty much be anything you care to be. Face it, guys like looking good; and more often than not, they'd prefer to do it without having to spend an arm and a leg.

When I first got to Second Life I was pretty overwhelemed with all the choices available. I was also overwhelmed by the sheer amount of custom content available for women and the scarcity of good custom content for men. I thought, "Do guys not play Second Life? I see other guys here. They must get their clothes somewhere? Where can I find some cool stuff?"

After getting situated, I made it my mission to make my AVI look as hot as I could (hehe, that's me in the pic up there); so I dragged my buddies Gil and Trent around with me to just about every shop I could find and tried on as many things as I could until I thought I looked reasonably hot. This was back when the club DevilInside was the hottest gay nightspot on the Grid. I'd actually plan my outfits before heading on over, just waiting to show off the clothes and hair I'd found, and to see what everyone else was wearing (Shout outs here to Karmelle and Trent and Hartmann and Gil and Willi and Clarkie and everyone else; you all know who you are - and you all looked FAB... all the time! Muah!)

At this point you're probably wondering about my fashion creds. Trust me, I have none - other than visiting London in the 80's and having worked in the Theatre as a costume and scenic designer for 12 years (that's IRL, btw). So do I "know" fashion? No, but I've got a good eye for what looks 'right' on the male body. Being a homo helps a lot (wink wink), but don't let that scare you off if you're a straight guy reading this.

Everyone deserves to look good. Everyone. Agape is an unconditional love, and that's what my store and blog are all about. i'm not going to tell you how to look, but I will present some interesting ideas and images here, and hopefully you may walk away with something useful (or at least have been entertained by my scribblings). Hasta la proxima...

-Zim