Dior’s in SL…sorta

Well now, here’s a strange thing. Someone asked me if I had seen that Dior is in SL. I hadn’t heard a thing about it, but googled it and found lots of non-SL sites with a story which was obviously taken from a press release, as they all said more or less the same stuff.

Dior has announced the launch of four examples of 17 pieces of jewellery due to go on display in the real world in February, as though the launch in SL has happened. I assumed that I’d just not been on the invitation list, and sought out the island, Belladone.

Now here’s the strange thing. There are huge representations of rings, but the island doesn’t look as though it is in a finished state. There has been a sinister invasion of free trees, which has the rather odd appearance of being an ambush or seige of the dryads, like an arboreal version of The Birds … and there are some partly-built bits and pieces around. It has the look of a work in progress, so maybe I have arrived prematurely. Is this a scoop?

There are gemstones ago-go, but nothing — thus far — is for sale or free as far as I can discover. The plan is in any case not to use it to sell the rings, the cheapest of which is worth 150,000 euros.
Usually, the form and intention of an island build is apparent… but I can’t say that it’s obvious here. Without wishing to be too hard on the builders, who all seem to be very new accounts, some of the building needs fixing, as it has the worst case of the flashing prims that I have seen for some time. And with trees, more is not always… more. I commend the Lilith Heart nursery to the people landscaping the build.
Somehow I expected something with more style and better quality than can be seen thus far, from Dior, but if it is a work in progress, probably judgements like that are premature. I will keep an eye on the build, and watch out for any in-world announcements of an opening event.