Chopine Aura

Chopine Aura and her ‘Chopine’s’ are a Second Life avatar and a (currently still upcoming) shoe store in SecondLife. It’s run by the alt (alternative account) of the same person who runs Wunderlich’s historical Garb. At the time when this posting was written, she had already put about three months of work into this project, and is very willing to put much more work into it.

Right now, this blog serves to document the work on store, shoes, and HUD – and of course to spread the word about the upcoming store. Some ‘teaser’ ads, released before the opening, will link to this blog as well.
Maybe you’ve never heard of something like a ‘Chopine’ before. Chopines are, generally spoken, the ancestor of the modern High Heel. They’re documented from c. 1200AD until the 1960s, when Ferragamo invented the Ferragamo spring which made the stiletto heel possible.
In case you would like to see some of the extant historical examples, please take a look at this site.
For modern Chopines, do a Google search – that’ll provide interesting articles and pictures, like this, this, this and this - all modern shoes by well-known designers but still, they all have the ‘Chopine’ kind of heel.

For Second Life it may be interesting to know that Chopines are even mentioned as proper footwear for women in the ‘Books of Gor’ – Talena’s shoes are described as following:
“One monstrous platform like shoe had broken from her small foot and flopped beside her ankle, still attached by its straps. The shoe was at least ten inches high. I laughed. This explained the incredible height of the Ubar’s daughter.”
In the book, Talena claims that she’s wearing those shoes to look down on her subjects. Obviously though, she’s doing that in a situation in which she tries to defend herself; so it can’t be ruled out that she’s lying, and that Chopines are worn by all women in Gor as soon as they leave the house – which would actually make sense, given that Gor is placed more or less in a medieval environment, and Chopines are actually documented for that period.

The opening of the store will be on Sunday, the 28th of March, 2010 at 12.00 SLT.
There will be a pre-opening some days before that, for bloggers, journalists etc. – in case you’re interested in participating in this preopening, please comment here – with a link to your blog and / or the magazine you work for.

In case you should have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask
Also, in case you have any suggestions concerning possible shoes – uppers or lowers - please also don’t hesitate to type them down here. Remember, though, that Chopine’s will cater you with Chopines – meaning shoes that have a rather unusual, chunky kind of High Heel. So asking for modern Stilettos is kind of pointless, and besides, there is already one large store in SL specialized in Stiletto heels

Posted Chopine shoes - WIP, The Store |