Picture this: I buy a lovely, vibrant orange dress. Bold, summery, and very “I’m just here to sip something with bubbles and judge your AO.” I wear it. I love it. I toss it lovingly into my inventory with the vague thought, “I’ll definitely wear this again soon.”
Fast forward five days.
I want that dress again. I type “orange” in my inventory search bar. Nothing. Not even a whiff of citrus. I try “tangerine,” “coral,” “saffron,” “burnt sienna,” “that dress with the side slit and regrets.” Still nothing.
Weeks later, when searching for a completely unrelated top (which, by the way, also cannot be found), there it is.
“Frock in Sunset.”
Sunset. SUNSET.
Not orange, not dress, not even anything remotely logical. Just “Frock in Sunset.” And because I didn’t think to type in the name of a celestial phenomenon when I was looking for a dress the colour of a traffic cone, it remained lost to the abyss of my inventory.
And don’t even get me started on the rest. Here are just a few examples I’ve encountered on this emotional rollercoaster in the past years:
- A lipstick red miniskirt named “Desire”. I typed “red.” I typed “skirt.” Nothing. Because obviously, it’s not a red skirt, it’s Desire. My mistake.
- A mint green hoodie, I searched under “mint” and “green”. Turns out the shade was named “Early Dew.” I don’t even want to know what that implies.
- A white jumpsuit in the colour ‘Salt’. I thought I was buying clothes, not pantry items.
- A simple black sweater labelled “Eclipse.” I just wanted something to match my jeans, not something that sounds like it might summon a vampire.
I know, I know….creative branding, aesthetic vibes, poetic nonsense and all that. But sometimes I don’t want to romance my wardrobe, I just want to find my damn top.
So here’s my plea to designers: go wild with your colour names on the vendor, but maybe, just maybe, also put “blue,” “red,” or “green” in the item name somewhere? For us poor souls with 126,000+ inventory items and the memory of a soggy sponge?
Please.
Am I the only one? Or what’s the most challenging colour name that made you give up and buy a new one? Let me know!
Note: The outfit I am wearing in the pic for this post isn’t the culprit of wild colour naming, and not every creator in Second Life does this. Plenty of designers label things beautifully and logically. This post is simply a lighthearted rant inspired by the times it happened to me.
Used in the picture:
I’m wearing The Kiwi Co ‘Opalite’ bodysuit, jeans and sneakers.
All the folded and hanging clothes, the shoes and the handbag are decor items by Dutchie, the messy piles of clothes are by Meshuga
