By RUTH LA FERLA

Some people are hard-pressed to make the rent, much less spend on a pagoda shoulder jacket from Balmain. But Vixie Rayna seems not to be feeling the pinch. Not a month goes by in which she isn’t spending as much as $50,000 on housing, furniture or her special weakness: multistrap platform sandals, decorated with feathers and beads.

Recession or no, Ms. Rayna isn’t reining in her fantasies, or her expenditures ? at least not in the virtual world. In a simulated universe like There.com, IMVU.com or Second Life. com , Ms. Rayna, an avatar on Second Life, can sip Champagne, teleport to private islands and splurge on luxury brands that are the cyber equivalent of Prada waders or a Rolex watch. Realworld consumers may have snapped shut their wallets. But in these lavishly appointed realms it is still 2007, and conspicuous consumption is all the rage.

“Throughout the recession we actually saw an increase in spending,” said Mike Wilson, the chief executive of There.com, an avatar-based social arena. That’s because the wares are relatively inexpensive.

In most virtual worlds, memberships are free, but players trade real money for virtual currencies, used to buy products, save up in an account or eventually redeem for real money. About 70,000 Therebucks on There. com, or 10,000 Lindens in Second Life, each about $40, can buy a choice of simulated wares, from several pairs of thigh-high boots to a plot of land.


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What’s more, as Mr. Wilson pointed out: “Everything fits; things don’t wear out. The virtual world represents a different value proposition.”

In their day-to-day lives, shoppers like Mandy Cocke, Vixie Rayna’s reallife alter ego, have sharply trimmed their spending. When times were good, Ms. Cocke, a nurse in Virginia, spent as much as $1,000 a month on designer shoes and clothing. Lately, though, “pretty much every possible expense makes me ask, ‘Do I really need this?’ ” she said.

But online, their acquisitive lust rages unabated, fueling a robust economy driven mostly by avatar-to-avatar transactions estimated at between $1 billion and $2 billion a year in real dollars. Second Life, the most successful and most familiar of such sites, does not disclose retail revenues. But it reported a 94 percent surge in its overall economy in this year’s second quarter over the same period a year ago.

While industry analysts say per capita expenditures on virtual goods have remained roughly the same throughout the recession, aggregate spending has spiked as more and more users discover these 3-D animated realms. A proliferation of new sites, games and the release of films like “Surrogates,” about avatarlike robots , have piqued a new wave of interest in virtual worlds.

“A year or two ago virtual goods were a quirky little corner of the online world,” said Dan Jansen, a partner in Virtual Greats, which sells simulated representations of branded fashions like Rocawear in the online community. “Now it’s mainstream.”

Jonty Glaser, a partner in Stiletto Moody, a Second Life shoe brand, declined to provide figures, but said sales had “definitely grown since the recession began.” Mr. Glaser noted that “as fewer people travel or spend on entertainment, we have seen them focus online and accelerate purchases.”

Style-struck cybervixens can shop at virtual stores on Xstreet, Second Life’s e-commerce platform, check out fashion blogs or grab a front-row seat at online runway shows. There is even a weekly talk program, “Fabulous Fashion With Angie Mornington,” broadcast on Treet TV, Second Life’s television network, which draws nearly 15,000 viewers an episode, said Ludele Tompkins, Ms. Mornington’s creator.

Building an identity on networks like Second Life is “kind of like when people in the last recession used to watch ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ on television,” said Eric Spangenberg, a consumer psychologist and the dean of the business school at Washington State University. “It’s the newest manifestation of how people live vicariously: if I can’t afford a Bentley, my avatar can.”

Certainly her real-world occupation as a nurse affords Ms. Cocke scant opportunity “to rock my new leather Gucci messenger bag or Jimmy Choo sandals,” she said. In contrast, “Vixie’s style is a better representation of my true self,” she said, “as it’s hard to be fashionable in hospital scrubs.”


Fashion sales are booming in the virtual world, home to shows like one hosted by Angie Mornington, above. Even audience members can afford high-end boutiques. / PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHARRON SCHUMAN