Designer review: Akeyo

February 4th, 2008 at 01:30pm Daman Tenk

A few days ago I got myself a freebie Benz from Akeyo, probably the best free car in SL at the moment. A couple hours later I get an IM asking if I was interested in covering her clothing line. I ported in to check out the store and after looking at the items there, of course I was.

The store offers a variety of clothing and accessories, mostly using sculpties for the prim parts. She sticks to using sharp and bright textures and offers her stuff for reasonable (though not excessively cheap) prices.

The items I’m covering in this review are the shoes, hoodies and caps. The shoes and caps are both offered in 2 lines currently. For the shoes that’s slippers and sneakers, for the caps that’s jeep caps and baseball caps.

The hoodies come on the jacket layer with short sleeves, with sculpted prims to roll the sleeves up and a sculpted hoodie preset for men or women. They are modify and copy enabled, and sell for 350 L$ each.

The textures are sharp with minimal seams, and give me a bright impression even when dark colors are used. I think this is because of the way the patterns are designed. While other camo designers use a more fluid pattern, the spots here end in straight lines. I think it’s a nice effect. It gives a color as bland as grey still a vivid touch.

Shoes are for sale in two models, each available in several styles. They are for sale at 320 L$ per pair. The shoes are copy-enabled and come with a script to resize them by clicking on the shoe. The slippers include a wide and a slim pair if you buy them, so you’ll have to see which fits best around your ankles.

The designs are simple but effective with properly formed prims and detailed textures ensuring quality, without losing the design in detail. The sneakers are 8 prims, the slippers 12 prims. Which shows that you don’t need 500 prim boots to find quality footwear.

The sneaker design is not my favorite, since the top seems kind of bulky, but I think my collection of Redgrave and Soreal sneakers shows why. It’s not that I think this design is bad, I simply prefer a sleeker style on sneakers personally. The slipper design is a lot closer to the kind of shoe I prefer to wear in SL.

The textures on the sneakers are very effective. Everything looks like it should from the stitches to the single prim sole. They use plain monochrome colours which results in sneakers that look simple but are detailed enough to take over the role of the hundreds of tiny prims used in some other shoes. The slippers are available in brighter colours and designs, from blood-splattered white to pink and green stripes. The base fabric texture reminds me of canvas.

The last line of clothing items offered for sale are the caps. Jeep caps are for sale at 350 L$, baseball caps for 250 L$ (plain versions) or 280 L$ (designer versions). They come with the same resize script as the shoes and are also copy-enabled.

The jeep caps come in colors more drab then the rest of the designer’s items from dark camo to grey, with white being the only brighter style. The baseball caps come in standard colors and in black, with designer caps sold in more vivid styles, from splattered pink to bright camo.

The caps share the same low-prim usage of the other designs, with each cap being only 5 prims (except for the baseball caps that include hair I assume, but I haven’t been tried those on).

I don’t usually wear hats in Second Life, because all of them clip with my hair, which I hate. These however I’ve worn quite a few times the past days, and so far I like them.

The textures on both are detailed, with fabric bases that on both designs suit the style of the cap. Which is a slightly synthetic look on the baseball caps and a heavy wool look on the jeep caps.

You can find the Akeyo store by going to this SLUrl.

Disclosure: Seen in World: Yes | Review Copy: Yes | Friends List: No

Notes: On Daman: Hunter Espresso by Sezmra Svarog (Nora Fashions & Bodyskins). Black Jeans (iki casuals). Sandstorm jeans by Adam Soler (Lookr). Halo sunglasses by Kwamey Pinion (Soreal).

Entry Filed under: Akeyo, Designer Reviews, Hats, Hoodies, Shoes, Sweaters, Urban