Review: Izumiya Outfits

June 13th, 2008 at 06:12am Express Zenovka

Izumiya is a wonderful store that I’ve been meaning to post about but never got around to actually doing it. Till now that is. I mentioned one item in an earlier post, but Izumi Homewood’s work deserve so much more attention than that.

Izumiya consists of mutually complementing halves. The second floor is all freebies and dollarbies. There are accessories, shirts, pants, hats(with hair), a suit, and even poses to be found up there. Creamy Cooljoke, of Free*style, and I coincidentally discovered this store at the same time, and she (unlike me) already covered the freebie side of things, esp. the dollarbie suit. So I’ll focus on the other half, the only slightly more expensive first floor.

Downstairs, prices range between 5L and 70L. Items range from pendants, hats, and hair to belts, bags, jackets. My favorite part, however, are the prepackaged outfits.

There are a few repeated themes in the Izumiya outfits. Among the earlier outfits, quite a few feature long coats, which are similar in style to the coats from NAIMA that Ryan covered.
In fact, some people have asked me whether I was wearing NAIMA when I walked around in them. These jackets, however, are definitely not leather and are much more casual. While similar at face value, each of the “jacket outfits” has its own quirks. The first outfit is simplest, with a black jacket and small necklace. Outfit 2 features a wacky orange print shirt and tie and has shoes. This outfit, number 4, has a fuzzy trim and plaid print.

Despite her low prices, Izumi doesn’t skimp on the detail for each outfit. They all come with some sort of accessory — a belt, a tie, a necklace, and/or shoes. In this case we have a blue ring and a necklace. Quite a few of theses accessories are reusable on their own (like the shoes I’m wearing from outfit 3) In fact, now that I think of it, virtually any item from the freebie section upstairs can be swapped into at least one outfit downstairs.

Outfit 6 is a trendy spin a favorite combination of mine, the jacket and tee look. Normally, if I’m using a suit jacket, I’m stuck with the sleeves down, since that’s how one normally wears a suit. I personally have a bad habit of rolling up my sleeves whenever I can and that compulsion spills into SL as well. What few jackets I have with rolled up sleeves tend to have flexi tails or skirt bottoms, while I prefer a simple jacket bottom. Thus I was quite happy to find the jacket from this outfit. Even better, since the jacket is on its own layer with a fully done shirt underneath, I can mix and match other shirt layer tees with it.

The majority of pants in these outfits tend to be ripped jeans. Each pair, however, is different — different colors, different belt design, different amount of wear. Personally, I’m not a big fan of ripped jeans, but the amount on this specific pair isn’t too bad. If you don’t like the ripped look, you can just head upstairs, where I remember seeing at least three or four other pairs that could be swapped in.

Along with the jacket, tee, and jeans, this outfit has a necklace and a hip bag. The former is a simple hat-shaped pendant. Is quirky and but fits in with the rest of the outfit. The hip bag is just amazing. This one contains books, with legible covers, and a cool set of multiple belts. There are other bags available downstairs, ranging in price from 50L for similar hipbags to 70L for ones with fancier japanese prints on them. I’ve seen similar belts go for more than 3 to 4 times as much.

And of course there’s the shoes. All shoes that come with Izumiya outfits tend to maintain the same basic shape. However, there are various colors and patterns to distinguish the outfits. Outfit 3 has green shoes, while Outfit 6 has a very distinctive print design. Its by far the most interesting one I’ve seen from Izumiya yet. The best part about these shoes is that they do not suffer from the puffy shape most older shoes tend to suffer. They aren’t sculptie, but they aren’t huge either. While not free, I highly recommend these shoes, as they are considerably cheaper than most and come with a free outfit

Outfit 9 is one of the newest offerings from Izumiya, still on the new item shelf. Both this outfit and outfit 10 feature the rolled up sleeves look that I love. Underneath the open shirt is a tee, and the outfit comes with jeans and shoes. Accenting these are bracelets and a combination earring and earcuff.

For this third look I decided to switch my hair style to an offering from Izumiya, which is available on the second floor for 1L. It actually comes as part of one of the outfits, but only in brown. Upstairs you get brown, black, and blond all in one pack. The style is quite dense and shaggy, but still manages to look sharp and together fitting under the hat. It also lets me poke my big ears out to show off the earrings from the outfit

Note I haven’t yet actually put a price on any of these outfits. Would you believe that each outfit is only 25L? Yep, only 25L for a single outfit.In fact, I’m pretty sure could probably buy the all of the male offerings (outfits, freebies, dollarbies, and unisex accessories) at this store for under 1000L. I have a lot of respect for Izumi because she maintains such low prices yet still offers such high quality products.

Finally, lets talk about the other things I’m wearing. My skin is group gift from Belleza available for pickup in store with a group tag. It’s a well detailed skin that I believe is representative of their latest skin line.
The sunglasses I’m wearing in the last outfit are a group gift from Kalnins Optics which I found by way of Creamy. They are in fact highly scripted, with the ability to change the reflectivity and color of the lenses in addition to providing an automatic smiler. My only complaint is the design on the frames, which add a feminine flair.
Of course, you can cover the design up with various hair styles. One option is is nmr32 from booN, which I’m wearing with the first two outfits. Its a long, unisex style that is surprisingly light when it comes to ARC. I’ve had the black version modded to be a little less emo (you can see both eyes) but I stuck to the original style for the brown version.

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

Notes: On Express: "brown gray" eyes available from Freebie Eyes Package (House of Zen).

Entry Filed under: Belleza, Designer Reviews, Freebies, Grunge, Hair, Izumiya, Kalnins, Outfits, Skins, Urban, booN