A Week of Top-Fives: Day One, Sneakers

I was going to do this on my blog, as part of my week of favourites, but you know what? Shoes are way too important in my SLife to only pick five pairs. I mean, I can pick five in each *category* of my shoe inventory, and I could not figure out how I'd ever narrow that down. Then I had a brainwave and I decided that instead of doing only five on my blog, I could do five in each of seven categories, every day of the week on this blog! See how the cheater of her own blogging rules will justify herself, not to mention getting around those aforementioned rules?

Anyhow....

Today we're going to look at sneakers. Before I show you any, it should be noted that most of these are a blatant ripoff of shoes found IRL. People can debate the morality and legality of that all they like, but I'm not getting into it here.


These are Akeyo's Low-Rise Chucks. I've had these forever, but I still love them so much. There's other versions, I know, and they're probably great. But even *I* try not to buy shoes from different people that are like virtually the same (when it comes to sneakers, anyhow). What I love about these is that I can have the laces open or closed. And these are scripted to colour-change as well.


Hoorenbeek Nylon Trainers are fairly obvious as to their inspiration, but it's pretty cool that I can own them in both RL and SL. These come in a bajillion colours, though sadly not in a colour-changeable fatpack variety. They are scripted for resizing though.

The Soreal Superstars were one of my favourite releases last year, and in fact I got them just before I went on hiatus, just in time to feature them for something I wrote. Though I can't actually remember where I featured them (it was on my blog or in Second Style magazine), I do remember squeeing with delight when I got them. These are fully scripted for colour-changing and sizing, and I absolutely love the slightly beat-up look they've got.


Urban Bomb Unit was for a long time *the* place to get these real life replicas, the Porn Stars, no one else really made them. While there are others now, and they're great, the Porn Stars somehow manage to stay at the top of the heap.


A new kid on the block, 2Real Okelli of 2Real has released his first pair of shoes, the aptly-named Diagonals. They come in lots of colours and designs too, and they're very well done. He's self-taught as well, which is really impressive. This is definitely an up-and-comer to watch.

Stay tuned for my post tomorrow on ankle boots!

[Hoorenbeek] Hops it Up!

A great freebie for all the shoe lovers heading out on those many grid-wide hunts, be sure and hop over to Hoorenbeek first to collect these great FREE Nylon Trainers. The shoes are unisex with both a male and female version included, gotta love that! Now, with new sneakers as nice as these on your avatar feet, finding all those eggs should be easy as pie. Have fun out there!

Get your FREE Nylon Trainers at Hoorenbeek.

Also wearing; Redgrave Skin, ::69:: Hair, Acid & Mala Creations Hoodie/Panties, NC Creations Tube Socks.

StyleCard: Hoorenbeek & LBD

When I first heard the rumor that Hoorenbeek, purveyor of all things male fashion, had released a shoe for the ladies I was surprised to say the least. A quick dash over to Hoorenbeek confirmed that this was in fact a reality, here were the Hoorenbeek Stilettos. The shoes are a nice shape with a moderately high heel, the type of height that anyone would be comfortable wearing, thanks to creator Limer Fredriksson.

The shoe comes with a whole array of options, so you buy the one pair for a very reasonable cost and you get 6 shoe fabrications, 12 colour options for each fabrication, and customizable details like the strap and bow which can be removed, or the fact that you can style these up your own way deciding on the heel texture, bow and body separately. A fairly grand entrance onto the female footwear scene. One nice side note is that Hoorenbeek offers these with a gift option, so looking forward to the holidays you can pick up some for those footwear challenged friends or the good old 'Adopt a Newbie for Xmas' Program, OK I made up that last bit.

The rest of this look features LBD (LeeZu Baxter Designs), who has come out with a steady stream of interesting dresses and separates lately. I admit it had been a while since I visited her shop, but I was instantly drawn to these well textured high-waisted Lea Pants and Natascha Dress in Silver, which I am wearing the top portion of here. A sophisticated style without the need for multiple accessories, but I did manage to add my Bandit Diamonds Party Ring and the PC Silver Spike Earrings. Wearing the Hoorenbeek Stilettos in the black patent without the bow seemed like a perfect fit. Hair is ETD.

Visit Hoorenbeek and LBD (LeeZu Baxter Designs) for some sophisticated style.

Hot kicks at Hoorenbeek

OK, so having seen that Anessa and Graci had been busy today with the blogs for the girls out there, I couldn't let the guys down and made this post on the awesome shoes found at [hooreenbeek]. I first bought a pair of their initial sculpted shoes back in March or April and got to sample some of the newer pairsin the range thanks to Limer Frederiksson and I must say I was impressed with the level of detail in every pair I tried on. The pair in the above photo is the Slip on Checkers, and these shoes have a script that enables you to be able to change various facets of the shoes personality to fit your mood or outfit you are currently wearing. I donned them with the outfit I had on at the time and a simple tweak allowed me to match them up perfectly with what I was already wearing, and it is versatility such as this that adds to the value of the shoe. Being a more casual slip-on style shoe didn't impede me from wearing them with the more refined clothing I had on, and I think it kind of enhances the overall casual feel of the outfit, adding another dimension to it.



The next shoes featured are the ones which caught my eye the most and had been in my shoe wishlist for a while - the [hoorenbeek] Air Force, this time featured in Grey/Red. This classic style is pretty much a recreation of a RL Nike shoe, and I must say that the creator of this shoe has done the design great justice bringing them to SL (and I still wait patiently for a perfect recreation of a pair of Jordan VIs or XIs), hopefully this recreation is a sign of things to come.


The next style shown is the Superstar 2.0 in White. This style dons the famous Adidas 3 stripes and this homage to the classic Adidas sneakers harks me back to a time in my childhood when every young kid was wearing things like Adidas Romes around. This version of the sneakers however are a more modern style, with different tongue texturing in contrast to the leather sections of the shoe. As with every style featured in this blog today, the level of detail and craftsmenship is amazingly high and you can cam for ages taking in the detail.

The final style I am showing today is the Cowboy boot in Serpent. A perfect match to my Muism Snakeskin pants, these boots are highly detailed sculpts that give a look of audaciousness to the wearer. You fear nobody walking about in these badboys! They are also available in a variety of other colours, I just like this pair for the sheer outlandishness and my seemingly strange affinity to SL animal print clothing. If you are (most likely) a person more into tamer styles you should definitely check out some of the other available versions of these boots as they fit well and the quality is as high as any other pair in SL.


Overall I hope that this blog informs you out there in fashionland that there is a multitude of footwear available for guys and you are no longer stuck wearing the one pair of shoes everyone else seems to be wearing. With these designs I can see that the hard working designers at [hoorenbeek] have come a long way since their initial sculpted shoes and I look forward to what is to come in the future.

Shoes available at [hoorenbeek]
http://slurl.com/secondlife/JT%20World%20VI/127/14/23

Clothing available from
Casa Del Shai (including the updated version of the Amorsolo shirt)
Muism
Redgrave

Location
My apartment in Casablanca Boulevard Hotel