AKUwear, founded in 2006, features unique and exclusive Vintage-Shirts made in Germany. AKUwear is a brand of urban apparel that never gets mainstream, combining fashion, art and lifestyle. Supported by a bunch of underground artists, cartoon designers, illustrators and regular peeps, the world of AKU keeps growing every day.

In order to protect the integrity and value of our products AKUwear releases a small, hand-numbered 250 shirts for each edition. Every shirt got a limited number, stitched on the left sleeve. That makes 250 unique shirts.


Streetwear Today  Issue II | 2008  "AKUwear - Artistical Egoism"
At first glance, if you take the name literally, it might appear a little egocentric, this small German t-shirt label. AKUwear, because Aku comes from the Malay language and means nothing more than ‘me’ or ‘I’. But this ‘me’ or ‘I’ is not meant to be a self-gratification of the label. The name stands for the individuality each one of their shirts represents for their customers. “Every shirt is just for me, it’s my shirt, not for someone else, it’s me, the shirt represents me! It’s very important to us that our stuff is and stays limited! And don’t forget, everyone likes what no one else has!” explains Felix Heß, one of the founders of AKUwear.
Indeed, these four long-time friends (Sebastian, Iskender, Frederik and Felix, all from Paderborn, Germany), who run the label in addition to their regular jobs, offer their customers real individual shirts: AKUwear releases 250 limited hand-numbered tees for every edition. Each one has its own number, stitched on the left sleeve, making 250 unique shirts. “We wanted to offer something to the people that is artistically unique and that has its origin in our attitude to fashion, lifestyle and art. At the same time we forcefully ignored any thought of profit and image,” says Felix. This uniqueness is manifested in the AKU-owners club.
All the people who have an AKU-product can express themselves on the label´s webpage with a photo, which makes a nice, playful gallery.

One of the main reasons for the foundation of the label, in 2006, was the love for the art and designs of their fellow friend, Thorsten Hasenkamm. Thorsten is an internationally recognized artist who has already successfully participated in art exhibitions with his cartoons and lowbrow art. His styles have a very unique charm and always a fine sense of humor. All prints on the AKUwear-shirts are made by Thorsten, and you can also get some of his lovely art-prints from their website.
For the future, on top of the great art from Mr. Hasenkamm, AKU is looking for new artist to build a platform for their works. Furthermore, they`re about to design a lady-wear range, so we`re really looking forward to see their new stuff!