Visvim

History

As a young student, Nakamura’s parents encouraged him to study where there was very little Japanese spoken. At the age of 11, Nakamura met Cody Horne, one of his classmates at the Bunka High School, who was an exchange student from the UK. Through Horne, Nakamura became interested in foreign cultures. Nakamura chose Alaska, a place he had grown to love on family whale-watching, camping, and snowboarding trips. When he grew older, he started his career at Burton Snowboards in Japan, where he worked as a designer for 8 years. After quitting his job at Burton, Nakamura founded visvim in 2000. Visvim started off as primarily a footwear brand, and later expanded into a full apparel collection.

The brand now shows in Tokyo, Paris, and New York.

Products

Visvim is known for footwear and garments that are constructed with a mix of traditional production techniques and modern technology. Past inspirations for Visvim products include vintage Americana, Japanese Edo period garments, French workwear, Amish patchwork fabric, Native American clothing, the Alaskan outdoors, and Finnish Sami tribe culture. In addition to vintage construction and dyeing techniques, visvim also uses highly technical Gore-Tex material for waterproof jackets and replaceable Vibram outsoles.

Footwear

Visvim’s most iconic product is the FBT, a modern interpretation of the classic Native American moccasin but with a sneaker outsole, was inspired by moccasins worn by Terry Hall of British new wave band Fun Boy Three. Another visvim staple, the Christo sandal, is inspired by the artist duo of the same name, and features a construction that wraps around the foot similar to Christo’s wrapped buildings.

In 2008, Nakamura introduced a new line of footwear called “Folk,” which features mostly leather uppers and no chemical tanning. The usage of natural materials was intended to create an extremely breathable and comfortable shoe. When the outsoles wear out, they can be replaced with new ones.

Denim

Visvim’s denim line is called Social Sculpture, a nod to Joseph Beuys’ concept of the same name(citation needed). Nakamura has said that he wanted to make strong, powerful denim, and in order to do so he had to develop the denim “from the yarn up.” The process of breaking down the denim and building it back up again gave rise to the image of a sculpture.

Natural Dye

Visvim makes many products using natural dyes. These dyes include natural indigo, Amami Ōshima mud dye, and cochineal. By using natural dye, which is a bacteria and impossible to completely control, Visvim is able to create pieces with variation and unevenness, a quality that designer Nakamura points out as beautiful.

Cotton

Some of shirts, T-shirts, and sweatshirts in the Visvim collection use Sea Island cotton (Gossypium barbadense), an extra long staple cotton known for its exceptional softness.

Notable People

Thundercat, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Kanye West, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Mos Def, David Duchovny, Schoolboy Q, Drake, KAWS, Edison Chen, and Shawn Yue are notable celebrities that have been seen wearing Visvim.

visvim

The name “Visvim” does not have any specific meaning. Designer Hiroki Nakamura has said that he liked v-lettered logos, and browsed through the “v” section of a Latin dictionary until he came upon “vis” and “vim.” He liked how the two words visually looked together, and that is how the name “Visvim” was born.

F.I.L.

F.I.L., the name of Visvim’s flagship stores, stands for Free International Laboratory. This stems from designer Hiroki Nakamura wanting the stores to be a working laboratory for a brand that took a long time to develop. He also wanted the concept to transcend Japanese borders and be an international product.