Visvim (Q7491)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Japanese menswear brand
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Visvim |
Japanese menswear brand |
Statements
2001
Creative Director and Chief Executive
At Visvim and its sister line, WMV, process reigns supreme. Founder and designer Hiroki Nakamura goes to mind-boggling lengths to rediscover forgotten fabric-development and leather-tanning techniques. In many cases, he single-handedly revives these crafts and their respective workshops. He can tell plenty of stories about struggling artisans who suddenly find themselves flush with orders.A line built on restoring traditional methods is not going to change radically from season to season; so many looks for Fall were the next logical step in the multi-season evolution of an idea. These included crack-lacquered leather jackets that took eight months to create as well as nylon jackets dyed with persimmon and mud (some of that mud is found only in certain rice fields abundant in volcanic ash). And there were plenty of standouts that felt entirely fresh, including an all-silk souvenir jacket with what Nakamura described as a “happy dragon” motif on the back—inspired by a 17th-century dragon face from China—and a truly unique, multicolored kimono-style jacket made fromwashipaper.Nakamura’s travels took him all over the world. He set out to Germany to learn how to use fish oil to soften leather and give it a naturally aged look; he jetted to Chicago to check out Horween, the last family-owned tannery in the U.S.; and he paid a return visit to the Ainu tribe of Japan for a refresher on how they achieve their unique stitching. On one of his trips, he discovered a 100-year-old swatch of fabric whose dyeing technique was unknown and unfamiliar to him. He was able to solve the mystery by re-creating a tie-dye process that involved up to 10 layers of fabric and acres of string.Aside from his obsession with fabrics, Nakamura also experimented with tucking and pinning fabric to create novel shapes, and he went entirely old-school with high-waisted loose pants held up with suspenders. That retro vibe carried over into WMV, designed by Nakamura’s wife and collaborator, Kelsi. There, styles took on a decidedly ’30s and ’40s vibe without sacrificing the innovative fabric development of the menswear. The wordpeerlessappeared throughout, as prints and embroidery, as indeed many of these pieces are without peer, unmatched from concept to execution.
10 February 2018
At Visvim and its sister line, WMV, process reigns supreme. Founder and designer Hiroki Nakamura goes to mind-boggling lengths to rediscover forgotten fabric-development and leather-tanning techniques. In many cases, he single-handedly revives these crafts and their respective workshops. He can tell plenty of stories about struggling artisans who suddenly find themselves flush with orders.A line built on restoring traditional methods is not going to change radically from season to season; so many looks for Fall were the next logical step in the multi-season evolution of an idea. These included crack-lacquered leather jackets that took eight months to create as well as nylon jackets dyed with persimmon and mud (some of that mud is found only in certain rice fields abundant in volcanic ash). And there were plenty of standouts that felt entirely fresh, including an all-silk souvenir jacket with what Nakamura described as a “happy dragon” motif on the back—inspired by a 17th-century dragon face from China—and a truly unique, multicolored kimono-style jacket made fromwashipaper.Nakamura’s travels took him all over the world. He set out to Germany to learn how to use fish oil to soften leather and give it a naturally aged look; he jetted to Chicago to check out Horween, the last family-owned tannery in the U.S.; and he paid a return visit to the Ainu tribe of Japan for a refresher on how they achieve their unique stitching. On one of his trips, he discovered a 100-year-old swatch of fabric whose dyeing technique was unknown and unfamiliar to him. He was able to solve the mystery by re-creating a tie-dye process that involved up to 10 layers of fabric and acres of string.Aside from his obsession with fabrics, Nakamura also experimented with tucking and pinning fabric to create novel shapes, and he went entirely old-school with high-waisted loose pants held up with suspenders. That retro vibe carried over into WMV, designed by Nakamura’s wife and collaborator, Kelsi. There, styles took on a decidedly ’30s and ’40s vibe without sacrificing the innovative fabric development of the menswear. The wordpeerlessappeared throughout, as prints and embroidery, as indeed many of these pieces are without peer, unmatched from concept to execution.
10 February 2018
Mud-dipped World War II army jackets reimagined as kimonos! Fringed suede trousers the length of chaps! Denim as stiff as a wind blowing from Osaka to Omaha!If there is a common thread, so to speak, defining Visvim’s collection for Spring ’18, it is the firm’s reverence for Americana: fashions that envision chic pioneers in their homes on the range, shot through with the keen sensibility of a Japanese hipster. According to Hiroki Nakamura, the line’s founder, his inspirations over the years have run the gamut from Amish aprons to Native American beading to rusty bicycles.Originally a menswear label, the house launched a sister line four years ago (in part, because women were grabbing up the men’s stuff as quickly as it hit the racks). This season, the offerings for women—designed with Nakamura’s wife, Kelsi—include shirts made from vintage bandannas and gossamer wool kimonos with golden trim. A charmingly cartoonish “fishy” print, hand-drawn by Kelsi, enlivened a ’30s tea dress; a mud-dyed summer frock would have been just as happy at Woodstock as it will be at Coachella.Many of the details evince a sly wit: Bright red Bakelite buttons on a blue cotton work jacket could have been fished from the bottom of a flea market barrel, but were actually manufactured by the company. In fact, Visvim has forged relationships with a number of small ateliers keeping alive ancient Japanese techniques. A process called Katazurizome was employed to create a print that depicts workaday spanners, a nod to the designer’s affection for humble tools.“It takes times to make interesting, nice products,” Nakamura has said. “I am still finding so many things out! Every year I have [a] new discovery.”
9 September 2017
Men’s label Visvim doesn't subscribe to trends or themes or such. Essentially, each season, designer Hiroki Nakamura simply fine-tunes his near-scientific approach to fabric development, which may not sound particularly fascinating—but, in his hands, it absolutely is. Whereas he pursued high-tech applications in the beginning, nowadays he’s interested in reviving ancient, mostly Japanese artisanal techniques that are in jeopardy of obsolescence. “I feel my job as a designer is to take old methods, enhance them, and bring them into the present as everyday clothes,” he said.He also revels in describing those methods, so let’s. First up, a kimono-esque jacket applied with lacquer (traditionally only used in furnishings and samurai armor), painstakingly worked until a perfectly cracked texture was achieved. Another leather jacket had been tanned in a process that took 10 months (only four will be made, two of which are already pre-sold). Elsewhere, puffy vests with enlarged collars, based on old military safety vests, were given a checked pattern—resembling the handiwork of the Ainu, an aboriginal tribe of Japan—but where each square had been hand-brushed with persimmon jam for a richness not attainable through silkscreening. Other canvas jackets in army green had been made with yarns of varying widths for an uneven appearance, and a silk herringbone jacket with a silk fiber fill, when rubbed, produced a warmth on its own.Nakamura, who’s been collecting rare pieces of denim since he was 14, also experimented with workwear this season, perfecting a wash that leaves denim much drier, thus lighter, than regular washes. He’s also paying more attention to cuts, creating an east-west jacket hybrid where the square lines of a kimono were applied to a blazer so that the neckline stood away from the body, as kimonos are intended to do. Traditionally in Japan, stressed Nakamura, that is the essence of masculinity.Over on the women’s side, WMV, co-designed with Nakamura’s wife Kelsi, the overall concept wasn’t vastly different—with the exception of flowy, bias-cut dresses and skirts inspired by the 1940s, some with velvet shoulder detailing. Otherwise jackets came in rich lamb shearling, dresses came with hand-painted flourishes, and details included handmade bamboo buttons. Several pieces made of hemp, a material, said Nakamura, “used all the time during the Edo period,” kept the au naturel vibe going.
Not to be overlooked, as shoes were Visvim’s original claim to fame: a pared-down men’s and women’s moccasin—made from only two strips of leather—will be available for Fall, as well as deerskin styles and kangaroo hide sneakers.
12 February 2017
Gender isn’t probably much of a concern forVisvimdesigner Hiroki Nakamura, at least when compared with his preoccupation with traversing the globe in search of forgotten fabric techniques. So while he already showed his Spring men’s collection as a guest of Pitti Uomo in Italy back in June, his women’s line WMV, presented on Wednesday, is almost identical—just with more skirts.Designed with his wife, Kelsi, WMV bears all the same hallmarks each season as Visvim men’s; specifically, Nakamura's obsession with historical craftsmanship and the resurrection thereof. He jumped right into it at the presentation today, starting with a crinkled papery material that was exactly that, crinkled paper. Called washi, the traditional Japanese craft that purportedly originated in the 6th century, when fabric was hard to come by. Nowadays it seems to be only used by monks, plus Nakamura, who also designed a lightning-bolt stencil that was hand-painted all over washi skirts, jackets, and short jumpsuits. Another ancient technique Nakamura is bringing back,yuzenis essentially silk-weaving, but apparently using the very long single filament from a silkworm cocoon, an inconceivably laborious method by modern silk-production standards.Still another carryover from men’s to women’s was the souvenir jacket, or bomber, somewhat similar to the ones GIs had made after WWII, but in silk and with more of a kimono shape. A curvy bamboo pattern, too, found its way over from men’s. Not a bambooprint, Nakamura stressed, but a pattern made from dye hand-brushed over rubber grooves, piece by painstaking piece. A trip to the Ainu region of northern Japan informed a roomy jacket with ornate stitchwork. And finally, as Visvim is cultishly followed for its shoes, WMV has an unusual new offering for Spring, geta sandals—elevated and made of wood, as tradition calls for, but narrower and using only natural lacquer.
8 September 2016
Visvimdesigner Hiroki Nakamura has an obsession with Americana: blue jeans and chinos, cowboys and ranchers, the whole bit. There’s a twisted sense of “normality” to his aesthetic, being as it is embedded in garments we see every day, even if we’re not American, due to the overwhelming influence that culture has had across the world. So today, inside a French rococo-style Italianlimonaia(an orangery, but for lemons), we incongruously saw this Japanese brand’s take on America.It was quite a show, a show in the old-fashioned sense of the word, all Busby Berkeley tap dancing, ’50s jitterbugging, and a troupe of sailors going gung ho Gene Kelly and whirling mops like batons. They resembled Channing Tatum inHail, Caesar!(albeit a few years on). Halfway through the show, they twirled khaki-clad female counterparts into jive dances, as the models precariously perambulated around the flailing limbs. Outside thelimonaia? Lemonade stands. What else?Thelimonaiais an interesting metaphor for Visvim—bear with me—forming as it does a microclimate for the fruit it grows, which would otherwise perish in Tuscany. And the Visvim show itself felt like a microclimate of sorts, so perfectly did it re-create theideaof America, if not the actuality. After all, none of the garments Visvim showed in such an American fashion were actually made in the USA; they use Japanese fabrics alongside elaborate craft and dyeing techniques sourced from across the globe that are, sadly, no longer possible on an industrial scale stateside. Nevertheless, as a mirage of America, it was potent.What about the clothes? They continued in the Visvim mold, of workwear, denims, and ten-gallon hats, but fused with the off-kilter, frequently overtly Japanese, like the cotton tie-front jackets cut wide and easy like a kimono. The American archetypes in dress, along with the all-singing, all-dancing backdrop, gave you the impression of stock characters let loose off the MGM lot: the cowboy, the laborer, the coach in a sweatshirt with cap and whistle, the rebel without a cause but with a lot of clothes. There was a focus on denim, the most American of fabrics, and a crop of seersucker tailcoats that looked like something out ofAmerican Gothic. There was also a peppering of retro-tinged, war bride–inspired pieces from the Visvim womenswear line, WMV, that crossed paths with the menswear throughout the show. Boy meets girl? The oldest script on the film lot.
Will men want to dress like film characters? I’m mostly guessing not, but ditch the Stetsons and the straw boaters, and those allegorical outfits disintegrate rapidly into wearable, workaday pieces in innovative fabrics. I don’t need to assert their appeal to the ordinary man with money to spend; Visvim already sells well, all across the world. As a runway image, though, these clothes read quietly; generally Nakamura shows via appointment, to enable explanation of his clothes intricacies. Today he put on a show, but the clothes didn’t feel like the stars. Sailors doing a Shirley Temple routine are pretty much guaranteed to upstage anything, though.
16 June 2016
AVisvimpresentation necessarily requires mental agility and cultural elasticity. The intricate clothes—men’s and women’s (WMV), though predominantly men’s—are borne out of a serious yen for travel and a pursuit of handcrafted methods. Truly, designer Hiroki Nakamura is in a constant state of travel, meeting with vintage suppliers and visiting obscure artisanal enclaves, forever in search of time-honored techniques at risk of extinction.Out of this wanderlust and curiosity, Nakamura developed several new men’s jackets for Fall. Among the standouts was asakiorijacket composed of cotton bits culled from other garments, as the Japanese practiced during the Edo period when only cotton and silk were available. Wool was unknown, as it came later with the Europeans. Which is why, when Nakamura recently saw an antique men’s kimono in a museum, made of wool, he promptly created a similar item out of Harris tweed from Scotland. Also borrowing from tradition, Nakamura padded a men’sdoterajacket with a spongy silk layer in place of down filling, and gave it top-stitching à lasashiko.Over on the women’s side, designed by his wife Kelsi, kimonos came with large square sleeves, some in a contemporary puffer style, others in a patchwork of velvet, denim, and assorted reused materials. Fabric dyeing, another core principle, ranged from indigo to mud (only in its green beige color)—always vegetable-dyed, always by hand—while a persimmon coating gave nylon a soft, peachy sheen. Leather totes and doctor’s bags were laser-etched with naïf-style depictions of battle between early Americans and native tribes—stick-figure war scenes not unlike those traditionally drawn on buffalo skins and draped over teepees.And now, finally, the most anticipated news of all—shoes. After all, Visvim got its start with its culty FBT moccasins, which are still produced but often sold out. For Fall, all-weather boots made with Horween Leather Company in Chicago are sure to be a best-seller, particularly with a custom chain-link rubber sole design. Meanwhile, hand-sewn Goodyear shoes made their return, with chunky wood heels for women. The Roland Jogger teased here last season made its promised debut (although one model will only be stocked in the Tokyo store), as did the Huron Moc, a new moccasin-sneaker hybrid in suede and mesh that can fold over like a collar. Nakamura is never short of ideas.
13 February 2016
It’s always a head-spinning experience to go through a newVisvimcollection with its designer,Hiroki Nakamura. Not only are his collections sprawling, encompassing men’s as well as a newer women’s line (WMV), but most pieces have unusual and distinct origins that beg to be told and heard. And Nakamura, a gifted raconteur, is more than happy to share their stories.Essentially, Visvim begins and ends with vintage fabric. But here’s the thing: Nothing isactuallyvintage. Rather, each piece is created anew in the spirit of vintage, usually the result of a long and international chain of artisanal workmanship. Nakamura described how, for example, one sweater began as organic Italian cotton, which was then hand-knitted in Peru before being finished in France. There were also men’s shoes woven out of bits of raffia in Morocco, but which, because the craftsmen there weren’t experienced with a particular shade of blue, required a team of Japanese dye specialists to assist. Dyeing is otherwise done in Japan, as a rule, as in a series of lightweight cotton dresses with an all-over checkerboard pattern made by brushing dye over rice resin in a technique calledkatazome. That innocuous-looking plaid suit jacket? It’s made entirely out of paper pulp, for extra breathability.Aside from his obsession with vintage fabrics, Nakamura is also a collector of found objects or flea-market finds, things he picks up on his travels and packs into the five or six suitcases he says he takes with him on every trip. He assembled a display of these items for the showing today: a jar of shells he found on a beach in Montauk that he drew as a shell print for the collection; a parasol from Alsace that inspired him to make an indigo-dyed umbrella; a jewelry box from the 1900s that he liked for its brass studs; Geta slippers whose once-bright velvet faded long ago. On the topic of shoes—upon which the company was founded and which still whip up enormous cult-like zeal—some important news: first, a new sneaker style called the Roland Jogger is launching, and second, the famed FBT moccasin that started it all now comes with a protective leather overlay, by popular demand.
12 September 2015
A quest for authenticity and a passion for vintage are always the driving force behind Hiroki Nakamura's collections for Visvim. Add to thatactualdriving for Fall. He, along with his wife (who codesigns) and young daughter, took a road trip throughout America, crisscrossing its Great Plains, shores, and cities from Florida to Seattle. One entire wall of Nakamura's showroom was lined with pictures of the trip—mugging on the beach, standing with sequoias, hanging out in the van, taking in the natural beauty, and, for Nakamura, communing with vintage fabrics.Over the years, Nakamura has cultivated a signature reputation for fusing classic American themes with traditional production methods, usually Japanese, for both Visvim and its newer sister line, WMV. Similarly, the road trip yielded a wealth of familiar yet novel pieces: suede cowboylike jackets, Navajo-blanket vests, bombers with Stars and Stripes patchwork, long prairie skirts in gingham, and men's shirts with chambray yokes. There was also more mud dyeing (resembling mud only in color). All of it had an emphasis on natural materials and handcraftsmanship.Amid talk of Okinawa inks, Fukushima fibers, the men's kimono (hakama), and Taiwanese tribal jackets, Nakamura called attention to two enormous coats that were frankly already calling attention to themselves. Covered in possibly thousands of fluttering bits of blue and red fabric, these were statement pieces best described in his own words: glam rock meetsSesame Street. Still, it's quite likely that die-hard Visvim fans—and there are many—will head straight for the brand's cult staple, the FBT sneaker-moccasin hybrid, which makes a return to the U.S. market after a two-season hiatus and will be produced under the WMV label for the first time.
18 February 2015
Visvim designer Hiroki Nakamura is so smitten with the concept of vintage that each season he hauls into his showroom a classic car (or motorcycle) that he's been restoring, though never to the point that it loses its telltale wear and tear. After all, character is what he's after, not flawlessness. This season Nakamura found character in a 1950s hot rod that looked like it hadn't seen the road, much less a drag race, in decades.But it does work, as the designer showed, if deafeningly loud sputters from the tailpipe mean it's working. Point is, the car hails from a mythological age of American auto racing—and if a hot rod was good enough for James Dean to speed around in on- and offscreen, it's good enough for Visvim.The car served to set the tone of the collection, which could be described as postwar transpacific tropical. With vintage forever on Nakamura's mind, he looked to Hawaiian shirts from the '50s, the decade the islands became a state, thus sparking a nationwide fad for flower prints, palm trees, and pineapples. Nakamura then injected traditional Japanese techniques for a novel twist. For example, a range of pineapple-printed shirts for men and women had been hand-dyed in indigo, persimmon flower, or mud. Yes, mud. As it turns out, mud-dyeing makes for a delightful shade of khaki. (The women's side, called WMV, looks identical to the men's but is cut differently.)Although fixated on the years after WWII, it doesn't seem that Nakamura is going for an antiwar message. Rather, he is taken with the trappings of the time, and his insistence on employing time-honored Japanese methods has helped ensure the survival of many artisans and their trade. The statement piece of the collection, a long kimono entirely hand-painted by artisans in Kyoto to resemble swirls of swimming koi fish and other stylized animals, was a testament to his reverence for history and his passion for the preservation of artistic practices. With a price in the five digits, the kimono itself is a work of art.More wearable pieces, too, were exhaustively considered. Shirts were embroidered with clusters of small silk stars or '50s-era slogans Nakamura latched onto while researching. One blue denim shirt resembling an old railroad worker's uniform was made by a factory in Japan that specializes in faithfully reproducing discontinued fabrics. A reversible bomber was solid velvet on one side and silk on the other, while simple baseball jerseys looked like the real thing.
And therein lies Nakamura's raison d'être. While he's smitten with vintage, none of these items are in fact vintage. All the materials, whether suede, lambskin, or cotton rayon, are made in contemporary Japan and given the veneer of golden age America.
7 September 2014