Industry | Retail |
---|---|
Founded | 2000 |
Founder | Hiroki Nakamura |
Headquarters | , Japan |
Key people | Hiroki Nakamura (Creative Director and CEO) |
Products | Men's Apparel |
Website | www |
Visvim is a Japanese menswear brand founded by Hiroki Nakamura in 2000. The brand is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and has stores in Japan and the US, and is sold internationally at luxury department stores and boutiques including Bergdorf Goodman in New York and Dover Street Market in London.
In addition to the main visvim line, Nakamura designs a womenswear line called WMV, and a conceptual menswear line called F.I.L. Indigo Camping Trailer. [1] He also produces his own range of coffee beans called Little Cloud Coffee.
The word “Visvim” does not have any meaning. 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” and liked how the two words looked together. [2] [3]
F.I.L., the name of Visvim's flagship stores, stands for Free International Laboratory. This stems from Nakamura wanting the stores to be a working laboratory for an international brand. [4]
Hiroki Nakamura was born in Kofu, and grew up in Tokyo. Nakamura's parents encouraged him to study abroad. At the age of 11, Nakamura met Cody Horne, one of his classmates at the Bunka High School. 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. [5] After quitting his job at Burton, Nakamura founded Visvim in 2001. [6] Visvim started off as primarily a footwear brand, and later expanded into a full apparel collection.
The brand has held fashion shows in Tokyo, Paris, and New York. [1] It encompasses seven free-standing stores in Japan, two flagship stores in the United States, and is stocked at 135 retailers internationally. [7]
Visvim footwear and garments 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. [6] [8] In addition to vintage construction and dyeing techniques, visvim also uses Gore-Tex material for waterproof jackets and replaceable Vibram outsoles. [9]
Visvim produces the FBT, a modern interpretation of the Native American moccasin but with a sneaker outsole. It was inspired by moccasins worn by Terry Hall of British band Fun Boy Three. The Visvim 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. [6]
In 2008, Nakamura introduced a new line of footwear called “Folk,” which features mostly leather uppers and no chemical tanning. [10] When the outsoles wear out, they can be replaced with new ones. [4]
Visvim's denim line is called Social Sculpture. Nakamura developed the denim "from the yarn up" and the process of breaking down the denim and building it back up again gave rise to the image of a sculpture. [11]
Visvim makes many products using natural dyes. These dyes include natural indigo, Amami Ōshima mud dye, sugme dyp dye and cochineal. [11] By using natural dye, which is a bacterium and impossible to completely control, the products feature variation and unevenness, a quality that Nakamura describes as wabi-sabi. [12]
Some of shirts, T-shirts, and sweatshirts in the Visvim collection use Sea Island cotton (Gossypium barbadense), an extra long staple cotton. [13]
Thundercat, RM from BTS, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Kanye West, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Mos Def, David Duchovny, Schoolboy Q, Drake, KAWS, Robert Ahearn, Edison Chen, and Shawn Yue have worn Visvim. [14] Eric Clapton in particular has stated that he wears nothing but Visvim and MTM Loro Piana. [15]
Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weave produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. Denim, as it is recognized today, was first produced in Nîmes, France.
Hiroshi Fujiwara is a Japanese musician, producer, and designer.
Michiko Koshino, born in 1943, is a fashion designer. She has high-end stores in Japan and a restaurant in London.
Billionaire Boys Club (BBC) is an American fashion label based in New York City founded by Pharrell Williams and Nigo in 2003. Its sublabels include Ice Cream, Bee Line and Billionaire Girls Club.
Berluti is a French leather maker that manufactures menswear, especially the leather finishing of calfskin, kangaroo leather and alligator skin in its production of shoes and boots. It makes leather belts, bags, and wallets, as well as bespoke and ready-to-wear garments. Established in 1895 by Italian Alessandro Berluti of Marche, Berluti is based in Paris on rue Marbeuf. The brand was bought by LVMH in 1993. The latest creative director was Kris Van Assche (2018-2021).
Vibram S.p.A. is an Italian company based in Albizzate, Italy, that both manufactures and licenses the production of Vibram-branded rubber outsoles for footwear. The company is named after its founder, Vitale Bramani, who is credited with inventing the first rubber lug soles. Vibram soles were first used on mountaineering boots, replacing leather soles fitted with hobnails or steel cleats which were commonly used up until then. The soles produced by Vibram are called Vibram soles, Vibram rubber or simply Vibram.
Style.com was a luxury e-commerce website, launched by international media company Condé Nast in September 2016. In June 2017 Style.com was closed and absorbed by online retailer Farfetch.com
Dean and Dan Caten are Canadian fashion designers, radio personalities, and businessmen. They are identical twin brothers and the founders and owners of Dsquared², an Italian luxury fashion house based in Milan.
Robert Geller is a German-born American fashion designer.
The Vibram FiveFingers are a type of minimalist shoe manufactured by Vibram, originally marketed as a more natural alternative for outdoor activities. The footwear is meant to replicate being barefoot and has thin, flexible soles that are contoured to the shape of the human foot, including visible individual sections for the toes. The company settled a lawsuit in 2014 alleging false health claims and set aside $3.75 million to pay refunds of up to $94 to anyone who had purchased the product since March 21, 2009.
Tommy Hilfiger B.V., formerly known as Tommy Hilfiger Corporation and Tommy Hilfiger Inc., is an American clothing brand that manufactures apparel and licensed products such as footwear, accessories, fragrances and home furnishings. The company was founded in 1985, and the brand's merchandise is sold in department stores and over 2000 free-standing retail stores in 100 countries. In 2006, private equity firm Apax Partners acquired the company for approximately $1.6 billion. In March 2010, PVH Corp. bought the company. Daniel Grieder was appointed CEO in July 2014, while founder Tommy Hilfiger remains the company's principal designer, leading the design teams and overseeing the entire creative process. Global sales in retail through the brand were US$9.1 billion in 2022.
Charlie Casely-Hayford is a menswear designer based in London, England, where he was born. He founded the international menswear brand Casely-Hayford at the age of 22 with his father, the acclaimed British fashion designer Joe Casely-Hayford OBE.
Rag & Bone is an American fashion label helmed by Marcus Wainwright, originally from England. The brand is sold in more than 700 shops around the world, as well as in Rag & Bone retail stores. Wainwright, who cofounded the brand with Nathan Bogle in 2002, stepped down as chief brand officer in July 2023. The brand's design oversight is now shared between Jennie McCormick and Kyle Sweeney.
Christopher Raeburn (born 13 August 1982), is a British fashion designer known for reworking surplus fabrics and garments to create menswear, womenswear and accessories.
Mr Hare was a British footwear brand created by Marc Hare in 2008. The brand ceased trading in October 2016 and closed its Mayfair and Notting Hill stores. The Guardian reported in 2012 that: "Mr Hare is quietly becoming one of the most important names in British menswear."
Arvind Limited is an Indian textile manufacturer and the flagship company of the Lalbhai Group. Its headquarters are in Naroda, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, and it has units at Santej. The company manufactures cotton shirting, denim, knits and bottomweight (khaki) fabrics. It had also recently ventured into technical textiles with its Advanced Materials Division in 2011. The company is India's largest denim manufacturer.
DL1961 is a global premium denim brand that is carried in hundreds of stores. The brand was founded in 2008 using XFIT LYCRA, a fabric it has patented. XFIT is a cotton-wrapped Lycra thread intertwined with polyester made by DL parent company ADM Denim, which was founded by Faisal and Meliha Ahmed. The company uses an eco-friendly manufacturing process that it introduced in 2013 to use less water, waste, and dye. The brand has a maternity line.
Off-White is an Italian luxury fashion house founded by American designer Virgil Abloh. The company was incorporated in Milan in 2013.
Kapital, often stylized as KAPITAL, is a Japanese fashion brand specializing in denim and clothing from traditional textiles and patchwork methods, founded in 1985 by Toshikiyo Hirata.
Blackstock & Weber is an American footwear and apparel brand known for their men's loafers.