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 “” and “.” He liked how the two words looked together. 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.
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 shows in Tokyo, Paris, and New York. It encompasses seven free-standing stores in Japan and is stocked at 135 retailers internationally.
Production
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. In addition to vintage construction and dyeing techniques, visvim also uses Gore-Tex material for waterproof jackets and replaceable Vibram outsoles.
Footwear
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. In 2008, Nakamura introduced a new line of footwear called “Folk,” which features mostly leather uppers and no chemical tanning. When the outsoles wear out, they can be replaced with new ones.
Denim
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.
Natural dye
Visvim makes many products using natural dyes. These dyes include natural indigo, Amami Ōshima mud dye, sugme dyp dye and cochineal. By using natural dye, which is a bacteria and impossible to completely control, the products feature variation and unevenness, a quality that Nakamura describes as wabi-sabi.
