visvim's Fall/Winter 2010 Windstopper Varsity Jacket combines an Italian suiting-wool body, lambskin sleeves and a quilted GORE-TEX Windstopper lining.
The 14th Stone Island Shadow Project collection is a mirage on the horizon; a heat haze of perspective shifting inversion and refraction. Vibrant and gritty, granular and loose, it's the freshness and intensity of youth tempered by process and exposure to the elements. West coast Zephyr inspired colors are turned up to maximum saturation, then slightly muted by treatments both softening and metallic. Materials have an easy, lived-in feel, but retain the underlying edge of technical performance and real use. Loose street and slope born shapes flow with relaxed tailoring and diffused prep looks. Graphics are minimal definitions; outlines and impressions of the underlying framework.
April 2024, FRIEZE No. 9 Cork Street Gallery, London
EXHIBITION: The Mountains Between Us, FRIEZE No 9 Cork St
Weaving together photography, video and sculptural objects, lena_c_emery highlights the accelerated loss of mountain glaciers and the desperate conservation efforts currently employed to impede their decline. Under the continued influence of greenhouse-gas forced global warming, ice that took centuries to develop is vanishing in just a number of years. A fate experts predict for at least two-thirds of all glaciers by the end of this century. EMERY: In ‘The Mountains Between Us’, I capture the current environmental efforts undertaken to reduce the rate at which glaciers melt. Glaciers have held space for centuries, silently bearing witness to history. They’ve seen the world change in ways we can barely comprehend. Because my grandfather spent his life in these mountains, watching this particular glacier retreat and form lakes where there was previously only ice and at a pace that’s steadily increasing, feels deeply personal. The idea of covering these mammoths in fabric to stall the inevitable, feels both tragic and emblematic of our relationship with nature: The magnitude of loss countered by gestures that, though earnest, feel powerless. Visually these wrapped peaks evoke images of muddied tents, makeshift shelters that we’ve come to erect for those displaced by upheaval. This fragility, their fragility, our fragility, is a direct reflection of the imbalance we have sown, where those least responsible for ecological destruction are forced to bear its heaviest burdens. The title became a way to frame those divides. Mountains have always symbolised barriers, but perhaps they could also be reimagined as thread, shared histories and a collective belonging. The elemental particles composing our very being once danced amidst these ancient landscapes and if they disappear, part of us does too.
Figures from US patent application US20250160486A1, 'Knitted Shoe Upper', filed by Adidas AG (inventors Stefan Tamm, Carl Arnese and James Carnes; published 22 May 2025). The upper is knitted in one piece with two zones, a more elastic yarn and a stiffer yarn, placing stretch and support without seams or separate reinforcement panels. The drawings show the yarn zones and construction across forefoot, midfoot and heel.
Arc’teryx A2B Commuter Jacket W Chalk 15536, released 2015. Technical soft shell with motoi lines.
These pants a cut slightly shorter for better running comfort. Great for slightly harsher weather conditions. Insideout construction for seamless fit inside. From the Nike Running Gyakusou collection. Made in Japan.
The women’s S/LAB EXO tee maps its support structure across the shoulders, spine and lower torso without turning the shirt into a hard compression shell. Open knit, 37.5 fabric and a skin fit keep it light enough for long trail efforts.
The women’s S/LAB EXO T-Shirt turns the EXO grid into mapped bands at the neckline, spine and hem. A form-fitting nylon stretch knit holds the structure close, while 37.5 thermoregulation and open mesh manage heat through long trail efforts.
Naturally dyed Italian nylon with a white goose down fill, ribbed collar, 2 slanted snap button pockets, Talon zippered utility pocket on one sleeve, patch detailing on the placket and hand–stitched sashiko.
A 1/4-scale image model of the Gynoid from Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. Eisaku Kito modified the figure and built its opening panels and mechanical components; Yuji Oniki made the base body; Takayuki Takeya completed the hair, makeup and weathering.
第4回のゲストは、visvimデザイナーの中村ヒロキ。メディアやマーケットが変わる中でも妥協のないもの作りを続けることにより、ワールドワイドに独自のポジションを築いたvisvimの「10年」。中村ヒロキが探していたものとは、何だったのか。
ハニカム10周年記念特別企画 10人連続インタビュー：第4回 中村ヒロキ
photo: Chikashi Suzuki interview: Tetsuya Suzuki text: Yusuke Matsuyama
—— この10年でvisvimも大きく変化をしたと思います。
中村「どうでしょう。毎日やっていることなので、自分ではわかりません。でも、ハニカムが始まったころまで遡るといろいろなことがありすぎて、まだ10年しか経ってないのかという感覚はありますよ」
—— visvimは2005年からの5年くらい、ブランドとしていろいろなチャレンジをしていたと思うんです。それも、かなりのスピードで。
中村「今に至るまで常にそうしているつもりなので（笑）。その瞬間、瞬間を生きることが大事ですから」
—— とはいえ、10年前を思い出してください。日本のストリートブランドが世界的に注目を集め始めた時期でもあって、visvimはそれに対して積極的にアプローチしていました。
中村「16年前にブランドをスタートしたときも、半分ほどが海外のディーラーさんだったので、僕の中で国内と海外を区別することは最初からありませんでした。ちなみに、2005年というのはショップがオープンして1年くらい経った頃ですね」
—— そのショップのオープニングで清永さんに声をかけられ、そのあとヒロシさんから連絡をもらったのがハニカムの始まりです。
中村「インターネットによる情報伝達のスピードは、ハニカム以前と以降でずいぶん違いますよね。ファッションのマーケットも変わりました」
—— visvimの場合は、そうしたメディアやマーケットの変化に沿って変わったというより、自分たちのストーリーを深化させることで変化してきた気がします。
中村「どうなんですかね（笑）。でも、情報伝達のスピードが変わっていく中で、もの作りの方法も、マーケットへのアプローチも変わったはずです。ブランドがスタートした16年前は、知り合いのお店の方に紹介してもらう形でしたが、いまならインターネットに上げればどこでもすぐに見てもらえますし」
—— いまでこそいろいろなブランドがクラフトマンシップやヘリテージをコンセプトのひとつにしていますけど、visvimはそれを先取っていました。もの作りに対する密度を上げるアプローチをいち早く徹底していたと思うんですが、ちょうど2005年くらいから中村さんの中でもそうした気持ちが強くなったのではないかと。
中村「インターネットメディアが発達し、情報の伝達スピードが速くなっていくにつれ、自分たちの価値観に共感、共鳴してくれる人たちが距離や地域を超えて存在するということが顕著に表れました。範囲が広がってパイも大きくなり、好きと言ってくれる人も増えたので、いまは昔よりもこだわりを持ったもの作りがしやすくなっていますね」
『honeyee.mag（ハニマグ）vol.5』特集「人と物の関係」
—— なるほど。マーケットが広がれば共感する人の絶対数も増えてくると。
中村「地理的な障害があるおかげで日本のもの作りがよかった時期もあると思うんですが、インターネットによって、それとは逆の現象が起きて、逆におもしろいことができるようになったりもした。自分はそれをプラスに捉えています」
—— 作りたいものを作るというこだわりを持つと、必然的に自分たちがインターナショナルなブランドにならざるを得ないということですよね。
中村「いえ、引いて見てみれば、どこにいてもインターナショナルなんです」
—— あるいは、海外の人が勝手に見つけてくれれば、そのつもりはなくとも結果インターナショナルになる。視点をどこに置くかの問題であると。
中村「そうです。パースペクティブの問題なので。その中で自分がやりたいことをお客様に伝えられるかということです」
—— カスタマーとのコミュニケーションの密度の正確さ、スピードがこの10年で増している実感はありますか。
中村「正確だし、速くなりましたよね。でも、さっきも言ったように、時間差や伝言ゲームを通じておもしろいものが生まれてくるプロセスの余地はないから、逆に自分の足を動かして、そういうものを作っています。世界中を動くことでおもしろいものを見つけるといいますか」
—— 昔は時間差の中でノイズが入ってくるところがよかった。
中村「物理的な、あるいは、情報的な距離があるからこそ、そこにビジネスが生まれたりもしましたよね」
—— visvimは世界でもユニークなブランドだと思います。それは中村さんからすると、当たり前なことをしているという気持ちなのか、それとも、既存のファッションビジネスとあえて違うことをしている意識はあるのでしょうか。
中村「自分たちに集中しようとはしていますね。ほかのブランドが気にならないわけではないけど、見ると影響を受けるから、あまり情報を入れないようにして。雑誌は読まないし、テレビはないし、映画も観ない。インターネットは自分の求める情報だけを見られるから、それはありがたいですけど」
—— ただ、ファッションには流行というものがあります。いまは目立った流行が存在しづらく、過去の焼き直ししかなくなってきているとは思いますが、それでも、流行を意識することはありませんか。
中村「情報が発達してくると、逆に誰もが個としての自分に目覚めるようになるから、好みも多様化するし、そして、それはいいことだと思います。僕自身は何が流行っているかはあまり気にせず、街を歩いていて感じるくらいが、アウトプットするにはちょうどいいですね」
—— 例えば、サードウェーブコーヒー周辺の人たちから広がったようなライフスタイルもひとつのトレンドとしてあります。そういうものを見ていると、時代がようやくvisvim的な在り方に追いついてきた感じがするんです。
中村「確かにフードなどの業界にはそういう流れがあるのかもしれません。オーガニックなスーパーマーケットなどは日本でも増えていますし。そういうところに若いクリエイティブな人がいるんですかね」
—— かもしれませんが、僕の感覚だと、世界がvisvimのほうに向かっているんです。
中村「ネットによって、こだわりを持つローカルな小さなお店が世界中でものを売ったり、そういうことが簡単にできるようになりましたからね。だから、マーケットを広く取れば、周りの人に合わせてあれこれしなくても、自分たちがやることに共感してくれる人はいるんじゃないかなと」
—— 10年前は中村さんがそれを熱弁したとしても、リアリティを感じられなかった人もいると思うんです。でも、それが明らかな現実になったのではないかと。
中村「だとするとうれしいですね。ヴィジョナリーといいますか（笑）」
—— 本当にそう思います。ただ良いものを作りたかっただけではなく、ヴィジョンとコンセプトがあったからこその結果だと思います。
中村「まあ、でも、いろいろな考え方の人がいるから。僕は自分の作るものをいいと思ってくれる人がいて、それで成り立てばいいんです。これを着て、使って、幸せと感じてくれるのは僕だけではないはずなので」
—— みんなはこういうものが欲しいだろうという作り方ではなく、まず自分が欲しいものから入る。
中村「自分が幸せだと思えるもの。こういう意味を持たせても無意味だなと感じ始めたら、僕はもう作れないと思います。それがないとできません」
—— でも、それがある限りは、次の10年、20年もやっていける。
中村「もしかしたら、良いと思うものは変わるかもしれませんけどね。それがデザイナーとしての役目だと思っていますから、世の中の流れがどうあれ、自分が幸せと感じられるものを」
—— 改めて、世界がvisvim化した10年だったと思います。今後ますますvisvim化するとも思います。
中村「visvim化ですか（笑）。それはわかりませんが、自分は自分の信じることを続けていきたいと思います」
Our fourth guest is visvim designer Hiroki Nakamura. By carrying on making things without compromise even as media and markets changed, visvim built a position of its own worldwide — these are its “ten years.” What was it that Hiroki Nakamura had been looking for?
honeyee 10th anniversary special Ten interviews in a row: no. 4, Hiroki Nakamura
photo: Chikashi Suzuki interview: Tetsuya Suzuki text: Yusuke Matsuyama
—— I think visvim has changed a great deal over these ten years.
Nakamura "Has it? It's what I do every day, so I can't really tell. But when I go back to around when honeyee started, so much has happened that it doesn't feel like only ten years have passed."
—— For about five years from 2005, visvim was taking on all kinds of challenges as a brand. And at real speed.
Nakamura "I like to think I've been doing that the whole way through, right up to now (laughs). Living each moment as it comes is what matters."
—— Still, cast your mind back ten years. It was also when Japanese street brands were starting to draw attention globally, and visvim went at that head-on.
Nakamura "Even when I started the brand sixteen years ago, about half our dealers were overseas, so I never drew a line between domestic and international in my own head. Incidentally, 2005 was about a year after the shop opened."
—— It was at that shop opening that Kiyonaga spoke to you, and then Hiroshi got in touch — that's how honeyee began.
Nakamura "The speed at which information travels over the internet is very different before honeyee and after. The fashion market changed too."
—— In visvim's case, I feel the change came less from following those shifts in media and market than from deepening your own story.
Nakamura "I wonder (laughs). But as the speed of information changed, the way things get made and the way you approach the market must have changed too. When the brand started sixteen years ago, it was a matter of being introduced by someone at a shop you knew; now you put it on the internet and it's seen anywhere, straight away."
—— These days plenty of brands make craftsmanship and heritage part of their concept, but visvim got there first. You were rigorous about raising the density of the making earlier than anyone, and I suspect that feeling grew stronger in you around 2005.
Nakamura "As internet media developed and information moved faster, it became conspicuous that the people who share and resonate with our values exist beyond distance and region. The reach widened, the pie got bigger, more people said they liked it — so it's easier now than it used to be to make things with real conviction."
honeyee.mag vol. 5, feature: "The relationship between people and things"
—— I see. As the market widens, the sheer number of people who connect with it grows.
Nakamura "There was a period when geographical barriers were part of why Japanese making was good, I think. The internet produced the opposite phenomenon, and that in turn made some interesting things possible. I take it as a positive."
—— Once you insist on making what you want to make, you inevitably end up an international brand.
Nakamura "No — step back and look, and you're international wherever you are."
—— Or: if people abroad find you of their own accord, you end up international whether you meant to or not. It's a question of where you place your viewpoint.
Nakamura "Exactly. It's a matter of perspective. And within that, whether you can convey what you want to do to your customers."
—— Over these ten years, do you feel the precision and speed of communication with customers has increased?
Nakamura "It's precise, and it's faster. But as I said, there's no room left for the process where interesting things emerge out of time lags and Chinese whispers — so instead I move my own feet and make things that way. Finding what's interesting by moving around the world, if you like."
—— In the old days, the noise that crept in through the time lag was the good part.
Nakamura "It's precisely because there was physical, or informational, distance that businesses were born there."
—— I think visvim is a unique brand even globally. From where you stand, does it feel like you're simply doing the obvious — or are you conscious of deliberately doing something different from the existing fashion business?
Nakamura "I do try to stay focused on ourselves. It's not that other brands don't interest me, but if I look I get influenced, so I try not to take much in. I don't read magazines, I don't have a TV, I don't watch films. The internet I'm grateful for, because you can look at only what you're after."
—— Still, fashion has trends. Pronounced trends are hard to come by now, and I think we're down to rehashes of the past — but even so, do you never think about them?
Nakamura "As information develops, everyone conversely wakes up to themselves as individuals, so tastes diversify — and I think that's a good thing. I don't pay much attention to what's in fashion; picking it up while walking around town is about the right amount for what I put out."
—— For example, the lifestyle that spread out from the people around third-wave coffee is one such trend. Watching that, I get the feeling the times have finally caught up with visvim's way of being.
Nakamura "There may well be that current in industries like food. Organic supermarkets are increasing in Japan too. Maybe that's where the young creative people are."
—— Maybe — but my sense is that the world is heading toward visvim.
Nakamura "The internet has made it easy for small local shops with real conviction to sell all over the world. So if you take the market broadly, then even without adjusting yourself to the people around you, there'll be someone who connects with what you do."
—— Ten years ago, even if you'd argued that passionately, some people wouldn't have found it real. But it's become plainly real now, hasn't it.
Nakamura "I'd be glad if so. A visionary, is that it (laughs)."
—— I genuinely think so. It isn't that you just wanted to make good things — it's the result of having had a vision and a concept.
Nakamura "Well, but people think in all sorts of ways. For me it's enough that there are people who think what I make is good, and that it holds together on that. I can't be the only one who feels happy wearing it and using it."
—— Rather than making from a guess at what everyone will want, you start from what you want yourself.
Nakamura "Something I can feel happy about. The day I start to feel there's no point giving it this kind of meaning, I don't think I'll be able to make anything any more. Without that I can't do it."
—— But as long as you have that, you can keep going another ten, twenty years.
Nakamura "What I think is good might change, mind. That's what I take the designer's role to be — so whatever the world is doing, something I can feel happy about."
—— Again: I think it's been ten years in which the world became visvim-ified. And I think it will go on getting more so.
Nakamura "Visvim-ified (laughs). I don't know about that, but I want to keep doing what I believe in."
The Holiday 2014 collection is restored as the original seven-image studio set, separating it from the Holiday 2013 forest campaign.
The red GORE-TEX shell takes inspiration from a classic M-65 military jacket and also features a drawstring over sized collar with a packable hood for added detail and function. Look for this jacket to be available through select visvim retailers this week as well as through F.I.L. locations in Asia.
The women’s S/LAB EXO Tank treats support as a mapped structure. A polyurethane EXO Sensifit grid braces the upper chest, shoulders and spine, while Smart Skin places Actilite Pro jersey through the core and open stretch mesh at the heat zones. The skin fit keeps the grid engaged; flatlock seams and reflective marks finish the racing layer without adding bulk.
A page from 'TEXT in visvim', the visvim Spring/Summer 2012 feature in Japan's SENSE Magazine (March 2012). Naturally dyed, hand-constructed pieces from Hiroki Nakamura.
The SUBSECTION SERIES is a fragrance collection by Visvim, inspired by founder Hiroki Nakamura’s encounter with French fragrance designer Blaise Mautin over 20 years ago. The series includes candles, room sprays, and diffusers, each available in various scents. Notable fragrances are NO.1 F.I.L., a blend featuring patchouli and sandalwood, and NO.7 KYOTO, inspired by a morning visit to Kyoto’s Sanjusangendo temple.
Dan's Hida-Furukawa (飛騨古川) follows the Seto River canal through the preserved old town of Furukawa in Hida City, Gifu Prefecture. The photograph was taken on April 15, 2009.
Teresa Marolles' "Frontera" reflects on the dramatic scale of drug trafficking in Mexican society. The artist has used basic but very striking elements to create the works in "Frontera", and despite their minimalist style, they reveal great emotional depth and tragedy. The works go beyond the specific context that gave rise to them, with a universal value that explores our mechanisms of denial and the taboos still surrounding death and violence in contemporary society. The Museion exhibition features walls where executions took place, that the artist took down in Mexico and rebuilt in Bolzano—Muro Baleado (Culiacán), 2009, and Muro Ciudad Juárez, 2010—along with the works Plancha, 2010 and Cubo, 2010, a minimalist cube weighing a ton made out of iron from reinforced concrete taken from demolished buildings. The Bolzano exhibition will also be the first opportunity to see the filmed action Camiseta, created specially for "Frontera" and shot in the cities of Juarez, Kassel and Bolzano.'
visvim 10th Anniversary Book "Dissertation on Self-Verification 2001-2011"
The book is hand bound and uses a washi paper made by a craftsman who sources the raw materials from Japanese trees.
Limited to 300 copies.
TinyMtn crafts 3D-printed mini sculptures of some of the most storied peaks and valleys in the United States. Whether you want to remember the time you backpacked through Yosemite or peered over the edge of the Grand Canyon, TinyMtn offers a bit of a topographic reminder. Each comes on a small stand with the name, peak, and coordinates displayed, and makes for an ideal piece of art for the adventurer at heart.
Matthias Heiderich's landscape study contrasts pale eroded mineral formations with steep charcoal-grey ridges. The photograph was taken on April 29, 2012.
Paul Galbraith's Waves isolates the repeating curved metal panels of Hotel Omm's facade in L'Eixample, Barcelona. The photograph was taken on February 12, 2010.
ingu's View from the Office looks across Hong Kong's Causeway Bay skyline toward Central Plaza. The Flickr description dates the scene to August 2011.
The aluminium geodesic dome at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, erected in 1975. The unheated 50-metre shell did not house people but sheltered clusters of modular buildings from wind and drifting snow. Retired when the elevated station opened, it was dismantled in 2009-2010.
