You've just opened up your first Visvim flagship store. Why now, and why in Gyre Omotesando?
It's been 15 years since we started Visvim, and 10 years since we opened our first store. I think we are in a new phase as a brand, different from where we were 10, or even 5 years ago. F.I.L Tokyo is doing great. It's always been a destination shop that you have to kind of go out there and find; I mean, it's in a basement. As the brand has grown, I wanted to share with even more people what we are doing at Visvim.
Last year, we were approached with the opportunity to open a store on the second floor of Gyre Omotesando. The whole process was very spontaneous, very organic, and taking into account the transitional phase our brand is in, felt like the perfect timing.
Opening up a store in the center of Omotesando is consistent with wanting to introduce Visvim to a broader audience. Even in just the past 10 years, this area has become so much more international. You can see the diversity on the streets. It's a great place to introduce what we're doing to a more mainstream audience.
What is the difference between the Visvim flagship store and your F.I.L shops?
When we opened up our very first store, we didn't want to call it "Visvim". The brand was still very young, and we were unsure of the direction that our store would take. Instead of starting out with a fully branded flagship store, we decided to create a more neutral, gallery-like retail space called Free International Laboratory (F.I.L).
Since then, for the past 10 years, we've been opening up stores under the F.I.L name. And considering the current phase of our brand, as well as the opportunity to open up a store at one of the best locations in Omotesando, I decided that now was the time to open the first fully branded Visvim flagship store. As our most visible store to date, it is important for this store to function as the retail face of our brand. Items like French button-down shirts and Italian leather outerwear, natural dyed cut and sew pieces and grapevine bags; items that we may not normally stock in F.I.L but are highly representative of the current state of our brand and production capabilities, we want to stock in the Visvim flagship store.
How do you envision the customer mix for your Visvim and F.I.L stores, respectively?
F.I.L is a destination store. Our longtime fans have been coming to F.I.L and supporting us there for years, and hopefully that relationship can continue on well into future.
The Visvim flagship store is in a high-traffic shopping district, and anyone walking around that area can easily come into our store and discover what we're doing. It would be great if some of those people thought "Hey, this is pretty amazing stuff. Maybe these guys are onto something." We have never approached new customers in this way, and our retail stores have never been especially accessible. Our brand is growing, and we'd like to open up a little bit more, meet some new people. Take my father-in-law for example: he thinks our shoes are great, but he never had the opportunity to discover our brand in the past. That's basically what this new store is: an opportunity to discover the Visvim brand.
So this store acts like an introduce to Visvim?
Yes, it's just a little more visible. I always hear from American and European media that our brand is so mysterious, like people aren't even sure whether we exist or not! I think a lot of people outside of Japan have heard of our brand, but there is a bit of a disconnect between the rumors and our actual physical presence.
The opening of this store is one more step out there, in the industry, in the market. As we grow, I believe it is a necessary step. An exciting step, I think.
There is a cafe inside your new store called 'Little Cloud Coffe', a first for Visvim. What is the concept, and why did you choose to open a cafe?
I love coffee. I drink coffee every day. Everywhere I go - New York, LA, Paris - I've got my favorite coffee ship, and I just wanted to make something that I'd like to drink on a daily basis. I never learned how to blend or roast coffee beans, but I found a great coffee roaster who has been studying coffee all over the world for over 20 years. I regularly work with artisans and craftsmen to make clothing, so it was a natural transition for me to work with someone dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is possible with coffee. My role in this project was to oversee the development of the coffee beans, and make sure that the end product was true to the Visvim concept.
When it come to coffee I am a total amateur, but at the end of the day it was important for me to listen to my heart and be able to say, "I would like to drink this." We went through so many tasting sessions, and some of the blends I really enjoyed, while others were just not for me. Like I said, I really had to listen to my heart in order to decide on a blend that I believed would satisfy my clients.
Developing the coffee beans was not so different from designing a clothing collection. i make clothes that I actually like and want to wear every single day, and I approached coffee the same way. If I, for some reason, decided that it would be ok to make coffee that I wouldn't even want to drink every day, it wouldn't be consistent with the philosophy I've worked so hard to build with Visvim. I think the coffee that we finally came up with is great, and is something I look forward to drinking every day.
Where did the name 'Little Cloud' come from?
I collect very old, vintage Japanese porcelain, and one time while I was in Kanazawa I found an Edo-period plate with a cloud-like character on it. My wife commented that it looked like a cute little cloud, which for some reason really struck a chord with me. When coming up with a name for our cafe, I just knew it had to be 'Little Cloud Coffee' sounds like it could be a Native American chief's name, but it's actually inspired from Edo-period Japan. The logo and the name give off a really happy energy, and are a great complement to the new Visvim flagship store.
Interview with Hiroki Nakamura
Visvim
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