Visvim 101xx
Yesterday, after a Summer of heat, I slipped on my Visivm 101xx jacket for first time in months.
Feeling invigorated I ended up taking some photos, I’ll share these with extra thoughts in a month or so, but in the meantime, below is original article about the 101xx taken from the long sold out issue 0 of Purposeful Activity, it is presented as was in the print version
Each morning, a little after seven, we take the same route.
Each morning of the last year and more on my back the same jacket.
Down drive, through village and across, up and onto the plain.
In all weather.
From there, up the hill, copse on left, Stone Age memorial ahead, we turn right and loop, across and back down, around the big field, the cows, sometimes sheep on left, and again, twice.
I stop halfway, same place each day and if it’s cold shove my hands deep in hip pockets, as I stare across fields, and fields and woods. A view millennia old that feels for then, just mine.
There are infinite routes we could take, a different meander for each day of the month, but this is special because it’s the one I do daily and provides me with the unique insight and peace that repetition and consistency brings.
I watch the seasons evolve glacially, small changes overnight, becoming large over weeks and months.
Time passes beautifully. The rain, wind, snow and sun smile as we go on and around again.
Of all the positive changes I have sought to make in life, this has been the most profound, the most impactful and the one which I would be so loath to let go.
I find such calm, sometimes my mind floats away, sometimes it concentrates intensely, always it feels refreshed as four legged friends and I arrive home.
And that jacket, worn in all weathers on each trip, each day for the past 18 months? Well it was bought raw, soaked, then left, to be worn daily and after a year washed.
An item which removes the need and probably desire to ever buy another denim jacket.
Visvim’s “SS 101xx Unwashed.” “Item No: 0122105006002”.
For, the clothing obsessive, Visvim holds a special place.
Hiroki Nakamura, like Ralph Lauren is the master creator of his own universe, using beautiful and painstakingly created and sourced materials he projects his vision for the world.
His is a world of beauty and purpose, every effort may be made to make the best, but it doesn’t quite work if it sits on a plinth in a gallery, instead Visvim excels at making items of beauty, the best items, items to be used.
If I step back and look at the Visvim pieces I’ve picked up over the last 17 years, all remind me of something, each was bought at a moment that was significant to me.
I was happy, sometimes sad. The grand and momentous life changing times as well as the quiet only I knew their significance moments.
Why?
Like all the makers I love, these are always best in class items, aware of the past, they aim to create something not just respectful to those traditions and enthralled by the craft, but energised by what was possible before the dawn of fast and disposable fashion.
Hiroki’s work also isn’t facsimile, he understands the importance of using those skills and harnessing that knowledge in order to create items, which are better than anything that has been before and set an almost impossible bar for what comes next.
Visvim isn’t flashy, nor shouty stuff, each item feels filled with the ineffable. Cotton and denim, leather and wool doesn’t have a soul, but exquisite materials when designed, cut and stitched with beautiful purpose can speak of those who made, designed and considered each piece.
Each item with wear and use speaks wordlessly yet deeply of and for me. I feel not just like me when wearing, but, really like me, filled with energy, purpose and care, with love and wonder for life.
They are significant and special items.
Perhaps it is my naivety, but wearing and using Visvim over a period of time, like my morning walk, is a consistent and constant reminder that whilst perhaps we are insignificant singularly, collectively we are part of something beautiful today and have been for millennia.
That we have a footprint and a duty to ensure that we are where possible considered in our activities. That the buy once, buy better, live with beauty and use well mantra is vital.
Daily Sunday best, for when you work, play and do rest.
My 101xx is often worn with 1, 2 or 3 layers beneath, in rain and other foul weather a waxed coat on top and when the early sun is warm, just an old, battered tshirt.
I’ve worn it in town, worn it everywhere, doing everything really, but it’s this walk, this daily mind cleanse which I think of when I slip over shoulders.
On May 1st, a year to the day I first wore it, I washed it.
Simple job, 30 degrees, washing machine, usual tablet, then hang flat outside.
Heresy for some, but life is too short.
Now, I can hear some at the back muttering and suggesting that a denim jacket, is a denim jacket. Ok, I hear you, and whilst I admit that this won’t make you a cup of tea and your own happiness will still thankfully depend upon you. It isn’t the usual.
Each stitch, beautiful button, rivet and zip has been carefully thought out, for one purpose.
The fit an ever so slightly oversized take on type 2 denim jacket, with it’s dropped shoulders, chest and hip pockets, fuller arms into a regular width cuff, is done for the same one purpose.
The 15oz indigo rope-dyed, unwashed, unprocessed, custom ‘Red Edge Selvedge’? Yup, created and used for the same purpose.
A denim made from the deepest coloured yarn possible, which means it’s richer blue colour will hold this hue for far longer, why? You guessed it, for the same purpose.
The denim woven at a setting with even lower tension than Visvim’s beloved low tension ‘Brown Selvedge’, which leads to an even more uneven texture than usual? No prizes for guessing, the same purpose.
So what is this purpose, what makes ‘this’ that wear daily jacket?
It’s simple, to be something you wear now, forever and love always.
The cut ensures it moves with you and wears with everything and for all activities.
And as you no longer think about how to wear it, or if you’ll be restricted, you wear it daily.
The fabric seduces slowly and deeply, the colour is far more denim than you imagine denim can be and the texture teasingly reveals it’s charms over time, thanks to the deep hue and low tension, there are subtle irregularities. Chatter and decisions about production and design long before woven, as well as the chatter on loom become apparent as it winks and hints through wear, weather, time and movement, and as it fades the emerging whiskers and marks take on a slightly jewelled quality as they catch the sunlight.
It is a slow wearing process. For weeks and months you feel as if nothing is happening, but then it starts to show, like the glacially changing seasons seen on our walk.
Your story and life begins to appear across the jacket, how I wear my camera: strap across right shoulder and body rests below left chest pocket. Dog leads across both shoulders, whistle around neck and tucked back behind placket, keys in chest pocket, hands in hip pockets, my elbow brushing my sides, the cuffs folded back and the wear from driving, doing, living all perfectly blooming.
The front pleats fading on edges, collar starting to lose some colour and rolling slightly, zips shiny at first now take on some pattern from touch, button’s dulling and shining dependent on how worn.
The naturally indigo dyed elk back patch which leaves the faintest blue trace on fingers if you squeeze it, now has a fine faded line from pressure of waistband behind starting to show like too much ink pressed down hard on good paper.
It is all gradual, but there is a profound beauty in that. Without wishing to parrot the tag line of a fairly popular black and white drink, these things take time, but if you put in the hard yards, live the life, do your thing without worry or caution, goodness awaits.
And that goodness will continue, as months turn years and maybe decades.
Visvim call it ‘Future Vintage’, I call it, no need to buy another Denim Jacket, and in this world, that’s what we want surely? It is messy and strange out there, so where we can let’s spend our life with things which are great now and with us for the long haul, no flash in the pan, bored and moved on, instead like my walk stuff filled with continuing inspiration, wonder and soulful comfort.
