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.

Nakamura chose Alaska, a place he had grown to love on family whale-watching, camping, and snowboarding trips.

Past inspirations for Visvim products include vintage Americana, Japanese Edo period garments, French workwear, Amish patchwork fabric, Native American clothing, the Alaskan outdoors, and 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.

[6] In 2008, Nakamura introduced a new line of footwear called “Folk,” which features mostly leather uppers and no chemical tanning.

[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.

[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.