




pic source: HOUSEOFHRVST
An anthropologist of apparel and founder of the cult folkwear brand visvim, Hiroki Nakamura travels the world with a bunch of empty suitcases seeking out traditional methods of weaving, dyeing, and assembling textiles. When he returns to Tokyo, he publishes his observations on these crafts as small dissertations, and then begins figuring out how to integrate them into our modern cityscapes. Counting Japanese Edo-era kimonos, Amish patchwork, Native American blankets, Harris Tweed, French crocheting, and the footwear of Finland’s Sami people among his inspirations, Hiroki’s peripatetic product development process builds on centuries of research and development with the intervention of a few select modern machines..."
How did you get into the idea of making clothes?
My career started at Goldwin Inc., which is a sportswear company in Japan. That was back in 1982 and at first my role was in marketing. In the summer of 1983 Goldwin launched a marine sportswear business under the license of Helly Hansen and I was appointed as a Brand Director of Design. Thereafter I took care of developing technical outdoor and marine garments up until 2001.
Where did the name ‘nanamica’ come from?
Nanamica means 'houses of seven seas'. Since I love sailing and my partner Takashi also loves the beach, we had the intention to have a marine inspired name for our brand. 'Seven seas' sounds like 'round the world'. By this name, we would like to show our intention of communicating with people all around the world. In the beginning we wrote it in Chinese characters, then we converted it using the English alphabet as “nanamika”. Since the 'k' didn’t look right, we changed it to a 'c'..."