Recently seen on die-hard fan John Mayer, one of visvim‘s most premium SS19 items has finally hit stores. Retailing for a whopping $14,720 USD — before tax — the shirt is one of the Japanese brand’s priciest drops, ever.
To be fair, the nearly-$15,000 USD price tag isn’t merely arbitrary. The Free Edge Hyakunin-Isshu utilizes special craft in its creation, drawing from ancient techniques utilized in crafting Japanese kimono. To start, special chiri-men crepe silk, twisted over 3,000 times per meter, was sourced for each shirt. There are more affordable polyester blend silks used in contemporary kimono, but visvim naturally selected 100% silk from a historic mill.
Each shirt, once assembled from the precious woven fabric, is printed using the historic katazurizome technique. Only highly-skilled artisans are able to properly achieve the desired result, brushing each layer of color onto the fabric by hand to create the "print." The inspiration for the imagery is equally rich in lore: the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, a classical anthology of 100 Japanese waka poems by 100 poets. The text influenced the creation of a card game called uta-garuta, which is based around a deck of cards that directly acknowledge the stories contained in the venerable text. Imagery from the game’s cards is realized across the body of the seasonal Free Edge shirt, complementing the wooden buttons and open, Hawaiian-style collar.
The Hyakunin-Isshu shirt is waiting for John Mayer to snap it up on SV Moscow’s website. It will also hit visvim’s Exposition Los Angeles retail outpost.
To get your slightly more affordable visvim fix, we recently previewed the seasonal Beuys Trekker Folk boot.