My dear fashionistas, welcome to another fashion story from distant Ecuador on the Mr.M blog. I hope you are well and ready for a new dose of fashion. Today we will continue the story of an exclusive luxury unusual Japanese fashion brand that I noticed in a previous post that you fell in love with at first sight – Visvim. This brand has an adventurous spirit that is a reflection of the brand’s designer, Mr. Hiroki Nakamura, where he draws inspiration from his unusual extraordinary travels around the world.
It is precisely because of this fact that I decided to present my favorite pieces from the Visvim SS25 collection in an exotic destination like Ecuador. The pictures were taken on the private dock of Hotel del Parque and I would like thank their team for the help and support that allowed me to spend the golden hour in Guayaquil in such a wonderful place. If you haven’t had time to read the story of this amazing hotel, spare a few minutes of your time and enjoy the Hotel del Parque review.
Today we continue the story of the ecommerce platform MYTHERESA, as well as the brands available on this platform. I believe many of you have heard about MYTHERESA shopping platform on Mr.M blog, but I would like to introduce you to this electronic fashion paradise. MYTHERESA is one of the leading global luxury e-commerce platforms operating in over 130 countries. Founded as a boutique in 1987, MYTHERESA launched online in 2006 and offers ready-to-wear, shoes, bags and accessories for women, men and children, as well as lifestyle products.
The MYTHERESA online store was founded in 2006 by Susanne and Christoph Botschen and is connected to the multi-brand store in Munich (formerly the THERESA store). In 2014, the THERESA store and mytheresa.com were acquired by the American luxury retailer Neiman Marcus for €150 million, giving Neiman Marcus greater access to international customers and strengthening their e-commerce technology.
During Neiman Marcus’ bankruptcy in 2020, the company began the process of spinning off Mytheresa as an independent entity. In January 2019, Mytheresa launched a children’s clothing category, and in January 2020, Mytheresa Men was launched. In May 2022, a new homeware and lifestyle category followed. In 2022, Mytheresa expanded its luxury offering to include home decor and lifestyle products.
The novelty they presented this year is the launch of certified second-hand watches from over 25 luxury brands, such as Audemars Piguet and Cartier, in cooperation with the Swiss jewelry and watch company Bucherer. As a global retailer, Mytheresa operates in 8 languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Korean.
In today’s post, you will see some fashion pieces from Visvim brand that you can find on the MYTHERESA online shopping platform.
Visvim is a luxury Japanese fashion brand that is special in itself and stands out in the world of fashion. When I was thinking with which words to describe this unusual Japanese fashion house, I came up with two ideal words: dignity and pride. These two words are usually used hand in hand, but I believe they each have their own distinct definitions. It’s the difference between prioritising taking care of yourself or prioritising what others think of you.
Thinking about some things in life and everyday situations such as: “I want to be like this” and “I want to realize some of my dreams”, the Visvim brand continuously tries to connect its dear customers in the best possible way with the work of Visvim craftsmen who create with dignity placing great value on the cultural knowledge passed down to them. When Visvim clothing, shoes or accessories are finished, the brand believes that customers should really use it and experience it with their own senses in the best possible way, and when the opportunity arises, each customer should think about “why this product really means to me “. These are the moments when the Visvim team is happy to share the honesty they apply in making their products through the fabrics they use and the traces of craftsmanship that exist to reveal.
After all, in any era or time, it is the human heart that drives feelings and human empathy. The Visvim team strives to gradually increase the number of people who can sympathize and relate to their idea that we all live life together by taking care of ourselves through dignity and through the way Visvim garments are made with attitude. This is the kind of thinking that the Visvim team has nurtured from the very beginning.
Visvim is a Japanese men’s clothing, footwear and accessories brand founded by Hiroki Nakamura in 2000. The headquarters of the brand is in the heart of Japan – Tokyo. The Visvim brand has stores in Japan and the US, and is sold internationally in luxury department stores and multi-brand boutiques, including Bergdorf Goodman in New York and Dover Street Market in London. In addition to the main visvim line, Nakamura designs a womenswear line called VMV and a conceptual menswear line called F.I.L. Indigo Camping Trailer. Interestingly, this brand also produces its own range of coffee beans called Little Cloud Coffee.
I don’t know if you knew this interesting fact, but the word “Visvim” has absolutely no meaning. Hiroki Nakamura said he liked the v logos and looked through the “v” part of the Latin dictionary until he came across “vis” and “vim” and liked how the two words sounded together and created a powerful overtone. F.I.L., the name of Visvim’s flagship stores, stands for Free International Laboratory. This stems from Nakamura wanting the stores to be unusual working laboratories for the international brand.
Hiroki Nakamura was born in Kofu and grew up in Tokyo. Nakamura’s parents encouraged him to study abroad. At the age of 11, Nakamura met Cody Horn, one of his classmates at Bunka High School. Through Horn, Nakamura became interested in foreign cultures. Nakamura chose Alaska, a place he grew to love during family whale watching, camping and snowboarding. When he grew up, he started his career at Burton Snowboards in Japan, where he worked as a designer for 8 years.
After leaving his job at Burton Snowboards, Nakamura founded Visvim in 2001. Visvim started as primarily a footwear brand and later expanded into a full clothing and accessories collection. The brand held fashion shows in Tokyo, Paris and New York. It includes seven flagship stores in Japan, two flagship stores in the United States and has 135 stores worldwide.
In today’s fashion story, you have the opportunity to see two pieces from the Visvim collection from the SS25 collection, which are a short-sleeved shirt and interesting Visvim jeans made of the highest quality 100% cotton. I must mention right away that despite the absence of elastane, these jeans are extremely comfortable and provide ease of movement and comfort which is of utmost importance when we talk about jeans. The jeans are from a special collection, but because of the “torn” moment, they are an everyday piece that is good and easy to match, on the other hand, the shirt is ideal for all occasions and because of the neutral colors it can easily be easily combined with all the colors in your wardrobe. The Visvim brand is one of the few brands that does not blindly follow brands but creates its own path.
Visvim footwear and clothing are made using a blend of traditional manufacturing techniques and modern technology. Previous inspirations for Visvim products include vintage Americana, Japanese Edo period clothing, French workwear, Amish patchwork fabrics, Native American clothing, the Alaskan outdoors and the culture of the Finnish Sami tribe. In addition to vintage construction and coloring techniques, visvim also uses Gore-Tek material for waterproof jackets and replaceable Vibram soles.
Which celebrities are big fans of visvim brand? 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 are just a few celebrities who they carry Visvim brand clothing, footwear and accessories. Eric Clapton specifically indicated during an interview that he wears nothing but fashion pieces from Visvim and Loro Piano brands.
Certain pieces from the Visvim men’s collection can also be found on the MYTHERESA online shopping platform.
If you want to stay updated and find out what unique fashion pieces the Visvim brand has to offer, visit their official online store and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
OUTFIT
Shirt: Visvim via MYTHERESA Men
Watch: Schaefer & Companions
Jeans: Visvim via MYTHERESA Men
Sneakers: Dolce & Gabbana
We will continue today’s fashion adventure in Ecuador with new friends of the Mr.M blog, a new exclusive Swiss watch brand that I’m sure you’ll love at first sight! Schaefer & Companions (S&C) is a new luxury watch brand founded in 2024 in the Swiss cradle of watchmaking, Le Locle. The foundations of this brand are based on the philosophy of artistic freedom, as well as the fulfillment of human beings through liberating creative power and the purity of the craft gesture are just some of the main values cherished by the founders of this unusual brand.
Schaefer & Companions is a symbol of paying tribute to timeless poetry, creativity, that is why every Schaefer & Companions watch is a special masterpiece that has an unusual story. The essence of the brand is an artistic endeavor and a creative liberating form, an entire interconnected product landscape in the world that stands for creative craftsmanship, or as it is better known in French, “les metiers d’art”.
During the process of creating the first “Antarctica” collection, I had the great honor and pleasure of meeting the founder of this unusual luxury watch brand, Mr. Christophe Schaefer, who enthusiastically presented his ideas and drawings of the watch models he plans to create. This is not an ordinary collaboration but a new chapter that is part of my life’s journey and it is a wonderful feeling to be part of a project like Schaefer & Companions. I also have to make you happy that I am the first brand ambassador of this exceptional watch brand and that I will do my best to introduce you to some of the S&C brand watch models in the coming period through my fashion stories in which you are used to showing you various novelties.
Today we will learn a new term that I will often use during the presentation of this brand – companion. Schafer & Companions is a lifetime journey in which Mr. Schaefer and his companions have invested all their passion, the beauty of life, as well as the hopes that passionate watch lovers will recognize the uniqueness and love of art.
The Schaefer & Companions team decided to “break the ice” by marking the launch of its first watch collection at Geneva Watch Days (GWD) 2024 called “Antarctica“, which brings to life two watch models: Solune Medallion and Solune Grand Art. The Antarctica collection, available in limited editions, encapsulates the frozen vastness, quiet isolation and resilience of Antarctica. In today’s post you have the opportunity to see one of the Solune Grand Art variation of models. They are windows into this vast, icy expanse and represent a subtle artisanal intuition. Enamel is a precious material used to make S&C dials where artists have the opportunity to express their skills.
What is Enamel? Enamel is a glass mixture made of silicon dioxide and various metal oxides added to create different shades. Before any color can be applied, the craftsman must create a good basis for further artistic work. The enamel is crushed, ground and purified, first in distilled water and then in nitric acid. Then the copper, silver or gold plate is cleaned and coated with a layer of white enamel on both sides. The end result is a perfectly clean “canvas” for painting without the fear that the copper will bend when exposed to extreme temperatures.
After the process of making an enamelled dial, we come to the most complex part of making an enamelled watch, and that is making the dial. Because the colors of the enamel react differently and change in the oven, the designer must know exactly in advance how the material will react in order to create a work of art that can be faithfully reproduced.
Once the dial is properly constructed with the coated dial plate, the painting process can begin! The artist prepares a palette of colors with the nuances needed to create a predetermined image. The image must be carefully applied in several layers and baked in an oven up to 800ºC between painting processes. First, harder, more elastic colors are applied that can withstand multiple cracking, while gentle shades are kept in the final stages. With just a small misjudgment, the dial can warp, burst, or explode. Since the colors react to the heat both individually and collectively, a small mistake in the order can lead to unwanted results and force the masters to start re-making the enamelled dial.
Owning a dial, that little enamel masterpiece in my personal collection is exceptional. Due to the cost and complexity associated with its creation, the vast majority of enameled works are in museums. The rarity of skilled craftsmen is another factor, as the craft almost became extinct in the early twentieth century.
Proof that miracles are possible is Mrs. Françoise Remmonay of the Donzé Cadran Atelier based in Le Locle and she is a member of the S&C team and she is in charge of enamelled medallions and dials. In today’s fashion story, you will have the opportunity to see the dial that she made – a model of a frozen ocean that offers a view of the coldest continent in the world – Antarctica.
The Solune Grand Art watch model that you have the opportunity to see in today’s post represents a captured moment of an eternally living landscape of frozen waves of a turbulent ocean. The dial enameling process of this watch model begins with the sculpting of fine sheets of silver that are shaped into a realistic wave structure that provides personality and depth. Several layers of rare and limited enamel derived from antique enamel ateliers were then applied to the silver relief. This composition of enamel relief combined with vibrant colors creates a unique watch with a strong and distinctive character.
Technical Information:
Case Diameter: 43 mm
Case Thickness: 11,4 mm
Case Material Variations: Steel 904 or Steel IP 6 and equal material for indices and hands
Dial: Metiers d’art artistic interpretation ø 36.20 mm
Movement: ETA 2892 decorated, Top assortment, with customized rotor
Movement Details: Automatic with 42h of power reserve at 20,000 Hz
Bracelet material: Apple Suede Leather
Price: CHF 7,000 (approx. EUR 8,000) – tax included
You will soon have the opportunity to see other watch models in the Schaefer & Companions brand offer. If you want to stay updated and find out what novelties the watch brand Schaefer & Companions has to offer us, follow them on the social networks Facebook and Instagram.
Anyone who has followed my blog for a long time knows that I always try to pay special attention to details. So this time I decided to present to you again one of the pairs of shoes that I have had in my shoe closet for a long time.
Since the whole outfit was in a certain tone of relaxed sporty elegance, I decided to take my favourite Dolce & Gabbana sneakers that I bought a few years ago on a long trip again for the umpteenth time because they are extremely comfortable. I must admit that they completed this outfit in an unusual way. They may have spent some time in the closet, but in the end they got their five minutes! Of course, this shade of taupe goes well with jeans, as well as all the colours in my wardrobe.
My dear fashion lovers, we have come to the end of another fashion story from distant Ecuador, where together we discovered the beauty and splendor of the adventurous debt of the prestigious luxury Japanese brand for the modern man with refined taste with the Visvim brand, the beauty of the wearable artistic landscape of frozen waves with the luxurious new Swiss watch brand Schaefer & Companions, the beauty of shoemaking with Italian elegance with the cult fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, partners with whom fashion stories are a real adventure. I sincerely hope you got some inspiration for your ideal outfit!
See you soon and continue our fashion adventures on the Mr.M blog! How did you like my outfit today? I really tried my best to prepare today’s post with lots of love and I hope you like it!
If you have a question, comment, suggestion or message for me, you can write me down in the comments. Of course, as always you can contact me via mail or social media channels, which you can find on the CONTACT page. See you soon, stay tuned!
With Love from Guayaquil,
Mr.M
This post is sponsored by Visvim (via MYTHERESA Men), Schaefer & Companions and Dolce & Gabbana brands. This post is my personal and honest review of their products.