VISVIM: I like it but I have questions

VISVIM

304 S. Broadway, Los Angeles

Visvim was founded by Hiroki Nakamura, a former designer for Burton.

The brand has several locations in Japan and is primarily carried by other stockists in the States.

They produce design forward clothing mixing together traditional Japanese, streetstyle, and Americana aesthetics.

It is artist designed, craftsman made, expensive, and cool.

But…

I asked the person working there if she knew anything about the lining of this Kiyari Jacket.

She replied that it is an original work by the designer.

I asked if she knew anything about the events depicted in the art and she replied that she believes it is historically inspired but wasn’t sure.

Now I’m a little uncomfortable.

The most common source of this sort of art were Native American prisoners of war in the 1870s. With access to paper, via things like ledger books, and time, many of these captives recorded historical events, battles and individual exploits. The drawings were perhaps a little more storytelling than artwork, which adds an extra level to my disappointment that the salesperson didn’t know the story.

It made me wonder if the designer knows the stories.

Appropriation isn’t really a difficult thing to suss out in a strictly American context, with our well established exploitative power dynamics and history, but it becomes a bit more complex when the person doing a “thing” that isn’t their own, isn’t American and doesn’t carry the same baggage.

So I have questions more than I have conclusions or statements.

Museum of Man: they refused to put me behind the glass

They call it the Museum of Man. I haven’t yet decided if that is a grandiose title or overly simplistic. Either would be fitting. The building’s exterior is indeed grandiose, and the interior is surprisingly… not.

I appreciate the learning experience a museum potentially provides young visitors, but as I walked around looking at words written on walls next to plaster casts of this and that, or diagrams of things not actually housed in the museum, I wondered what a museum provides in this regard that can’t just as easily, or easier, be found via Google. I walk quickly past these sorts of things.

I’m looking for artifacts.

The sign on the wall talked of how green is a symbolic color meaning something other than illness or frogginess. I am dubious. I can imagine an ancient artisan spinning some tale of how this color glorifies the deceased, when really he just ran low on brown paint or the deceased owed him money.

I have decided that men in all places, times, and sorts, like to play dress-up but are afraid to admit it. Consequentially we call our costumes “armor” or “ceremonial” and so on. What a tragedy that man will wage war with each other as a means to justify costumes devoid of childish or feminine insinuation. I mean you put a Groucho mustache on your armor. Do not get me wrong, I love it, I just don’t think you should have to stab people with spears and swords in order to wear your “scary” outfit.

Speaking of scary…These stacks of money represent wealth held by the varying “races” of humans. Now race may have no biological reality but that difference in stack size matters. Now while I realize that I, a white guy, contribute very little to that giant stack of white man cash, I also realize that at least 2/3’s of that black stack belongs to Oprah. We average folk of all shades hold very little relative wealth, but I do hold the knowledge that skin color still matters in America.

But then, after all the walking and looking at descriptions of men and manliness, I reflect on not only the most basic and descriptive, but also the most informative and lasting knowledge regarding man- bacon on hot dogs is wonderful.