Kenji Suzuki and his family wearing the UPRISERS apparel.
This is the second part of the article exploring the collaboration between Suehiro Cafe and UPRISERS. In our previous article, the successful relocation of Suehiro Cafe was discussed.
“Memories are treasures…”
— Kenji Suzuki, owner of Suehiro Cafe
In January 2024, UPRISERS, an apparel company dedicated to cultural preservation and sustainability, embarked on a collaborative journey with Suehiro Cafe, designing and producing clothing from the traditional noren (Japanese entranceway curtains) and aprons from Suehiro Cafe.
Suzuki had originally planned to discard everything and start fresh at the DTLA location. Before doing that, however, Suzuki and the Little Tokyo Service Center held a fukubukuro community night, with the restaurant giving away old Suehiro mugs and the original menus. The event was a huge success. Those who couldn’t attend even reached out to see if they could still get a Suehiro souvenir.
Suzuki was astonished by the response.
T-shirts created by UPRISERS high-lighting the history of Suehiro Cafe.
“I have to be reminded … about why people feel this way about our things, where I just think for me, it’s just trash, right? And what do they say about trash? One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. And that’s the way I felt. I thought it was just trash we were going to throw away and then here we are, we’re talking about making things that are going to be valuable maybe. That’s gonna be doing some special things, and I would’ve never thought of doing that too.”
Now, Suehiro is collaborating with UPRISERS, a Little Tokyo clothing label owned by Michelle Hanabusa.
Upcycling clothes from the noren and aprons, of course, is no easy task. In the interview with Hanabusa, she lays it out in six steps.
Step 1: Assess which fabric/garments (in the case of Suehiro Cafe, the noren and aprons) can be repurposed and how they can be imagined into apparel.
Step 2: Team UPRISERS visits Selvyn’s studio in DTLA to brainstorm and bring their one-of-a-kind upcycled idea to life.
Step 3: Begin pattern-making and sampling. Samples are created out of scrap fabric that’s similar in weight to the real fabric due to the scarcity of the original material. This process can take anywhere from two to six months across new patterns, revisions, samplings, fittings, and production.
Step 4: Wash Suehiro fabrics and create the real upcycled garments.
Step 5: Sew labels on.
Step 6: Launch project.
The UPRISERS team isn’t stopping at upcycling. Since they can only produce a limited quantity using this method, they’ve designed graphic T-shirts as well.
Traditional noren used to make beautiful apparel by UPRISERS.
“The T-shirts are anything but generic,” Hanabusa explains. “The T-shirts act as a conversation piece and is our way to have an option where it is a little bit more accessible across styling, price point, and availability than a one-to-one item.”
These motives behind UPRISERS align with Suzuki’s newfound realization of his role as Suehiro Cafe: caretakers of memories.
“I still don’t understand the whole process, but recently I’ve been going through a lot that has been showing me that I don’t know a lot,” he said. “My generation talks about recycling as a way of taking care of the planet. I can see that the younger generation are really taking this to another level. And so, I’m being humbled all the time now. All the material that I was going to throw away is being turned into really beautiful pieces of art.”
Suzuki and Hanabusa have officially launched their Suehiro x Uprisers collaboration! Visit https://weareuprisers.com/collections/uprisers-x-suehiro to purchase your own Suehiro x UPRISERS apparel!
Hyounseok (Harold) Song is a first-generation Korean American. He is currently a first-year student at UCLA studying as a pre-global studies major and volunteers as a Little Tokyo ambassador for the Little Tokyo Service Center Small Business Program. He goes to Little Tokyo often and loves the food and atmosphere! Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.