LOS ANGELES — Michelle Hanabusa is the Yonsei Los Angeles-based creator of the fashion, accessory and home goods brand Uprisers. The female-founded company is dedicated to creating sustainable products that incorporate the stories of the local community around them. This year, Nichi Bei News is highlighting Uprisers for your holiday purchases.
Hanabusa started Uprisers after realizing she wanted to enter the creative space. Growing up, she was a master figure skater and aspired to become a professional like Michelle Kwan. After a career-ending injury, Hanabusa took the time to explore other passions and fell in love with graphic design. This is how Uprisers came to fruition.
“I wanted to utilize my skill set to make sure that our community voices and stories would be told. And I didn’t really know how to do that, so I actually started to get more involved in the Japanese American community,” said Hanabusa. “That’s kind of really what opened my eyes to be like, I’m really passionate about this.”
Though Uprisers has sold products through companies like PacSun, the brand does its best to work with members of the community on specialty projects. Every year since 2020, Hanabusa and her team send out a survey to see what people would like to see Uprisers do next.
“They specifically said, we would love for you to work on Suehiro because of everything that’s going on. And I have a personal connection with Suehiro,” said Hanabusa about their most recent survey.
Suehiro Cafe in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles closed its doors at the beginning of this year after five decades of business in the area. Sisters Junko and Yuriko Suzuki opened the cafe in 1972 to fulfill their dream of bringing authentic Japanese food to the American masses. Junko’s son, Kenji Suzuki, inherited the restaurant in 2001 and ran it until it received an eviction notice in 2023. Many loyal customers protested the closure, and many locals who loved the establishment wanted a way to preserve its history. This is where Hanabusa came in.
The Uprisers creator often ate at Suehiro with her grandmother after her odori performances, and visited the cafe with her now-fiancé at the beginning of their relationship.
Having a deep connection to the business meant a lot to Hanabusa, and she took on the task of making sure the materials from the restaurant wouldn’t go to waste.
The Uprisers team collected fabrics, like the noren (curtains) from the booths, and spent nearly five months creating two bomber jackets, two ponchos and six tote bags.
Because there were a limited number of products with such meaningful backgrounds, Hanabusa and her team wrestled with what to do with them.
“So many people were like, my gosh, it’s almost like a piece of art. It’s one of a kind. It would be such a shame to just sell it off and never see it again,” said Hanabusa about the Suehiro pieces.
Her team decided not to sell the Suehiro collection, and instead will preserve them for future educational use. Uprisers alternatively created Suehiro T-shirts with an image of Junko Suzuki standing in the kitchen of the cafe’s original location that can be purchased online at https://weareuprisers.com/collections/uprisers-x-suehiro.
The Uprisers Suehiro series is just one of many community-based projects the company has taken on. In May of this year, Uprisers launched #WeAre1924, which aims to capture 100 portraits of American immigration stories by Nov. 16, 2024. The series was inspired by the history of the 1924 Immigration Act that banned immigration from Asia and created limited numbers of immigrants permitted from other countries. Through #WeAre1924, Hanabusa and her team aimed to give a voice to these untold stories of American history through the exploration of individual’s roots. The company created and sold T-Shirts based off of this ongoing project that you can find at https://weareuprisers.com/pages/1924.
“It’s been a really meaningful process to kind of be able to engage with folks who might not necessarily care about these things initially,” said Hanabusa about creations like #WeAre1924. “We might be able to touch or reach certain communities or groups of people that don’t really pay attention to this.”
Though Uprisers has many ongoing projects, Hanabusa highlighted her team’s current fashion series UPRS 2.0 to Nichi Bei News as an option for holiday gift shopping. UPRS 2.0 is inspired by the Suehiro project, in which older materials were reused. Through this series, the team “utilizes existing materials and historical artifacts to remake new designs into limited edition capsules that seamlessly blend cultures, designs, communities and materials,” according to the Uprisers Website. Items for sale include upcycled French terry oversized hoodies, color block denim pants, one piece dresses and other specialty offerings.
“We have these bomber jackets that have a little bit of this kimono flavor within its design. And we actually sold out this past weekend,” said Hanabusa about one of their UPRS 2.0 pieces. “We were very, very surprised by it because it is a little bit of a higher-ticketed item, but we are going to restock them and release some for the holiday season.”
They’re also selling a humorous maneki neko (beckoning cat figurine) stress ball called TEN-TEN. The cute design was released on Oct. 10, 2024, World Mental Health Day.
“It’s just a way to have something that can kind of be there to support you during times when you just need a little hug or you want to throw that little finger,” said Hanabusa.
Along with the Suehiro series, #WeAre1924 and UPRS 2.0, Uprisers offers a multitude of other projects including Made In and Uprisers X Josh Lin. Hanabusa says she will continue to be engaged with the community as she follows her passion for artistry and fashion. She says she couldn’t do any of this work without the collaboration for the entire Uprisers team.
“At the end of the day, it really takes a whole team to do this. There’s so many people and collaborators behind the scenes that make all of this come to life,” said Hanabusa.
“I’m just so grateful that we have this niche community that cares about these things.”
For more information, visit https://weareuprisers.com.
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