Yokishop is excited to announce, there is going to be change happening around the shop. Yoki has been inspired recently to go through his amazing collection of clothes, art, etc. He is read to donate what is not being used to people who are in need. This will then allow us as a team to be able to switch up the store and display our one-of-one items and other goods in a new way. With new space brings new energy! We hope you follow along and would love to hear what you guys have to say about our changes OR if you have any ideas of what we should do we would enjoy the feedback. Yoki wants Yokishop to be about the community, we are going back to our roots. Orange county and all the amazing artists that live here. We hope to incorporate the community in our store and that is why we would love for you to participate! Thank you all for your continued support, we are excited for whats to come! 

We will be keeping you all updated via blogs as well as our Instagram and Facebook. We hope you enjoy!

Have a Mucho Aloha Day!

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Yokishop x Otra Vez - Otra Vez is a company founded by a young lady of the name Yvonne Macias, she hand cuts and sew each patch together to make clothes. Each patch is repurposed fabric.

Hi I'm Yoki, in 1989 I started a company named Pirate Surf; at that time our only product was acid washed plaid flannel shirts and some heavy weight t-shirts. Our first year was crazy as we sold a million dollars worth of product out of my garage. Several years later we sold Pirate Surf to Quicksilver... Fast forward to now, 2021 I now have an opportunity to reintroduce - Pirate Surf Original Remake. Enjoy & check out the original logo on our heavy weight, one of one long sleeves.

MATER DEI

For those of you who don't know, Mater Dei is a private school here in Orange County. 

Their football team is FIRST IN THE STATE AND #1 IN THE NATION.

THAT'S HUGE

Boys water polo is CIF CHAMPS.
Girls volleyball is CIF CHAMPS.

THAT ALSO IS HUGE

They excel in pretty much everything - academics and sports alike -

But what they really excel in is understanding the value of doing a collaboration with YOKI'S GARDEN.

For this, yoki took pre-existing uniforms from various Mater Dei athletic teams and repurposed them to create individual, hand-crafted, one of a kind T- Shirts and Sweatshirts.

Here is what a few of them look like.

Pretty rad, right?  Bet you want one, right?

We suggest being quick to that since they sell out almost as soon as they drop.

You can buy them thru Mater Dei but we also sell them here at yokishop.  Both in-store and online. GO!

Quantities are limited because each garment is made with love, care, and OCD attention to detail.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS:

First Mater Dei drops off boxes and boxes of worn and discarded Mater Dei uniforms and equipment.

Then Yoki conceives of a new logo emblematic of the school and has it printed on overstock cotton fabric.

In the case of Mater Dei the new logo/icon is a hand drawn rendering of the number 1 sign.

It is then embellished to give it even more hand-crafted panache. 

For Mater Dei, it's a sweatband made of still more discarded uniform fabric and applied to the wrist of drawing.

The final product (seen below) is then sewn onto the front of blank t-shirts and sweatshirts.

On top of that, a tag is designed, printed on overstock fabric, cut out and then sewn to either the collar of the T-shirt or sweatshirt - or in the case of a hoodie, to the side of the hood.

 For Mater Dei, the words HONOR GLORY LOVE are applied.

It's also a labor of love and takes a village to produce.  

Kids from Mater Dei come to Yokishop and volunteer their time to help with production.

For some pieces,  each number and logo is carefully cut out so it can be applied onto T-shirts and Sweatshirts

The students who wear those number on the field, then have them to wear off the field as well.

The shirts below have numbers that were cut out from the water polo swim caps

(hunky Mater Dei students wearing Yokishop for Mater Dei T'shirts above)

Not sure if these guys are football? or Water polo?  But they definitely didn't have shoulders like these where I went to high school  Another reason why we should all go to Mater Dei.  But I digress. 

Oh, and here's another thing.  You see that tiny square of fabric on the back underneath the Mater Dei logo?  I'll zoom in on it so you can see it here:

That is also fabric taken from game worn unifroms cut into a square, with a piece of plastic from a used plastic water sewn over it.  Yes.  you heard me correctly.

USED PLASTIC WATER BOTtLE REPURPOSED ONTO CLOTHING. 

Remember what we were talking about with Yoki's Garden. 

The basic premise is MOTTONAI - a Japanese word meaning to USE THE WHOLE  FISH. 

We are using THE WHOLE FISH.

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SO THIS HAPPENED TODAY

Normally when you walk into Yokishop you are greeted by a wall of discarded orange nike shoe boxes.

But today that wall came tumbling down. 

We debated about what to do with them.

A) Throw them out which would be against our Ethos?

Definitely NO.

B) Breakdown the boxes and make a cardboard sculture?

Too time consuming and it's holday season people so we're super super  busy Elf-ing

C) Take them back to USC where we originally found them in a pile of everything else that was going to be sent to one of our already overcrowded landfills and film them senselessly discarding more waste that could be recycled?

Hmmm.  Interesting idea.

All of this brings me to YOKISGARDEN.

For the uninitiated, YOKISGARDEN is the brainchild of Yoki's to encourage Universities to partake in sensible, profit earning school sustainability.  It starts like this: 

GATHER ABUNDANCE

Did you know every year, every semester, college athletic teams receive all new uniforms, all new shoes, all new water bottles, all new shin guards, new, new, new and new. 

At the end of each season, these same colleges throw away all the same unifroms, shoes, water bottles, etc that it just received 3 months prior.

It's actually insane the amount of waste colleges generate and then simply throw away. 

So Yoki had an idea - a way to revolutionize college sustainability programs. 

First Yoki GATHERS THE ABUNDANCE of discarded athletic gear

Next is: REPURPOSE AND DEMONSTRATE

Yoki takes these pieces, and REPURPOSES them by cutting out numbers or details or squares from the water bottles, uniforms, whatever he is able to GATHER and sews them onto sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats, makes aprons, dufflebags, coaches jackets and DEMONSTRATES how we can all participate in a program of sustainability.

Next there is ETHOS

It's a greek word but the meaning is simple and profound:

DO THE RIGHT THING

By partnering with the universities and colleges we are able to be a part of the solution.

When do we want to do it?

We want to do it NOW!

.

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CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MADE IT TO YOKISHOP!

FULL DISCLOSURE

Jeff "Yoki" Yokoyama runs around like a crazy person trying to get shit done. 

Its hard for him to stay  too focused on any one thing for too long because one idea runs into the next and into the next and into the next...

It gives all of us who work for him WHIPLASH

it keeps his body very active which is why at age 62, he can still roll around the shop with his shirt off.

This happens alot. 

Espeically in the summer.

It drives his wife Colleen crazy.

Colleen is a great cook by the way so he's very well fed. But she promised to make me homemade carrot cake 3 months ago and I'm still waiting for it. 

So maybe he does in fact go hungry every now and then.

HERE'S WHAT WE DO

DESIGN DIFFERENT

Design from existing product and materials that are being discarded in the market.

There's a lot of time spent at Goodwill, overstock fabric stores, military surplus stores, dumpster diving, scooping up towels left on the beach and accepting large bales of leftover Japanese denim. 

We tithe to the Fabric Gods and they bless us with abundance.

WE ARE LUCKY.

MAKE DIFFERENT

We make all our own patterns, cut each garment ONE AT A TIME BY HAND, and do all the sewing at our shop in Newport Beach, CA.

We aim to provide jobs and create a smaller carbon footprint while making killer product  that shows off what creative genius' we are.

Totally. Genius. 

SELL DIFFERENT

We want to sell to the end user, and to a hand full of hand picked Boutiques in L.A. and Tokyo.

We put a lot of time and love into every stitch and remember that we're not curing cancer. 

We'll have pictures up here soon that show something amazing.

 

I would ordinarily start with Yoki, the man, myth, and legend behind the brand,  but really, he's had enough attention for one day.  It's always  Yoki, Yoki Yoki.  For those of you old enough to know what I'm talking about, yes you should be thinking Marcia Brady from The Brady Bunch.

For those of you have no idea what I'm talking about, never mind, it doesn't matter. 

What does matter is this man:

SERGIO

That's S-E-R-G-I-O, Sergio.

He also has a secret name, Fernando the story of which is not suitable for all audiences. 

 Sergio/Fernando is the man that keeps this place going, without whom, the whole house would fall down.

Master Tailor, Champion Pattern Maker, Genius Sewer and Cutting Virtuoso Sergio/Fernando keeps us all in line. 

OMAR 

Look closely.

You can see from the picture that he wasn't so psyched with me for taking it, (barred teeth, clenched jaw) but he's actually a really nice, super chill, sneaker obsessed miracle worker. 

No words could actually describe the chaos that Omar has been able to give order to but imagine an episode of Hoarders, and then 6 months into recovery. 

Before and after.

Pre Omar, Post Omar.

Not being able to see the floor to being able to eat off of it.

He also got us a working refrigerator (hurray!) but he unplugged and hid our microwave (boo!) so the jury is still out on Omar.

BUT.

He's also our website and inventory guru which in the wake of Hurricane Yoki, officially qualifies him for canonization.

SHANNON

That's me.

Modeling a jacket from our Military Aloha series.

I had just lost 16 pounds after quitting yet another thankless corporate job so give me a minute to languish in my newly flattened stomach.

I HATE writing or thinking about myself so that's all your going to get until someone else here figures out how to access this blog and write something about how totally and utterly amazing I am.

Alright, so it's time for the Main Event.

YOKI.

Part human, part cartoon, Yoki is totally out of his mind.

He's also sweet, hysterically funny, self-effacing, caring, kind, annoying, maddening, adorable, fun, a dedicated father of four, grandfather of one, husband of a gazillion years and determined to make the world a better place.

He started Maui and Son's back in the 80's but then sold it after spending 24 hours on the floor crying, thinking about how empty his life was. 

He's twisted and turned, scowled and triumphed and finally found his way back to his home planet.  YOKISHOP.   

Yoki means GOOD in Japanese.

He has a real name (Jeff) but the only person to ever use it is his wife, and usually only when she's mad at him or thinks he's getting carried away with himself.

Yoki rants and raves like a lunatic and I've sincerely questioned whether or not to have him commited, but it is all in the name of what we mere mortals can only call a creative, visionary genius. 

He is a documentary waiting to happen. Call HBO and Vice STAT. 

HIS CORE BELIEFS

1. Perfect Is Dead

It's also super boring and a real buzz kill.

More on this later.

2. Michael Jackson is a God

Duh.

3. Mottani

Use the whole fish.

 

I'm tired and my brain hurts. I need to spend sometime cutting fabric to relax. More tomorrow. Peace out yo. Just kidding. I'm 45 years old. So maybe just Peace.  

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Jeff Yokoyama Deconstructs Levi’s in New Collection

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