THE MAKER
“Custom leather goods inspired by
fantasy for all of life’s adventures.“
My name is Rachel Yasaka and I am the founder and sole entity responsible for Tabibito Leathercraft. I was born, raised, and live in beautiful Hawaii on the island of Oahu and during the day, I work in the world of tech as an ML Ops Engineer doing work with artificial intelligence and machine learning.
I have always tried to have a creative hobby in my life that lets me work with my hands. From playing with Lego as a child to a passionate love for scale model building in my young adult life, working with my hands to create is one of the most important and cherished things to me. I am enamored with the creative process and the euphoria that comes with seeing a finished product which is a feeling like no other.
My journey into leathercraft is one of curious circumstance and cosmic chance. One day, one of my closest friends who is a prodigious seamstress and maker in her own right, was talking about a new cosplay project that she wanted to take to the next level. The character featured several leather accessories and she wanted to make something that looked and felt authentic and real. To that end she thought about learning to do leathercrafting and she asked if I wanted to learn with her and try it out as a way to motivate ourselves and just share the fun! It wasn’t something I thought about learning before but I figured why not? I’ve always had a romanticized ideal of what I call legacy skills. That is, skills that our current culture and civilizations were built on but have fallen out of popular fashion in the onset of modernization. How fun would it be to learn something that I perceived as so traditional as leathercraft so I said yes!
While my friend ultimately still hasn’t done any leathercrafting, here I am several years later loving and admiring the craft. Learning leathercraft has been something special. What started as an impulsive way to share an experience with a close friend, has transformed into a calling. I’ve learned so much about myself, my design philosophy, and what it means to make something and it has changed my life for the better. It has taught me that creation is not about the product but the whole process as a holistic entity. From the design and conception to the possession of a final product, leathercraft has taught me that what I am looking for is an experience. It is more than just owning something. It is the day to day of handling it, it is the feel in your hand, to the weight of the piece. It is the look and design, to the smell of the material. It is rugged and real and inspires.
Leather is something special.
My design philosophy is inspired by two things. My heritage, and my interests. I am of Japanese descent and my designs are, in part, influenced by Japanese culture and philosophy. Japanese culture is one of tradition, reverence, and humbleness and I take design cues from those concepts to create designs that are simple and functional. In addition to my heritage, my designs are also inspired by my interest in fantasy and adventure. I am an avid gamer and player of games such as World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, and all worlds in between. Part of the experience that I seek with a product is that it feels like something “real”. Something that someone would take on a journey across the world and it would survive along the way through thick and thin. It is that ruggedness and utilitarianism that serves as one of my primary inspirations and design goals.
“Tabibito” means traveler in Japanese.
I want to create designs that are simple but functional, rugged but utilitarian, and eye catching but understated. It is my goal that every piece that I create feels like something that will be with you for a lifetime because what is life but a journey through time?
Thank you so much for visiting my little corner of the world and I hope that I get the opportunity to create for you.
-Rachel Yasaka