Listen to the episode

Links 

Thank you to today’s sponsor LDH Scissors for sending us their 45mm Midnight Edition Rotary Cutter. Find more at LDHscissors.com.

Yaya Han’s website: https://www.yayahan.com/ 

Follow Yaya: 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yayahan/?hl=en 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YayaCosplay 
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@yayahan?lang=en 
Twitter/X: https://x.com/YayaHan

Yaya’s Sewing Machines
Bernette 38 – Yaya Han Edition
Bernette 79 – Yaya Han Edition

You can find the Yaya Han Fabric Collection at:
Mood Fabrics
Michaels
Linda’s

Where to Watch Heroes of Cosplay: https://www.google.com/search?q=heroes+of+cosplay+streaming

Yaya Han’s World of Cosplay (Affiliate link): https://bookshop.org/a/24800/9781454932666

Transcript

Nicole

Thank you to LDH Scissors for sponsoring this episode. More on them later.

Ada

Welcome to the Asian Sewist Collective Podcast. The Asian Sewist Collective is a group of Asian people from around the world brought together by our shared appreciation for fiber and textile arts and our desire to see more Asian representation in the sewing community.

Nicole

In this podcast we explore the intersection of identities and our shared sewing practice as we create a space for Asian Sewists and our allies.

Ada

I’m your co-host, Ada Chen, and I’m recording from Denver, Colorado. Denver is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. I’m a Taiwanese American marketer, turned entrepreneur, and these days you’ll find me running my natural skincare brand, Erleia. That’s E-R-L-E-I-A. Find us on social media at Erleia Skin. Most importantly for this podcast you can find my sewing at i.hope.sew on Instagram.

Nicole

And I’m your co-host, Nicole. I’m recording outside of Chicago, Illinois, the original homelands of the Council of the Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Potawatomi, and the Odawa people. I’m a Philippine American lawyer who loves to sew and you can find me on Instagram at Nicoleangelinesews.

Hey friends, we were so lucky to have a conversation with Yaya Han, and it went on a bit. So we are going to be splitting our conversation into two parts. So here’s part one and join us next week for part 2.

Ada

Our guest today is Yaya Han, a costume designer, cosplay entertainer, and author. We are so excited to welcome her here.

Nicole

And I met Yaya at the H&H Americas trade show earlier this year where she hosted the cosplay contest. And after the contest, or maybe it was after a panel, I can’t remember, I just had to let her know how much we appreciate her work and she was kind enough to come on the podcast. So welcome, Yaya.

Yaya Han

Hi everyone, thank you so very much for having me.

Ada

So we always like to kind of hear our guests’ sewing origin stories. Can you share yours with us?

Yaya Han

Yes, so I am a cosplayer who’s been doing this for 26 years. And prior to dressing up as fictional characters, I did not know how to sew. So my sewing origin story is directly tied to my desire to dress up as anime characters. And so I was not like blessed with family members who know how to sew. I was never taught how to sew growing up. And so when I got into cosplay in 1999, I was told that you could dress up as a character, but how do you get the costume? Because then, nobody makes them.

So I realized that in order for me to have a costume, I had to make it myself. And so I learned how to sew in the summer of 1999 through a friend from an anime club who was so kind to show me how to use her sewing machine.

And we bought a commercial pattern and I learned how to kind of read a pattern. I mean, this was like before the internet, really before social media. So even understanding some of the terms was very interesting. But I did — I sewed a full costume. And since then, I’ve been a self-taught sewist.

Ada

So how did you go from, you mentioned the anime club — so how did you go from like, I like anime, I’m in this club, we’re watching it — first of all, I don’t know how you got access to it in 1999 without the internet. So I would love that little bit of information too.

Yaya Han

You sure?

Ada

But how did you go from like, this is something I like to consume as content to, I’m going to make — like, this is now a thing that I do. Like, were you hooked after that first costume or did it take a little bit of time to kind of get there?

Yaya Han

I was hooked immediately, first of all, just without a doubt — it became a lifestyle, even though I did not know how to do anything. But the anime club, you know, I learned about it through my school, my high school, and they were literally still watching fan-subbed anime that was being passed around on video cassettes.

And the thing is, I was already an anime fan for most of my life because I was born in China and grew up in Germany, weirdly enough. And so I sort of had a little bit of access to manga, anime, and video games through just what was around in the 90s. Very, very little. But I was an artist. So before cosplay, I actually drew a lot of pen and ink fan art and original art.

And so in the anime clubs I joined, they were really impressed with my art and they welcomed me for that side of my creativity. But then it was the club that decided to go to Anime Expo 1999. That is where I learned about cosplay. And I think for me, just the idea of being able to be the characters instead of just drawing the characters — it was such a lightbulb moment and it was so attractive to me. It gave me a chance to be creative in so many other fields instead of just on paper. So yeah, I was all in since that first event.

Nicole

Yeah, it’s like taking these ideas and this creativity from 2D to 3D is what it sounds like.

Yaya Han

Mm-hmm.

Nicole

Do you still draw?

Yaya Han

I draw very little. So that is the drawback to choosing sewing and costuming as my creative outlet — it became a job after a while and actually became my career. I can talk about all that too. But once it really consumed my life, you know, my personal and professional life, then there really wasn’t time to hone my drawing skills. So I sketch a lot of costumes. My drawing skills are still being used — they’re just not being used for illustrations like I used to do.

Nicole

Yeah, I mean, we all pivot during our lives and it sounds like you definitely found something that really means a lot to you right at the beginning. And of course you’ve pivoted into this awesome longstanding career.

Yaya Han

Yeah.

Nicole

And just before we get into more of the cosplay stuff — when we met, you know, I did my spiel.

Yaya Han

Mm-hmm.

Nicole

I said, you know, the Asian Sewist Collective — we like to uplift Asian voices in the sewing community. Thank you for what you do. You know, I would love to, if you’re interested and have time, have you on the podcast, something like that. And we talked a little bit about your Chinese heritage and you already mentioned that you were born in China and grew up in Germany. Can you give our listeners a little bit more background on this — and how does your identity as a Chinese sewist influence your sewing and cosplay?

Yaya Han

Yeah, I have a very weird, unconventional life.

Nicole

Mm-hmm.

Yaya Han

Yeah, because my mom was a German teacher during the Cultural Revolution, and she moved to Germany after discovering that it was just so much more freeing there. And so when I was like six, she left China, divorced my dad, which was somewhat traumatizing. But then two, three years later, she asked if I wanted to move to Germany with her. She had stabilized her life there and had a new husband, and they were willing to raise me.

Yaya Han

And so my parents sort of put that question to me, an eight-year-old: where do you want to live?

Nicole

Wow.

Yaya Han

And I don’t know why, but I chose Germany. So I went to a country across the ocean and I did not speak the language at all. I didn’t even know the alphabet. I had to learn the alphabet in German, had to learn the language, had to repeat one grade because that first year I was really just learning the language and couldn’t keep up with the studies. But I’ve always been very smart — I mastered German to the point of being able to speak it fluently and read and write it fluently within six months.

So then I became a top student in my little school in Wiesbaden, Hessen. But what was different about me is that there were two Asian people in a school of several hundred. It was very alienating — not just because I looked different, but because the things I grew up with and liked were different. I was already a fanatical anime and manga fan, but in Germany during the 90s, the kids were not into that yet. They didn’t understand anime and manga. They’d watch me draw characters and say, “Who are these Barbie figures you’re drawing?”

So I definitely always felt different — and I think that’s partially why it eventually led me to cosplay. Because in America, there’s obviously a much more diverse group of people. And I think when I found the anime fans — even though America was also tough for me at first — finding cosplay and finding those like-minded people at conventions was my lifesaver.

It’s very weird how I like went from China to Germany to America. And I think like personality wise, I’m very German, which confuses people when they meet me. But like definitely lifestyle wise, I felt like, at least in my formidable years, the most comfortable in America, because Germany, you know, after school, I would have just had gone into a whatever random job then and I felt very suffocated there and unsure what to do with my future.

And America had all these like creative opportunities, you know, like, definitely the possibility of living the American dream. So I don’t know. Maybe I drank the Kool-Aid of it.

Ada

That’s wild that they asked you when you were eight.

Yaya Han

I know, and I’m like, how did I choose? What would my life be if I had chosen to stay in China? Like, I certainly would not have my own business. I would probably have a bunch of kids and be a housewife, you know? Like, it’s crazy to think about.

Nicole

But your perseverance, your, the way that you worked to, it blew me away that you said you learned to read and write and speak German in six months. I’m like, I have struggled with just basic regular English and it’s my first language sometimes. So like I admire people who can flow between cultures like that. I think that’s really incredible.

Yaya Han

I know. Thank you. I think it’s a strength of mine to be very multicultural. And even like in Germany, my stepdad, he was a flight attendant for Lufthansa. So we had flight benefits from a very young age. I was traveling the world already, you know, Egypt, Thailand, Greece. Went to the U.S. for the first time when I was 12. And maybe that’s where like that dream of like, oh, my God, America is so—everything is so bright and beautiful. So maybe that’s like where that kernel came from. But I think it’s also very difficult to be an immigrant, in my case, in not just one country, but two countries. And so I think it’s taken definitely a long time for me to find my footing in the world, so to speak.

Nicole

Can I just back up a second and ask, what do you mean by people? My personality is German. Are people like I come off as more German?

Ada

Oh, no, I get it. I get it.

Yaya Han

So I look Asian—I mean, I look Chinese. I speak obviously, you know, English, and so people think I’m American, but then they meet me and I’m very German. I’m very blunt. I’m very punctual. I over communicate very much. So like, give me all the information. I’m going to give you everything that I plan on doing. And so I’m not very sentimental in that sense.

And so I think definitely there have been like, I think it’s been hard for me to make lasting friendships in America because people here are very, you know, chill, but also surface, you know, and very friendly, but then it doesn’t go down that deep unless you build those relationships. So I think it definitely took me a while to, like I said, find my people.

Ada

I mean, when you said that, my mind immediately went to some of the German folks I worked with at my last job. International tech company, right? Like based in Sydney, but we had like a whole Europe team. So I would work a lot with them.

Yaya Han

Yeah

Ada

And we were like, okay, so they don’t like small talk. And if it is the crack of dawn for me on the West Coast.

Yaya Han

Yes yes yup.

Ada

We can just skip that and go because it’s the end of their day. And I’m no one’s here to like mess around. And I have a really good friend from college who is from Korea, unfortunately did not get a visa to stay in the US, went to Canada, decided not to stay there, went to Austria, then landed in Cologne.

Yaya Han

Yup

Ada

And when I went to visit like two or three years ago, he was just explaining like, the slight nuances, I think, of living between all of these different cultures. And I think having seen some of them, I was like, oh yeah, this makes sense when you explain it that way. But I don’t think if you have only predominantly been exposed to American culture growing up, that it’s something that necessarily is as visible without having to work on seeing it. But was like, I get it.

Yaya Han

Yeah, I’m always on time at every event where many people are not.

Ada

The most surprising part about Germany was that the trains weren’t on time.

Yaya Han

That is true. That is true. The trains, the buses are a little better than the trains.

Ada

I like stood there on the platform I was like, is this like a cultural break? What’s happening? My friend was like, no, we’re on end time.

Yaya Han

Yeah.

Ada

Everyone is. The train is not though.

Yaya Han

Yeah, yes exactly.

Ada

I was like, well, some things can just be cross-cultural things.

Yaya Han

Yeah.

Nicole

So do you feel like your identity as a Chinese sewist impacts your cosplay specifically?

Yaya Han

Yeah, I think in some ways it’s like my strength and weakness that I have like the Chinese upbringing plus the German upbringing. So I’m like, I’m very driven. I’m very, I’m able to do lots of meticulous details for a long time. I get really lost in, you know, the process of sewing.

Yaya Han

I think, yeah, that as a cosplayer, for a lot of people, is not that easy. Many many people in cosplay, they want the instant gratification and they take a lot of shortcuts. So I do think that, you know, having grown up in China and then also have that like German engineering brain on top of that, I certainly am able to, you know…

I’m able to use it for my sewing and creative and also business endeavors. Being Chinese, I will say that it’s really, it’s this weird phenomenon that I think happens to many Asian Americans is where when you first arrive into a new culture and me, I came by myself. So I didn’t even come with family. So I felt the need to assimilate very strongly.

So I think I sort of even pushed people my Chinese heritage aside for a while and I was like trying to be edgy and say oh I’m actually from Germany because like anytime I say that it’s like people are just like huh and and I thought that like would subverse you know what I looked like so. But then during the pandemic, you know, experiencing the anti-Asian hate and seeing how Chinese people specifically were treated and also getting questions from people in my life, like, why do Chinese people eat bats? I mean, is that just like, you know, can you do something about that? Or like, that actually made me go full force into embracing my heritage.

So, behind me, I’m sure you can see like all these all these figures. So I got really into Danmei, which is a Chinese genre of books.

And so these are all books that are Chinese books translated to English. These are all figures from Chinese books. I started cosplaying the characters. So I started making Hanfu.

And it’s been so great to just, like, embrace the fact that I’m Chinese. And I feel like even before, you know, like, one of my favorite characters to cosplay was always Chun-Li from Street Fighter because she was Chinese. So growing up, it was like I always related with her.

So I think I’ve always had that desire—like wanting to embrace my heritage but then sort of the, you know, it conflicted with my feeling like I needed to assimilate. So now I’m definitely very much so embracing it and I have, you know, made many costumes based on Chinese heritage, like from Apothecary Diaries, that’s one of my favorite anime of manga. And I’ve made multiple costumes where I sourced fabrics, you know, like actual brocades and jacquards from China.

to properly embody the character. So, but yeah, it’s been a journey for sure. But if you think about it, like in cosplay, it reflects fandom and pop culture, right?

So all of these characters that are popular here in the West, they’re—from like, so for example, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, all those shows—not a single Asian character inside, right?

And people are like, why haven’t you cosplayed from Lord of the Rings? Or, you know, why do you only have like one Star Wars costume? And I’m like… Do these people look like me? Do I feel like I’m being represented on screen? you know? So that’s also why I’ve always gravitated towards either original characters or anime characters or video game characters. Like just like yeah I never did very much live action cosplay. Because it does matter what you see and how you relate to the stories on screen.

Ada

Thank you to our friends at LDH Scissors for sponsoring this episode. They sent us some goodies in exchange for an honest review and today we are looking at the 45mm rotary cutter from their Midnight Edition collection.

Nicole

I’m a diehard rotary cutter fan. It’s probably just because the first patterns I ever bought recommended it. So I really use my rotary cutter at every opportunity. I’m pretty clumsy with shears. But I do have a few others. And so far, LDH is the one with the absolute smoothest cut. And the Midnight Edition looks really sleek.

Ada

Yeah, I’m a sucker for all black, but not only is it the smoothest cut, the button on the handle that controls the safety, let’s call it like the safety slider, that is also smooth too, which I have noticed on some of the cheaper rotary cutters I’ve gotten. The safety slider can kind of get stuck even if it’s well-oiled or brand new, which kind of defeats the purpose of a safety slider. But this one has been amazing. No problems, smooth curves, nice handling. Plus, again, like I said, Midnight Edition. Highly recommend if you are into kind of the all black or like a matte look around your sewing space.

Nicole

It kind of sounds like we’re talking about cars.

Ada

It does a little bit.

Nicole

That’s what LDH brings out in us. We will link to the rotary cutter in the show notes for this episode. Thanks again to LDH for sponsoring.

Ada

Let me — that makes a lot of sense. We talked briefly about it before, but a big part of cosplay, obviously, is cons or conventions for our listeners who might not be as familiar.

Ada

So for those who don’t know what a con is, can you share more about what happens at one and any memorable experience you’ve had?

Yaya Han

So yes, fandom conventions have been around for the last 40 some years. Some of the longest standing ones are San Diego Comic Con and Dragon Con, but they really happen all over the world in almost every country year round, thousands and thousands of conventions.

And they’re a place where fans come together to celebrate whatever it is that they’re into. So some conventions are themed and really geared towards certain industries or certain genres, and others are more mishmash. and But at every single convention, there are cosplayers.

Every single one. Does not matter what it is. Doesn’t matter if it’s a horror convention or if it’s a Disney convention. cosplayers are all of them and it’s just a really great way to you know meet the the people that make the things that you like they’ll invite guests from around different industries artists and actors and producers and everything so I travel to many conventions around the world as a cosplayer so I’m there to you know

Help with cosplay programming, panels, workshops. I judge contests. It’s a very big part, actually, is to be a qualified judge for some very big contests. I have a lot of stakes and prizes at them. And people work for like three years to make one costume. So you need someone proper and who knows how to make things to be able to evaluate them. evaluate them properly.

And so yeah, like I also, I’m a personality in the fandom world. So wherever I go, people will line up to meet me for autographs and selfies. But it’s also a way for me to stay in tune with the cosplay world and see new innovations in crafting and sewing. And it’s been very helpful for me to know what the trends are and and what cosplayers need so I can actually design products and create tools and materials for them. So yeah, it’s very, very rewarding.

Nicole

I started to get into going to cons. So I’m out based outside of Chicago and we tried to do C2E2 and fan Expo Chicago.

Yaya Han

Mm-hmm. That’s a big one. Yep. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Nicole

And it actually started because my husband is very into Star Wars and he just wanted to see the vendors.

Yaya Han

Right.

Nicole

And I’m a nerd and I want to go to all the panels.

Yaya Han

Yeah.

Nicole

I just want to hear from everyone. And then started I started to really, is how I started to really appreciate cosplayers is because you see them and these amazing outfits with with accessories, like you know, hammers and other things and the the accuracy and also the creativity with like the mishmash, you know, like, I don’t know, zombie, princess peach or something like that.

Yaya Han

Yes.

Nicole

Like, it’s just such an incredible art form and so much fun. And to me, it feels like, it’s It feels like high art, but also accessible because there are people just there at these cons.

Yaya Han

Yes.

Nicole

And like, do you still walk the floor?

Yaya Han

yes

Nicole

Are you are usually more on the behind the scenes scheduled type of person?

Ada

Do you get mobbed on the floor is our real question.

Yaya Han

Okay, so i still I’m still a nerd myself and want to walk the con and and feel like I’ve experienced it. it’s It’s no fun if you just hide behind behind stage. And actually, I feel bad for the celebrities, like the actual celebrities that can’t go anywhere and they really are just stuck in a green room the entire weekend until somebody escorts them to a panel or a stage and they do their thing and then they’re back in the green room.

I don’t want to do that. So i do go around. i try to keep free free time to walk around. And depending on what costume I wear, or sometimes even without a costume, I do get mobbed. But I’ve been… Like i usually have my husband with me, Brian, he always, he comes to conventions with me or I have, you know, a handler with me. So not being alone is good. And then just having someone to say, hey, sorry, she’s on her way to somewhere. But it’s not that, it’s it’s not it’s not like that bad as if I was a Hollywood actor or something. So I can still enjoy conventions and I think it’s very important. Yeah.

Nicole

I’m glad you do get to to enjoy the experience as well, because I know that sometimes when people’s careers rise, their ability to enjoy things as a regular human being becomes more difficult.

Yaya Han

Yes, yes, definitely.

Nicole

Yeah.

Yaya Han

I’m sort of the perfect weekend warrior where I can, you know, like enjoy the, I don’t know, just sort of what it feels like to be a celebrity on the weekends, depending on where I am.

Yaya Han

And then I can go back to a gremlin normal person the rest of the time.

Nicole

I’m also like a I do like gremlin-ing, being cozy, whatever the the term is these days.

Yaya Han

Yes, when you when you make costumes when you’re sewing always gremlin. Yeah.

Nicole

Yeah, yes. So thinking back through your career or even before then when you were an amateur, what cosplay are you most proud of and why?

Yaya Han

I think I’ve had a few milestone costumes like where I really felt like i broke through and learned a new technique and was able to master that technique. And then i have costumes that… Like I made a really long time ago, but I’m still able to wear them so they withstand wear and tear and I’m really proud of that. So going back to my Chun-Li costume from Street Fighter, i made Art Nouveau version of her based on a fan art, 13 years ago, so in 2012. And it was like the best corset I’ve ever made, you know, fits, you know, shapes and fits really nice. The shaping of the skirt, the flaring was really nice, even though I didn’t use like really fancy fabrics, it was just like polyester taffeta, it’s still you know, had like, it still withstood time really well. It was before I had an embroidery machine. So she had all these like gold details and swirls on her outfit that I free handed with a satin stitch on a sewing machine.

Nicole

wow

Yaya Han

And that was just like, I don’t know, I was just like in a zone making her for about two, three weeks. And sat the satin stitching looked great. Everything looked very even. Like I tried to satin stitch something because Chun-Li’s boots needed to be remade because the pleather was coming apart and she has swirls on that. And I’m using like my fancy Bernette the Yaya Han Bernette to try to replicate the satin stitch. And it was not as smooth as what I did 13 years ago. i don’t know, man. it was just like, something about, you know, this machine is too fancy and it anticipates too much. So it’s, you know, like versus how I was able to manipulate the other machine, I think was a Brother really like manually and really get like very so nice, you you know, even tapered swirl, you know, being able to decrease the satin stitch widths and such.

So, and then I wore Chun-Li last weekend at the first inaugural San Diego Comic-Con in Europe, in Malaga, Spain, and she still held up really well. And I’m just like impressed at past me and what I was able to accomplish.

Nicole

And for our listeners, we’ll find pictures of that and we’ll put them in our show notes.

Yaya Han

Yes, I will. Yep. Happy to share them. i have a whole gallery on my website.

Nicole

Perfect.

Ada

Okay. So for our listeners, we’ve obviously been kind of like dancing around the subject, but there’s professional and then amateur cosplay. So for those who are not as familiar with it, could you tell us what is the difference between professional and and amateur cosplay?

Yaya Han

Well, I think we all start off as amateur cosplayers. I think like there’s like I wouldn’t really categorize this as amateur. I think of cosplay as a lifestyle or as an art form.

And I think all of us, even the professionals, we start off by practicing it just for fun. And and then you turn professional if you are able to start making a living with it.

And that’s a huge topic because cosplay is still a developing industry. And there’s many, many different tiers and ways that you can make money with it. And many people, they do it only part-time. It’s only, you know, they have a full-time job or sometimes they have a part-time job and then cosplay is maybe 50% of their income.

And then there are professional cosplayers who really only live from cosplay. So there’s not a, definitely a distinction. I sort of see it as the same way as you would see musicians. So there’s many different tiers of being a musician. How do you differentiate between an amateur musician and a professional, right? There’s so many different gray areas in between. For me, i my sole form of income has been through cosplay since 2005.

So I’ve been one of the first that… has made this her career and has sustained it for now 20 years and very lucky and very, very blessed to still have a place in this community after all this time. Of course, there have been incidences where I questioned whether I could continue sustaining it, and I’ve had to change the way I approach professional cosplay different ways, so sort of evolve with the times. So yeah, if but I can tell you more about what it’s like to be a professional cosplayer and then what I do to earn money in it.

Nicole

Yeah, we’d love to hear that, you know, so you pivoted to to it being your sole career in 2005.

Yaya Han

Mm-hmm.

Nicole

So yeah, tell us, you know, like how you made that pivot and what it looks like now to be professional and to have this as your main livelihood.

Yaya Han

Well, 2005 was the year I quit my full-time salaried job. I was with a, was like data entry at a tech company, but it was stable and I was there for, i think, three years. But there were pretty miserable years. I did not like the type of work. It was completely the opposite of being creative. and And then my boyfriend at a time, Brian, who’s now my husband, he was also kind of stuck in a sales job that he hated. We both were creative. We met at a convention. we met at Dragon Con. And he was a prop maker while I was sewist. And so we thought we could maybe team up and offer costumes as commissions. Because I was already pretty well known by 2005. I was getting convention invites. And a lot of demand and requests for sewing for other people.

Making either costumes or accessories or wings. I made like a lot of big Victoria’s Secret angel wings back then. And nightclubs would commission me to make them for their dancers. So yeah,

I think we both decided together to quit our jobs. We created a website, started taking costume commissions. And that sustained us for about a year, but it was a lot of work. I think it was like, very difficult back then to, you know, communicate with people to show progress to like even figure out like, how much is a bespoke handmade costume worth, you know, people would balk at the price, or they would they would pay the price, but then be unsatisfied when things took longer to get to them, you know, it’s like, so hard to set that mindset up.

And cosplay was not an industry back then. Nobody was really making money with it. So we definitely struggled to to be sort of like the guinea pigs in that. But then during our working together, we discovered we worked well together. and also we made like these fantasy accessories, like little like cat ears that were cast out of resin, so plastic.

And we’re like embellished with lots of different cute ribbons that I would hand sew. Those did really well and they were cheap to make. They were affordable for people. So it was like instead of waiting $2,000 costume, they could spend bucks and you know, have something to dress up immediately. And so that became sort of our widget where we started making them in mass, just still two of us, but but it would be, you know, like our little, like our business shifted from bespoke commissions to handmade accessories.

And we would sell them online through the website as well as at conventions. So I sort of got into convention vending. We’re like either getting a table in the artist alley and eventually getting, you know, vendor booth. And so i would still go to conventions. I would still cosplay. i would partake in programming if the convention wanted me to in return for a free booth, you know, and stuff like that. So it was like, it was mixing together with cosplay and my small business of handmade accessories.

And then like, as cosplay grew and social media sort of opened it up to the world, then I had more demand internationally, and more people just like associated my name and my face with cosplay to the point that I was cast on a TV show about cosplay in 2012. It aired in 2013 and 14 and was called Heroes of Cosplay Syfy. And I was the judge.

Like i was like who I was already at that point. i was not a competitor anymore. i was a judge. So The TV show, I think, definitely gave me more recognition and I had just from then on a slew of opportunities that were beyond just going to conventions to to make, you know, like programming.

I was approached by McCall Patterns in 2014 to work with them to create a cosplay patterns. And that was my first foray into partnering up with a manufacturing company and to license my name out and and you know make money through creative collaborations and royalties.

And that was, I think my first McCall pattern came out in 2015. So for the last 10 years, that’s been actually my main source of income and focus is creating products for cosplayers with various companies. So I think McCall’s is what led to Cosplay Fabrics, which is the fabric company, Wyla. They’ve been a staple in the, you know, fabric world for a long time and they were a long-standing vendor with Joann so they wanted to make cosplay fabric collection with me and even though I had no textile design experience I never went to college for textiles or anything I never never went to college at all but my usage of fabrics like my knowledge of Having used fabrics for, at that point, 15 years, and also knowing what withstands wear and tear, what fabrics can do, what fabrics we need, what’s missing on the market.

That’s how I created the first Cosplay by Yaya Han fabric collection that they then sold to Joann yeah. Yeah.

Ada

We’re getting there. We are getting there, actually.

Yaya Han

Yup, yup.

Ada

we can

Yaya Han

I don’t, there’s like so much. Mm-hmm.

[OUTRO]

Ada

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Asian Sewist Collective podcast. If you like our show, please consider supporting us on kofi by becoming a one-time or monthly supporter or by buying our sewing labels. Your financial support helps us with our overhead expenses. The link to our coffee page is KO-FI .com Asian Sewist Collective and you can find the link in our show notes on our website and on our Instagram account. Check us out on Instagram at Asian Sewist Collective. That’s one word: Asian Sewist Collective. You can also help us out by spreading the word and telling your friends We would also appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast

Nicole

All of the links and resources mentioned in today’s episode will be in the show notes on our website That’s Asian Sewist Collective.com and we’d love to hear from you Email us with your questions comments or even voice messages if you want to be featured on future episodes at Asian Sewist Collective@ gmail.com. Thank you so much to the other members of our collective who made this episode a reality. This is the Asian Sewist Collective podcast and we’ll see you next time.