As I hurriedly rushed down the street to get to Yumiko’s apartment, she texted that she would go to Ashbox as she was getting a bit hungry waiting for me to arrive. I waited on the stoop of her apartment until I saw Yumiko riding up on the sidewalk with her bike and food in hand. Her hair fell on her shoulders and she looked out of breath. Understanding, but concerning, Yumiko says, “Remember, time is everything. You have to be on time!”

Being a hard worker who has experience in various capacities, Yumiko Sakuma is all about doing the best you can do, and of course, being on time. Starting out as a reporter, Yumiko has been very diligent about making her way up the ranks in New York City, eventually quitting her reporting job in 2002 to become a freelance writer and editor in 2003.

Once Yumiko starts chowing down on her food, the brightness in her face starts to illuminate and we start chatting about various beginnings in her life.

One of those beginnings was fashion, which changed her life in drastic ways. She explains, “I think it was in high school in the late 80s, early 90s. Growing up in Tokyo, there was this big movement in American casual wear. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was wearing, except that the boys around me were into this style. That’s how it originally started.” However, Yumiko was quick to point out that there were other motives to the way she dressed: “Take my mom for example: although we have different styles, she is very much into fashion and always enforced the importance of how to carry yourself. That being said, I rebelled against her and I went through different phases”, she says. “She was a high-fashion kind of lady, whereas I had the American casual phase, which turned into vintage, then it went to outdoor…oh and of course not forgetting a hippy phase as well. But when I became a general news reporter, I totally forgot about it all. It was only when I became a freelancer that I went back to fashion – specifically, menswear. There wasn’t much going on in the men’s fashion world in New York per say, but by chance I became connected with Thom Browne as he was starting out, and also Daiki Suzuki. I got interested not just in men’s fashion, but in how clothes are made and who makes them.”

Maybe it’s because of this that Yumiko’s biggest goal is to bring Japan to the world through various brands she works with, such as Best Made Company by Peter Buchanan-Smith. “I definitely feel the need to communicate Japanese culture to the outside world, because all of these years I have been introducing American culture to Japanese people.” Although, there’s inspiration New York gives Yumiko that in ways Tokyo couldn’t – one of them being diversity. Seeing all of the different people of various backgrounds gives her a “sense of excitement”. In the fashion world, too: “Nowadays it’s so easy to look up what’s going on on the other side of the world. It’s a fully diverse, international industry where people really travel around, so there are so many different influences being incorporated.”