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It may have been the third day of Frieze, but Thursday night, the London fashion community gathered at a very different kind of event. Queues snaked around East London streets as editors, influencers and megafans turned out for Sukeban — a new Japanese women’s wrestling league launched by designer Olympia Le-Tan and her brother-in-law Alex Detrick in 2022. Inside, the wrestlers walked a runway into the ring to resounding cheers, wearing bespoke costumes designed by Le-Tan, makeup by world-famous makeup artist Dame Pat McGrath and merch from buzzy London streetwear label Aries. This was not a regular wrestling match.
Thursday night followed a string of sellout events across US cities New York, Miami and LA, each attracting different fashion and beauty partners that have so far included makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench, industrial designer Marc Newson, music artist Saweetie, independent fashion brand Soft Skin Latex, milliner Stephen Jones, visual artist Ayako Ishiguro, fashion label Yagi Boy Collective and cult nail artist Mei Kawajiri.
From Loewe’s collaboration with Studio Ghibli on its ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ collection to Jimmy Choo x Sailor Moon, luxury fashion brands are increasingly inspired by Japanese culture (and subculture). At the same time, fashion labels are reaching for increasingly niche sports to build cultural cachet with subsets of dedicated consumers. Could Japanese women’s wrestling become fashion and beauty’s new favourite sport?
A canvas for creativity
It certainly has the credentials. Sukeban’s internal team is also a who’s who of fashion and beauty leaders. Le-Tan has been a fashion designer for decades, first for her eponymous label and now for her new homeware brand, The Hotel Olympia. Revered London-based artistic director Jamie Reid Studio designed Sukeban’s bold, electric pink graphics, while manga artist Sakana Kouji has contributed drawings for promotional materials.
“Sukeban is entertainment. It’s also sports, but mainly, we use it as a platform to get all these different creative people involved. That turns it into something much bigger and more interesting for people who are not necessarily wrestling fans at all,” Le-Tan says. “Some people are very interested in the fashion side. Some people are interested in beauty. A lot of people are interested in the action — it becomes a cultural exchange.”
Each wrestler has a completely distinct aesthetic: from steampunk-inspired Midnight Player in a diamanté-embellished black boiler suit to cutesy Maya Mamushi or Babyface in pastel kawaii dresses.
‘Sukeban’ is a Japanese term that translates to “delinquent girl”. Sukeban were originally all-female gangs that rose to infamy in ’60s and ’70s Japan. But over time, it was attributed more broadly to a subculture of rebellious women during the ’80s and ’90s that protested against societal norms through their sense of style. For the founders, this ethos felt resonant not only in Japan but across the globe, in an era where brands are striving to align with cultural phenomena.
Sukeban athletes are all incredibly different, which makes them compelling brand representatives.
“There’s no age limit, no body type. It’s all different types of women and different characters,” says Le-Tan. The performers and their personalities are central to the league. “It’s not like how they do it for WWE or other more traditional wrestling leagues, where it’s skits of them yelling into a mic. We want it to be more about the history of the performers, their personal lives, where they came from and what it’s like when they visit these different cities perhaps for the first time.”
Sukeban wrestlers are divided into four teams: the Cherry Bomb Girls, the Harajuku Stars, the Vandals and the Dangerous Liaisons, so there’s “a huge variety of characters to get attached to”. At the events, crowds of fans already scream for ‘good’ sides, the Cherry Bomb Girls and the Harajuku Stars, but eventually, the aim is to turn all athletes into full-blown celebrities. For now, the audience is a mix of media and fashion insiders (thanks to New York PR agency Gia Kuan and a tie-in with Katie Grand’s Perfect Magazine) and some Japanese diaspora who have only ever seen Japanese wrestling events on YouTube. Each group has a breakout star.
“Back in the ’80s, Japanese female wrestling was such a visual, cool thing,” Le-Tan says. “But nowadays, the wrestlers in Japan are dressed sexily. The [leagues] don’t put any budget into it, there’s no effort in the production. We really wanted to turn the wrestlers into superheroes with fashion and makeup.” Selecting a new makeup artist for each season builds buzz. It’s also quite interesting from a business perspective, Le-Tan adds, because “it could lead to a beauty collaboration in the future”.
Before Sukeban, Le-Tan and her business partner weren’t necessarily wrestling fans. But Detrick had been working with some people from the wrestling industry in Japan and felt there could be an appetite for it in the US if they amped up the characterisation and storytelling, as well as the fashion and beauty. The duo went on a trip to Japan to watch a series of wrestling matches, where they met “legendary” wrestler Bull Nakano, one of Japan’s most famous athletes, who is now Sukeban’s commissioner. (Nakano’s wrestling partner Dump Matsumoto just released Netflix show The Queen of Villains, focusing on female wrestling, which has reached number one in Japan, as testament to the sport’s popularity.) Together with Nakano, Le-Tan and Detrick scouted talent from all over Japan to form the Sukeban teams. For Sukeban, each has a new character and visual identity that they don’t use in their regular wrestling careers.
In addition to Reid’s graphics, Sukeban works with various manga and anime artists to create promotional materials for social media. “There’s a lot of manga and anime fans out there, so we incorporate that into the storytelling,” says Le-Tan. “That way it’s more appealing to more people.” In the future, the manga and anime can easily translate into merchandise and toys, creating further potential revenue streams for the league, she adds.
The visual identity and rebel spirit of Sukeban is what drew in Aries founder Sofia Prantera, who was shown the visuals by Reid and was also introduced to Le-Tan by mutual friend and designer Katie Hillier. Prantera herself enjoys MMA (mixed martial arts) and has worked on designs for MMA fights (she brought her MMA gym friends along to the Sukeban event). When she dug deeper into the history of Sukeban as an idea, the collaboration aligned well. “But it’s never been a commercial thing; it’s been more of a passion. I hadn’t heard of Sukeban, but looking at its history as a bad girl subculture and seeing the amazing imagery, I was inspired. We stand for girls with an attitude!”
The Sukeban audience is broader than a typical pro-wrestling audience, says wrestler Atomic Banshee. “In Japan, the fans focus only on the fighting. Sukeban mixes wrestling and every other aspect, like fashion and beauty, to reach new fans. Many Sukeban fans have never seen pro-wrestling before, so this is our chance to introduce wrestling to the world.”
The merch, inspired by the graphics and its spirit, features Sukeban scarves, T-shirts starring the four fighter groups and stickers. “It’s a sport, so the idea was to do something souvenir-based,” Prantera says. “The imagery is so compelling; it was easy to put together. With some collaborations we have to work to convince everyone it’s the right path. Olympia wasn’t like that.”
Creating community, building anticipation
The first Sukeban match took place in New York City’s Capitale building on Bowery last September. It sold out in just two hours. “There was a lot of buzz because it was the first time a crew of Japanese wrestlers were wrestling outside of Japan,” Le-Tan says. “So among the wrestling fans, many had only ever seen it online — there was a waiting list.”
Le-Tan then took the league to Miami in December 2023 — which coincided with Art Basel Miami — in a skate park under the highway. There were over 2,000 people present, comprising art scene folks, wrestling fans and “Miami cool kids”, she says. Makeup star Ffrench did the beauty, costumes were designed by Le-Tan, and Newson designed the belt, inspired by his works in the Guggenheim. “It’s probably the best belt in wrestling,” Le-Tan says with a smile. An LA event followed in June of this year, staged at an abandoned downtown hotel, with beauty looks from celebrity makeup artist Kali Kennedy and a food market by local vendors. Attendees included Kennedy’s client Barbie Ferreira, Saweetie, Diplo, Rowan Blanchard, Dev Hynes and Caroline Polachek.
In each city, Sukeban partners with the local community. In Miami, they held a street fair ahead of the event, selling Japanese food and Sukeban merch. They also partnered with local reggaeton club night Out Of Service, who hosted an afterparty and selected the DJs for during the wrestling. In London, space was a little tight, so there was no street fair element, Le-Tan says. Nonetheless, York Hall felt like the perfect venue. “It’s such a historic venue and there’s been so many amazing legendary boxing matches there. We thought it would just sort of all fit into place.”
As an emerging sport in the West and a brand new league, how has Sukeban secured such an impressive roster of collaborators? “We’ve been lucky; a lot of people have come to us,” Le-Tan says. “It’s such a different and crazy kind of project. People get excited and it doesn’t take a lot of convincing. When we first started, it was a bit strange, but now that they’ve seen it and we’ve had a lot of press and our events are super fun. And now that it’s growing, more and more people want to come on board.”
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