Cosplayer Spotlight: Yaya Han

Yaya Han is a costume designer, model and cosplayer. For the past 10 years, Yaya has been living her dream as an artist by creating full costumes and fashion pieces. In this interview, we look into her motivations behind her love of the cosplay art form.

Interview by Ayden Gotzmer – Photos taken from www.yayahan.com unless credited otherwise. Edited by E. Ortiz

How did you get started in Cosplay?
Y: I got started in Cosplay eleven years ago through an anime club in Tucson, Arizona. We were planning a trip to Anime Expo where we had a bus and the whole anime club was going. A week before the convention, I did some research and saw people dressed up in costumes. I thought it was such a cool concept and threw together my first little Japanese-style Kimono. I went to Anime Expo, saw a group of fantastic Kenshin cosplayers — that was my favorite manga at the time — and just had to do it. I’d never sewn or made anything before. I was always an artist — I drew and painted a lot but the idea of translating a 2-D artwork into real clothing and real life was very fascinating to me. From the beginning, there was no turning back. I signed my life away, basically.

So how old were you when you started?
Y: I was 16 or 17. I was a senior in high school.

When you choose your costumes what are your criteria? Do you choose from a favorite series?
Y: When I first started cosplaying, I could only choose what I could make, what I had the skill to do. But I loved the craftsmanship so much that I started choosing characters that I could challenge myself with. If there was a part on the costume that I didn’t know how to do yet, I’d try to tackle it. I would give that character a go and start accumulating skills. Each character I cosplay, I definitely have a connection with. I don’t just pick out the best character of the year or something, I have to have a connection with that character. I need to relate to them somehow. These days I go and cosplay classic characters because they are the most dear to me. Now that I have the skills, I can go back and do those characters.

How do you challenge yourself now?
Y: Seams can always be cleaner, you can put more detail in, and the costumes can look more professional and be easier to maintain. I love cosplay because there’s very little limit to it and there is always something to improve upon. I have costumes in the making and materials purchased that will continue to challenging me. Create stuff I haven’t done before. For instance, I want to make something very armor-based. I want to do something futuristic but on the other hand I want to do a very traditional Chinese Hanfu style from the Tang Dynasty. I want to go back to my cultural roots and study how the clothes were made back in China hundreds of years ago.

Where would you begin on something like that?
Y: I do have family in China and I do get to go every once in a while but it would be amazing to buy the fabrics in China and use the silks there. There are some things like ornaments that you can’t get outside of China — you have to get it imported. Honestly a lot of it is going to be doing research on artwork and learning the different dynasties and what was proper back then and adding in my own flair. I want to make actually a Chinese fox demon costume — like the kitsune in Japan but more sinister, like a Chinese succubus — a fantasy costume but with hopefully a lot of historical elements to it.

How do you feel you’ve progressed over the years as you’ve moved into very elaborate designs?
Y: I hope that no matter what that I can continue to stay true to myself and to have fun. I do this for myself and no one else; to have this as a pure outlet of creativity. The progression (as a cosplayer) isn’t as fast as I’ve wanted it to be and obviously I have other ambitions that haven’t been realized yet but any good thing takes time, hard work and effort. I’ve got lots of goals and plans in the works.

What is the most difficult part in creating your costumes? Is it the finding of materials or the planning?
Y: Each project is completely different. Some projects are about the fit and the fabric and some are wrestling with the type of fabric and some are wrestling with the sheer amount of fabric. I’m drowning in it trying to sew! My least favorite thing to do when I’m cosplaying is ironing. I hate ironing. It’s so tedious and takes time. The second least favorite thing is cutting things out; you’re just bent over on the floor because not even a cutting table will work with the amount of fabric. I like details and making little things and then making them all come together and I think now it’s all about finding the time to do it. I have less free time now to do personal projects.

Where do you store all of your costumes?
Y: I’ve only sold a few outfits — a few out of necessity, where I was out of money and someone offered me a lot of money for wings. Some of them are completely retired. They are in such bad shape but they are so, so, sentimental to me that I can’t throw them out. I actually have most of my costumes and they are taking over a fourth closet, two in rooms and two in portable closets and some boxes in the basement. And storing fabric and my notions, craft items… I don’t mean to horde… I try to be a good shopper but sometimes when it’s a good deal you have to stock up.

How do you go about making your own patterns?
Y: I wish I had gone to class for pattern drafting. If it were ever offered in Atlanta, that is still something I would love to do. I just drape it on and draft myself, measuring my body, drawing out how I think it should look and drawing it out with a piece of muslin or scrap fabric and if it kind of works then you just go for it. It would be rather boring if I knew how to make every pattern for the costumes. The fun part is to venture into the unknown and experiment.

How has the genre of cosplay evolved and progressed over the years and how will it progress over the years to come?
Y: It’s amazing how far cosplay has come. I want to do a panel on cosplay history because I want to tell stories like “Back in the day when I was cosplaying and we were young we had no good photography and crappy hallway photos and nobody cared for make-up or this or that…” Now, the level of quality and standard is just rising month by month with each convention. The amount of people doing it now is just staggering. Now, most anime fans, most convention attendees…maybe 90% or 95% are cosplaying now. Most people who have gone to a convention now have felt the urge to cosplay and I think that says a lot about us as a community and as a culture. We love this stuff so much. I see it completely taking over one day.

However, the amount of people making their own costumes has gone down. I’ve experienced it on my own. When I started out, everyone you saw made their own costumes, but now you can buy the costumes, commission someone, buy them on eBay, or get them shipped over from China. I would hate to see that creative side of it go away and I still try to encourage the newcomers to do as much as possible on their outfits. If they don’t want to sew, then they should concentrate on wigs or props—to put something of themselves in the costume. It’s more fun and more rewarding and it is honestly the only reason I’m still doing this after ten years. I would have been so burnt out by now.

There is very much a sense among outsiders that China and Japan are using cosplay to gain access to the United State culture. Where do you think it may be coming from and what about the tension that may arise from it?
Y: I’ve always received a very positive reaction about my costumes. I can’t remember a time when I’d received a negative attitude. I never felt ostracized or unwelcome but I think it depends on your behavior. If your running around being wild — even as a character — and destroying things… I hope that as anime becomes more mainstream that the ‘outsiders’, the mainstream ‘muggles,’ start to understand that we are enjoying a hobby andthat we are not worshiping asian cultures. It is a fascinating world. I went to Japan for the first time this year and I fell in love with it but it doesn’t mean that I want to live my life the Japanese way. I think that because anime is still underground and video games are a little more mainstream there are a lot of miscommunications and misconceptions about anime characters and their fans. Hopefully, they will learn that anime and manga is simply a medium and that there are ratings. It just needs more time to hit the general population.

Do you believe that Cosplay is fad? Do you believe it will ever die down?
Y: I do not think it will die down anytime soon and I’m honestly not sure what is going to happen but I see it getting bigger. Whether or not it comes to a point where the bubble bursts will depend on the cosplayers. Will we have a good reputation or a bad reputation? In Japan, you’re not allowed to cosplay at the conventions. Either you can cosplay in a certain area or not at all. In America that question is not being raised but we definitely need to be on good behavior and separate reality from fiction. I would hate to see someone do something stupid and ruin it for everyone. I think even if it was banned, people will still do it. They would still post photos and go to meet-ups.

Did they give a reason for why cosplay was banned?
Y: No, but I assume maybe it was caused by traffic jams?

Do you feel like the rules of the Japanese cosplayers aids the cosplayers or is it restrictive?
Y: I think it a bit of both. On one hand it is good to have certain rules and making sure people aren’t running over with fake blood dripping or body paint smearing on everybody or props that could hurt people. Of course, this means for certain characters you can’t “realize” them. I would love to see an event when you can discuss more mature topics but also see certain events where it’s more family-oriented. In America they are trying to walk that fine line of rules—what’s fair and what’s necessary for safety. Not all conventions are the same either — you wear a costume to one convention and you try to wear it at another and you can’t.

The masquerade is tomorrow night and you are a judge. What are you looking for in the masquerade tomorrow night?
Y: Having been a contestant myself, I try to look at overall quality of the outfit — the detail and how much effort was put in — but also the level of skill. For me personally, I like seeing people compete in a new costume. If I’ve judged you before in the same outfit, I’m not quite sure why you’re here again — especially if you’ve won a big award. In the end, it comes to the coordinator, whatever they say we have to follow because ultimately, we don’t make up the rules. We just judge based on the best of our abilities. If the coordinator says that it doesn’t matter if they’ve won before then that’s what happens. I have to be very objective and take the emotions out of it because I have friend who are almost always in the masquerades.

How was it for you and your first masquerade?
Y: My first masquerade we didn’t win anything — which is fine. We had a lot of fun and we did actually go in front of the panel of judges, which is nice because some conventions don’t have craftsmanship judging. That’s something that has improved greatly. When I competed when I was starting out, I was judged by voice actors or guests or the convention but they weren’t cosplayers so they had no idea what to look for and the would often pick their favorite characters or characters they had voiced before and that’s totally fine but because cosplay is such a craftsmanship heavy pastime that you need someone with enough experience to judge people. But thank goodness that conventions have garnered cosplayers to become judges and now conventions are run by cosplayers or aided by cosplayers.

How long do your costumes take and where do you get your materials?
Y: I get things from everywhere. I order things a lot online. When I lived in LA I went to the fabric district and shopped like mad. I even go to fabric decorator stores, thrift stores sometimes. I will take materials from a coat or whatever. The research and the hunting of materials is often more stressful and time consuming than the making of the costume. There are outfits that I have had to wait years to find the right material. It takes a lot of dedication and patience and spending hours on Google and spending hours going through websites to find exactly what you’re looking for.

Do you have any favorite hotspots that you keep returning to for materials?
Y: Absolutely. Anything stretchy I get from Spandexworld.com and anything super fancy there is a
little fabric store in Atlanta where I live that gets fabric from the fabric stores in NY. So it’s really overpriced but you can find some amazing things there. I do go to Joann’s and Hancock. For corset needs I go to Farthingales.on.ca. After a while you get a roster of stores to go to. I buy all my wigs on Ebay. Shoes at electricboutique.com.

What advice to you have for cosplayers?
Y: I advise everyone to be patient and to take time in honing his or her skills. I think a lot of cosplayers have a lot of ambition and want certain things that they want to do but they might not have the skills to make it yet. They haven’t practiced yet and they need to make sure to take their time on it. It will go smoother and it will last longer and overall you will be more happy and proud of your results. They shouldn’t get deterred from others – don’t worry about being judged and don’t let it catch up with you. Make sure that you do it for yourself. Always remember that it’s your money and your time.

You’ve become internationally acclaimed. How have you dealt with that?
Y: I’ve only in the last couple years started looking at it as reality before I was in denial. I’m like oh-whatever. And now I realize that I do influence people. And every convention and every week someone will come up to me at a con and say you are the reason I started cosplaying and you’ve inspired me to get better. That’s better than getting a compliment on my outfit and it gives me a lot of responsibility — to not only take that compliment gracefully but also know my actions are affecting others. My friends have tried to tell me that I am a role model to them and I have only recently been able to handle that term. If anything I think that I have been in this community long enough that I have enough knowledge and experience that I can be of help to others and give advice. When I travel overseas, I try to act as an ambassador for American cosplay and represent the best of that we are. So it’s very flattering but also a lot of responsibility.

What other project do you have planned?
Y: I definitely… I have some armor heavy pieces that I want to do and I don’t want to say what because as soon as I do everybody is going be “when is that coming out.” So I generally don’t like talking about future costumes cause I don’t know what my schedule is going to be like.

Like it may be years before a piece comes out.
Y: Exactly. I have materials and I’m ready to go for Chun Li. I’m also going for Tifa. I’m going to do all of the classic game characters that I like. I’m going to do Taki from Soul Caliber. I want to do a character from Lotus Wars and maybe a few unexpected things that I won’t reveal yet….