Yumiko Takeshima

Yumiko Takeshima, designer and founder was born in Asahikawa, Japan to parents who owned a small Kimono business, Takeshima began dancing at the age of four in Sapporo, Japan. At the age of 14 she left home to study with the San Francisco Ballet school, soon after receiving her first professional dance contract.

In 1993, Yumiko Takeshima moved from New York City to join the Dutch National Ballet, where she continued to develop her passion for designing dancewear and costumes. In early 2002 she launched YUMIKO dancewear and the YumiGirl Network.

Since 2002, Takeshima has continued to develop her made-to-order line, as well as a ready-to-wear line, of high quality, great fitting, and beautifully designed dance and activewear for women and men. In addition, since moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands, Takeshima has designed costumes for numerous choreographers, most notably David Dawson and William Forsythe and has been praised in the press not only as a dancer, but also for designing some of the most elegant, simple, and beautiful dance costumes in the European dance world.

Since Yumiko's retirement from from dance in April 2014, Yumiko has been focused on designing and developing new styles and products for the company.

The Leotard

Yumiko makes one thing.

Since 2002, the leotard has been the whole of our work, a single garment, returned to and refined rather than added to. It began with a handful of designs by Yumiko Takeshima, a ballerina who couldn't find a leotard that moved the way she did, and so drew her own. Dancers recognised them at once. They still do.

Much of what we make is cut to order. You choose the line, the fabric, the length of a sleeve, the rise of a leg, and the piece is made for one body, yours. Next to the made-to-order work sits an equal collection of ready-to-wear, along with the Black Label, unique, exclusive designs that are most fully Yumiko's own.

Today the leotards are still made by hand in Cazalla de la Sierra, a white town in the Andalusian hills north of Seville, by people who have spent years learning the particular discipline a leotard asks for. Our work has dressed the choreography of William Forsythe and David Dawson, and a great deal of dancing the world never learns a name for.

We don't chase the season. We make the leotard, well, and then we make it again.