Sandra Akemi Sakata (August 24, 1940 – September 21, 1997) was an American

fashion designer Fashion design is the Art (skill), art of applied arts, applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction, and natural beauty to clothing and its Fashion accessory, accessories. It is influenced by diverse cultures and different trends and has va ...

Obituary for Sandra Sakata by J.L. Pimsleur and Trish Donnally
articles.sfgate.com, September 24, 1997 and fashion retailer. She was a proponent of the art to wear movement and featured one-of-a-kind creations at her boutique Obiko. Which she co-founded in 1972 with Kaisik Wong, Alex Mate and Lee Brooks on Sacramento Street, San Francisco,. She sought to showcase the work of artists she met in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. A Japanese-American, she was known for being an "exquisitely dressed" "dynamo" and who traveled in the

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

. In her apartment she displayed some the goods she found during her travels.

Background

Sakata was born in

Watsonville, California Watsonville is a city in Santa Cruz County, California, in the Monterey Bay Area of the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. The population was 52,590 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Predominantly Latino and ...

in 1940. She spent her early years in the

Poston internment camp The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County, Arizona, Yuma County (now in La Paz County) in southwestern Arizona, was the largest (in terms of area) of the 10 American Internment of Japanese Americans, concentration camps operated by the ...

in Arizona following the enforcement of

Executive Order 9066 Executive Order 9066 was a President of the United States, United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the fo ...

. Sakata graduated from

California State University, Chico California State University, Chico (Chico State) is a public university in Chico, California. It was founded in 1887 as one of about 180 "normal schools" founded by state governments in the 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing ...

and received a teaching certificate from the

University of Hawaiʻi The University of Hawaiʻi System is a public college and university system in Hawaii. The system confers associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees through three universities, seven community colleges, an employment training center, ...

. She worked as a

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

for

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and more commonly known as Pan Am, was an airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States for ...

for six years before returning to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. In the mid-1970s she "found her true metier" and became a boutique owner.

Life and career

The Obiko boutique featured avantgarde window displays and sold the works of many San Francisco designers. Items sold included

tie-dye Tie-dye is a term used to describe a number of resist dyeing techniques and the resulting dyed products of these processes. The process of tie-dye typically consists of folding, twisting, pleating, or crumpling fabric or a garment, before binding ...

d dresses, handwoven scarves, hand-painted jackets and handcrafted jewelry. "I had met so many talented artists in San Francisco, and I wanted to showcase their work", Sakata recounted in a 1995 interview. "I didn't want to just line the clothes up on a rack. I created a total environment of paintings, antiques, sculpture and flowers to set a mood for the clothing and jewelry." Sakata played an important role in promoting the wearable art movement. She both inspired and mentored designers to produce jewelry, hand knits, woven fabrics, and hand-dyed silks inspired by ethnic influences worldwide. Some of those pieces became emblematic of the "art-to-wear" movement. These designs were included at the flagship store, located on Sutter Street near Union Square. She expanded Obiko in 1983 with an outpost at the Bergdorf Goodman store in New York, which closed in 1997.

Death

Sakata died of

breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...

at her home in San Francisco on September 21, 1997 at age 57. She was survived by her mother, her brother and a niece and nephew.

Legacy

One of Jean Cacicedo's

shibori is a Japanese manual tie-dyeing technique . It originated in Ancient China and was adopted by Japan, which produces a number of different patterns on fabric. History One of the earliest written descriptions of dates to 238 CE, where it was r ...

designs is called "For Sandra" in homage to Sakata and Obiko. In 2014 the aforementioned Cacicedo along with Ana Lisa Hedstrom, fiber artist and former colleague at Obiko, compiled an archive of the artists and the work they made during their time at the boutique. It was presented at the Biennial Symposium for the Textile Society of America.This archive documents the Art Wear Movement in Obiko from the 1980s to the 1990s.

Background

Life and career

Death

Legacy

References

Further reading