Sukeban in Japanese signifies “delinquent girl” — the leader of a girl gang. It’s also the name of a Japanese women’s pro wrestling league cofounded by fashion designer Olympia Le-Tan that’s attracting a stylish crowd.
“It’s kind of a family affair because my sister’s husband had this idea,” Le-Tan explained. “We went on a trip to Japan together and went to see a bunch of these wrestling matches over there. And we just loved it. And so, he asked me if I’d be interested in working on this with him, creating a league of our own and bringing it to the U.S.”
When she had her own clothing brand, which she showed during Paris Fashion Week, Le-Tan was known for her whimsical “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” style, playing with female stereotypes. And she brings a similar sensibility to Sukeban, designing all the costumes and overseeing creative direction.
She brought fights to New York and Miami before the West Coast debut in Los Angeles at Trinity Auditorium last month. A crowd of more than 2,000 gathered for a Japanese street food festival with drinks and plenty of merch before heading inside to watch. Saweetie, Diplo, Barbie Ferreira, Steven Yeun, Greta Lee, Jeffery Deitch, designer Scott Sternberg, Caroline Polachek, Kilo Kish, Dev Hynes and Rock M. Sakura of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” came out, as well as WWE CEO Nick Khan, American wrestler Jon Moxley and former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett.
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Competitors entered via the top of the stage, and took runway-worthy walks to the ring with fans capturing the moments from the wings on their iPhones and cheering on their favorites. There were five matches in total, finishing with the big one: Commander Nakajima against Crush Yuu.
“The champion is Commander Nakajima,” Le-Tan said of results in L.A. “She won again.”
Commander Nakajima, born Arisa Nakajima, defended her title in a Goth look.
“Commander Nakajima is a bit of a dark lord,” explained Le-Tan. “She’s part of the Dangerous Liaisons. And they’re sort of evil, aristocratic types. And so, she’s wearing a commander’s jacket with silver epaulettes and her name in rhinestones on the back. She’s very athletic, so she’s got quite a simple outfit with black riding pants and a bodysuit with her name on it. Crush Yuu is part of the Cherry Bomb girls, and the Cherry Bomb girls are more tomboy, hip-hop-inspired. And so, her look was inspired by Salt-N-Pepa, TLC, that kind of vibe.”
Just as important as the garments is the glam. Le-Tan tapped Devra Kinery and Isamaya Ffrench, respectively, to oversee beauty in New York and Miami. In L.A. it was makeup artist Kali Kennedy who collaborated with hair stylist Dennis Lanni.
“That really appealed to me when I went to see fights in Japan and also having watched a bit of wrestling when I was a kid,” Le-Tan said of beauty artistry in the sport. “It’s always been a thing, but they do it themselves and it’s not really pushed to this level. Because of my background in fashion, I was, like, ‘We can really push this, and we can get some amazing talent to come and create looks for the wrestlers.’”
Using largely MAC Cosmetics, the makeup took about six hours to create altogether, said Le-Tan. The colors are bold, matching eye shadows and liners to the costumes and personas. Commander Nakajima, in shades of gray and black, had on bold lashes and a dark liner. For Crush Yuu, the focus was on the hair, worn in braided and colorful pigtails.
“He weaved all these different colors into their hair,” Le-Tan said of Lanni. “Because of the extremeness of the wrestling, they can’t really wear hairpins, and there’s all these kinds of restrictions so that they don’t get harmed. So, he actually sews things into their hair before the fight, and he’s been doing all these multicolored braids.”
The inspiration starts with the outfits, and the beauty looks come together from there.
“Each time we have calls and we look at the different costumes and talk about their personalities together,” Le-Tan said of working with the artists. “And then they create based on that. I give them the free rein.”
