Yasunori Kaneko

Yasunori Kaneko is a Tokyo-based fashion designer, leather specialist and co-founder of Obelisk. Before moving into clothing, he worked as a bag designer, an accessories background that became central to the later label: thick hides, hardware, load-bearing construction and pattern engineering are treated as primary design material rather than finishing details. He founded Obelisk with fellow bag designer Makiko Maeara around 1999 and developed the brand in Tokyo around leather, denim, rock culture and motorcycle clothing.

At Obelisk, Kaneko is responsible for original design and pattern development and has remained closely involved with custom work. The company’s Misuji atelier/shop in Taito-ku, documented by the early 2010s and still active in 2026, combines retail, fittings, made-to-order production and workshop activity. In 2014 he also developed Obelisk Grande H-D, a bespoke programme for Harley-Davidson owners built around direct measurement, hide selection and highly individualised leather jackets.

Kaneko continues to lead the operating company as its representative while designing for Obelisk. A 2020 VIBES profile identified him as both representative and designer, and the current company and concept pages retain the same creative and operational role. The label’s longevity has come through the atelier model rather than a conventional runway calendar: enduring jacket and denim patterns, customer commissions, material experiments and small product releases remain the centre of the practice.

Kaneko approaches clothing through the structural logic of leather goods. Original buckles, buttons and zip pulls, dense stitch work and heavily manipulated hides are integrated into the pattern from the beginning, while bag-making experience informs how garments carry weight and hardware. Rider jackets and denim are therefore conceived as engineered objects whose construction should remain legible after years of wear.

Motorcycle use gives that construction a practical test. Kaneko’s custom work adjusts fit, leather, hardware and finish to a specific wearer and, in the Grande H-D programme, to the character of a client’s motorcycle. The studio’s ‘Only1’ language describes a made-to-order system built from established Obelisk patterns and then altered through sizing, hide choice, distressing and detail, keeping individual variation inside a recognisable design vocabulary.

The wider philosophy is expressed by Obelisk as ‘Everyday Luxury’: durable material, handwork and personal use take precedence over novelty for its own sake. Kaneko’s practice is correspondingly iterative. Core rider silhouettes can remain in circulation while their surfaces, leathers and construction details change, and the Misuji workshop functions as the place where production, repair, fitting and design are kept close to one another.