FIGURE SKATING COSTUME DESIGNER
YUMI BARNETT-NAKAMURA
Yumi Couture (formerly Y’s Designs) was founded in 2005 in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Its founder and costume designer, Yumi Barnett-Nakamura, serves the growing market for more creative and personalized athletic costumes. Yumi uniquely combines ‘old world’ traditional techniques with modern stylistic sensibilities.
The Yumi Couture story unofficially began generations ago in Kyoto, Japan, the city of a thousand temples. Yumi’s family has been part of Kyoto’s long and rich history in textiles and garment making, including one of Japan’s most enduring cultural symbols, the kimono. Yumi has been influenced by a long line of kimono dressmakers, specializing in techniques that can take over forty years to master and are passed down from one generation to the next. Yumi brings this rich legacy to her handmade costumes. From the highest quality materials to her inspirational designs, she works with each athlete to bring their performances to life. Her focus reflects the kimono-making tradition by emphasizing quality, creativity, and precision.
Yumi Couture has known the world over for creating unique award-winning costumes that can handle the physical stress of the performance while accentuating the beauty and strength of the athlete. Yumi strives to create designs that complement each skater to help them shine on the ice.
Our People
Sayuri Yamaguchi
Social Media Manager
Hello. I’m Lisa! I’m in charge of the YumiCouture website and SNS.
I am honored to be part of the team. I hope I can continue to help spread Yumi’s beautiful costumes around the world by sharing photos of her masterpieces.
Sayoko Yasuda
Kyoto, Japan Staff
Hello. I’m Sayoko, a support member in Kyoto. I am happy to meet a lot of incredible skaters. I am looking forward to bridging Boston and Japanese skaters as well. Thank you.
Our Partners
Skating Club of Boston
is New England’s premier figure skating club, and home to community of families, athletes, and professionals united by their love of skating and a commitment to excellence in every aspect of the sport. As the third oldest skating club in the country, and a founding member of U.S. figure skating, the club has been a longstanding leader in American figure skating. In 2020, the Club experienced one of the most exciting times in its rich 100-plus year history as it opened its new training facility in Norwood, MA.
The Kinoshita Skating Academy
The Kinoshita Skating Academy, operated by the Kinoshita Group aims to train figure skaters who can play an active role in international competitions. We have a year-round skating rink in Kyoto (Kinoshita Academy Kyoto Ice Arena). The Academy has a year-round skating rink in Kyoto (Kinoshita Academy Kyoto Ice Arena), which provides an environment for year-round training.
The general manager is Mie Hamada, who has coached many skaters who have participated in international competitions.
The head coach is Taketo Tamura, and the guest coaches are Stéphane Lambière and Ghislain Briand.
We will train you to be a figure skater with “technical skills” and “expressive power”.
and expressive skills required for Figure Skating.
Hayden Synchronized Skating
was founded in 1979 with one team, and since then, we have been on an incredible journey. Since our beginning, we have always remained true to our core values – excellence, integrity, passion, leadership, creativity, and delivering exceptional performances that reflect the careful development of each individual skater and the focused precision of the whole team. We thank our entire community of athletes, coaches, families, and supporters for joining us on our journey to continually advance the sport of synchronized skating and share our passion for it around the world. We invite you to be a part of our journey.
Mitchell Johansson Method
Brad Vigorito
Led by head coach Brad Vigorito of The Skating Club of Boston, our coaching team comprises of Olympic medalists, National champions, and Sports Physiologists from across the country. We are committed to not only furthering our athletes in skating, but also teaching life lessons that will extend long beyond their competitive days on the ice.
Skatekostin
Skatekostin International is a comprehensive figure skating training program designed by a team of experienced skating professionals dedicated to working with aspiring skaters of all levels to help them achieve their goals.
Hugo Chouinard – Studio Unisons
Hugo’s extensive selection of music provides our skaters with a variety of options when choosing their programs. Hugo offers custom music mix creation as well as on-demand options in a variety of genres, easily searched and available electronically. He works closely with our coaching team to guarantee professional quality music for our athletes.
The Shaper Edge
Former professional skaters themselves, they bring a wealth of hands-on experience and expertise to the fitting of boots, blades sharpening and mounting skates.
Asako Nagashima
Asako Nagashima
Asako has been the music director at Watertown Children’s Theater since 2008 to present. Asako is also well known as an acclaimed pianist, accompanist, private piano teacher . She has been an educator locally for more than 20 years.
Seiko Kitagawa- Japanese Kimono Dressing ~AYAME~
The Kimono is part of Japanese traditional culture. Through the experience of getting dressed in a Kimono in the authentic and traditional Japanese way, or “Kitsuke” (dressing), they hope many people can discover their inner beauty and dignity.
As a dancer Seiko has appeared on major TV shows on NHK(Japanese TV station), talent shows as well as large music festival venues. She also appeared as a featured solo dancer for many music videos by various Japanese Performing Artists.
East/West Sports Acupuncture & Orthopaedics, LLC
Welcome to East/West Sports Acupuncture & Orthopaedics, LLC, a practice that specializes in sports medicine, acute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions, and post-operative surgical orthopedic conditions. East/West Sports Acupuncture & Orthopaedics, LLC unique approach integrates both Traditional Chinese Medicine (acupuncture) and Western orthopedic and sports medicine methods (athletic training and physical therapy); acupuncture, rehabilitation, and the kinesio taping method together to holistically treat each individual’s injury or condition.
Yumi Couture in Press
Costumes make the different in Olympic ice skating. See the article and video on the 7 News website.
The ice rink becomes the runway for female figure skaters. See the article in the Boston Globe.
Skaters shine in outfits by Wellesley’s Yumi Barnett-Nakamura. See the article in the Boston Herald.
How much does it really cost to dress an olympic figure skater?
Boston Japan Festival 2016 Figure Skate Fashion Show
