Goro Takahashi - Yellow Eagle -
Goro Takahashi (June 29, 1939 – November 25, 2013), also known as Yellow Eagle, was a Japanese silversmith and leather craftsman best known for his Native American–inspired jewelry and the influential brand Goro’s.
During junior high school, Takahashi attended a summer camp in the forests of Hayama, Kanagawa, where he met an American soldier stationed in Japan who taught him leather crafting despite the language barrier. Takahashi continued visiting him over several years, and before returning to the United States, the soldier gifted him his leatherworking tools. At age 16, Takahashi left school and began crafting leather belts engraved with floral motifs characteristic of the American West. In 1956, he founded Goro’s in Tokyo.
In 1967, Takahashi traveled to the United States, where he first encountered Native American silverwork in a New York museum. He returned several times, and in 1971 met a silversmith named Jed in Flagstaff, Arizona, who taught him the basics of silversmithing. Takahashi subsequently began producing Native American–inspired silver jewelry in Japan.
In 1979, he visited the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he was adopted by a Lakota family and given the name Yellow Eagle. That same year, he became the first Japanese person permitted to participate in a Sun Dance ceremony. These experiences deeply influenced his work, which often featured eagles, feathers, and the medicine wheel.
Goro’s gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s alongside Japan’s Amekaji and Shibuya Casual fashion movements. Takahashi’s one-customer-at-a-time policy and the iconic log outside his Harajuku store contributed to the brand’s mystique.
Despite losing a finger in a fire accident in 1987, Takahashi continued working until the 2000s, when he retired to focus on creative pursuits.
Takahashi began riding motorcycles in his mid-40s and owned several Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles in both Japan and the United States. At age 50, he undertook a solo journey on a red 1937 Indian Chief, riding from Los Angeles to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to attend a ceremony. He frequently visited the Little Sky family each August, often staying for three months, living in a tipi and riding motorcycles with his adoptive brother, Beau Little, who was also a biker. While in South Dakota, Takahashi participated in the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
In 1992, he embarked on a transcontinental motorcycle trip from Los Angeles to New York City via Milwaukee. Despite riding an Indian motorcycle, he attended Harley-Davidson’s 90th anniversary celebration, where he met Willie G. Davidson.
He died in 2013 at the age of 74.
