I like Hello Kitty, And I am Cool

In my elementary school, if you owned anything Hello Kitty, you were cool. The most popular girl in my class was turning 12th and guess what her birthday invitations were? Hello Kitty. Even my best friend at the time had a one-foot-tall Hello Kitty phone, and I was jealous, not only did she have her own phone, but it was also Hello Kitty. What made this intense, adolescent need for these products even greater, were that they was so hard to find. There was only one store in my hometown that carried Hello Kitty, a small dancewear shop located in a local strip mall, and even they had limited merchandise.

When I entered the Hello Kitty store in Times Square, it rekindled an old flame that I thought was put out at least 5 years ago. Before this trip I envisioned my discussion on good Japanese design to solely consist of Muji and their “enough” aesthetic. I love Muji, don’t get me wrong, as a grown up it makes perfect sense in my life. If I could, I would surround myself in it and IKEA products. But, there is something about Hello Kitty, something that just won’t let me deny her round, cherub like face, or her plethora of useful everyday objects.

To my dismay, the Times Square store didn’t carry a lot of the ridiculous Hello Kitty items I remembered, things like the one-foot-tall phone or the Hello Kitty waffle maker. This store just stocked a lot of clothing and fashion accessories, and many of these things seemed geared towards an older generation of women - maybe even women like myself.

Hello Kitty’s empire consists of so much more than clothing and plush toys. It is about a lifestyle, an all encompassing, Hello Kitty lifestyle. The range of products spans a great chasm from home to office, from infant to elder. My favorite thing about the Hello Kitty line is the idea that it is creating a lifestyle for the consumer. At first, every item seems more ridiculous than the last – a sandwich case, a $3000 diamond necklace, and a Fender guitar complete with matching guitar picks. Who needs any of those things? But the more I looked at these items, the more the thinking behind them made sense. The way the merchandise is offered is individual, so that the buyer can chose to what degree they want to immerse themselves in Hello Kitty. I think this idea of production makes liking Hello Kitty manageable. If you just want a Hello Kitty eraser, then you only buy the eraser – but who could stop there?

There are so many items in the Hello Kitty line that are really intelligent and obviously researched designs, like the silicone cake mold, or the Hello Kitty Stratocaster guitar. These specific products are smart design choices because they are building on already successful ideas. Silicone kitchen supplies are at the top of their class in kitchen technology, Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, and Giada Di Laurentas all use silicone utensils on their cooking shows. The Stratocaster guitar is another example of well-researched collaboration. George Harrison and John Lennon, as well as, Pete Townshend used the Stratocaster – it is an icon of rock and roll music.
With a business model like this one it is hard to find one items that doesn’t exemplify good Japanese design, because if you pick on one item, you will be picking on the whole. Like Muji, Hello Kitty is giving you everything; they are giving you the clothes to match the bed sheets to match the toaster. If you say the toaster isn’t important, then why are the bed sheets important? Why is the sandwich case important? Because it’s a part of a greater system, and in the Japanese mindset it is all related to creating a common theme in the consumer’s life. Whether it is a Muji life or a Hello Kitty life, it is consistent life and a consistent style.

Although I am not ready to completely immerse myself in this glamorous Hello Kitty life style, complete with matching drapes. I am planning on purchasing the Hello Kitty waffle maker as soon as I can scrape together $34.98. The finished waffles look like Hello Kitty and her friends, Cathy, the quite bunny, and Tippy, the helpful bear. If that doesn’t impress future houseguests, I might have to ask them to leave.

To me, Hello Kitty will always be this social symbol of my childhood. The prices were almost too much for my parents to deem it suitable for someone my age; spending $13 on a pencil case and 3 pencils, just because it involved a cartoon cat - that no one had heard of - seemed like nonsense to my parents. Looking back on it, they were right, it was nonsense, but not to me. Not to the consumer who has forged some sort of bond with this mouth-less character, someone who thought that these designs exemplified what I, as an 11 year old, wanted everyone to know about me – I like Hello Kitty and I am cool.