New Hello Kitty exhibition opens at Seattle’s EMP

I don’t want to brag, but when I was four years old I won the Hello Kitty coloring contest at the Stoneridge Mall. I don’t remember what I won, but I do remember what the prize came packaged in: a cute, paper Hello Kitty sleeve, carefully folded and secured with a strip of Hello Kitty tape, that also held a dangly little toy in place.

I have been hooked ever since.

The EMP opens its latest exhibit this weekend &#8212 Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty.

“The exhibition features over 500 pieces of product from the 1970’s to today,” said Jacob McMurray, senior curator at EMP.

“Interspersed within that are 35 pieces of contemporary pop surrealist art by artists that were inspired by Hello Kitty,” he said. “We also have a good amount of fashion in the exhibition.”

With 41 years of history, Hello Kitty has been a marketing icon, featured on everything from school supplies to bento boxes.

“Her name is Kitty White, she grew up in the suburbs of London,” McMurray said. “Her birthday is November 1. Her favorite food is her mama’s apple pie.”

And just a reminder: Hello Kitty is not a cat, she’s a little girl. A piece of information that came out earlier this year and shocked and stunned fans around the world.

“We always reference her as a little girl,” says Sanrio’s vice president of brand marketing and management, Dave Marchi. “She might be a little girl that looks like a cat, that’s graphically portrayed with feline features. She doesn’t drink milk from a bowl and she doesn’t eat cat food and she doesn’t say ‘meow.’ She’s basically what you want her to be. If you want to think of her as a cat, please do so.”

Marchi, who is based in Los Angeles, showed me some of the more unusual Hello Kitty items on display.

“Motor oil or an ear cleaning pick, toilet paper, feminine napkins, bowling balls. If it’s a product that can be used and we think it can make a fan happy, then we’re interested in making it,” he said.

In fact, in the United States alone, Sanrio creates 150 new products every month and 50,000 exist globally. From Hello Kitty wine to men’s suits to braces.

“We actually have a Hello Kitty dental office in Tokyo,” Marchi says. “There’s a pink themed room, a silver themed room and a black and white themed room.”

Marchi says they’ve never had to convince anyone to wear Hello Kitty.

“This is the kimono gown that Lady Gaga wore for a photo shoot for Hello Kitty’s 35th anniversary,” Marchi said. “She’s wearing this dress made entirely out of Hello Kitties. We had about three days to pull it together and it was in London. So we ran through our offices and grabbed as many Hello Kitty plush [toys] as we could, put them in boxes and shipped it to London where they created this dress.”

The exhibit was originally created for the Japanese American National museum in Los Angeles, where it broke attendance records. Seattle is its second stop. The Friday night launch party &#8212 before the official opening &#8212 completely sold out.

Hello Kitty is the only character that I have continuously liked since I was four years old, so I asked McMurray why he thinks she holds up so well.

“The way that Hello Kitty was designed, she was designed well, that she stands the test of time. Like, it never feels out of date,” McMurray said. “And I think Sanrio’s willingness to really explore how, in really strange ways, Hello Kitty can show up, you know, all the co-branding that they do. Working with Paul Frank or Fender guitars.”

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