The Mouthless Kitten

I woke up beaming this morning; wrapped in my heavenly 400-thread-count Hello Kitty sheet set, I pulled off my Hello Kitty sleep mask and set my feet down on my Hello Kitty area rug. Feeling oh-so-cute and, very much, well rested, I floated into the bathroom to brush my teeth with my pink Hello Kitty toothbrush.

Since pretty girls don’t go out with messy hair, I elicited the help of my Hello Kitty ceramic hair straightener to tame my wild bed head. My face took joy in its beautification thanks to the help of my Hello Kitty MAC makeup. Now that I was finally put together, I was back in my room to find the perfect Hello Kitty ensemble. I pulled an adorable black and white, striped off-the-shoulder, Hello Kitty shirt over my head and proceeded to step into my denim Hello Kitty mini-skirt. I made my way toward the front door, confident that singing birds and apple pies waited for me on the other side of the door . . . and then, then I woke up for real this time!

More than happy to be out of that alternate dimension of pie-in-the-sky, cutesy consumerism, it struck me that that mouthless kitten could rule my waking life as well.

Created in 1974, when Sanrio, a Japanese stationary and gifts company, sought to appeal to the target group of preteen girls, Hello Kitty first appeared on coin purses and went on to be come the face, and representation, of Sanrio. Today, the bowed kitten is one of the world’s leading marketing brands and has inspired an entire generation of girls (and a few guys too) to be part of her unspeakably adorable world, with a Hello Kitty version of just about anything you can think of.

Outside of just representing Sanrio as a whole, Hello Kitty has been a busy girl landing deals with Fender, which produces a rockin’ Hello Kitty Stratocaster, Mastercard and Visa. Tapei, Taiwan proudly boasts an entire house that was given the Hello Kitty treatment inside and out, as well as a Hello Kitty themed restaurant and a Hello Kitty jet that flies to Japan at 90% capacity, and that’s on a regular day.

Companies such as Asics, entrepreneur Kimora Lee Simmons and even Tokidoki have acquired licenses to distribute their own Hello Kitty products and apparel.

Over time people have speculated that Hello Kitty’s rampant popularity is due to her infamous blank stare that allows whoever is looking at her to project their own feelings, but I feel Hello Kitty’s chief designer, Yuko Yamaguchi, put it best, “Hello Kitty can wear Laura Ashley but also punk rock leather. She has a wide audience, and she’s very flexible because everything goes with white.”

However, despite her large and continuously growing line of products, Ms. Kitty White—yes, that is her actual name—is a simple girl. She lives with her mom, dad and twin sister in a suburb on the outskirts of London, she’s in the 3^rd grade, and she loves stars and candy. Kitty even has a boyfriend! His name is Dear Daniel but, unfortunately, they rarely see each other, he is always on an endless African safari—his father is a photographer—but don’t be too sad, she writes to him every day.