(CNN) — It weighs three apples and is five apples long. She loves baking cookies and dreams of becoming a pianist or poet. And today, despite her timeless appearance, she is 50 years old.

Friday marks half a century since Japanese merchandising company Sanrio created the first iteration of Kitty White, or Hello Kitty, a cheerful feline girl (and not, as her creator controversially revealed in 2014, a cat ) who lives with his family in the suburbs of London. In the decades since her debut, she has become a UNICEF ambassador, a special envoy for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the subject of themed restaurants, cafes, two amusement parks and even a maternity.

As such, Hello Kitty is also a commercial giant that has earned its creator an estimated $80 billion, placing it alongside Pokémon, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie-the-Pooh among the most profitable franchises in history. Unlike others on the list, however, the merchandise was not a profitable extension of Hello Kitty’s on-screen popularity – that was its raison d’être all along.

Designed to adorn stationery and children’s stationery, it was first drawn by Yuko Shimizu, one of Sanrio’s in-house illustrators, in 1974. The company wanted designs that embodied “kawaii”, a Japanese term for kindness, and the 24-year-old’s cat. -as if creation were inspired by a kitten that his father had given him as a gift. Hello Kitty made her commercial debut the following year, appearing on a line of vinyl purses alongside several other new characters.

It proved, by far, to be the company’s most popular new model. Sanrio’s sales soared almost immediately when his image was plastered on toys, stickers and more. But while the character’s early success can be attributed to Shimizu’s simple, memorable design – featuring a mouthless face, yellow oval nose, whiskers and a bow – her status as a pop culture icon is due to the illustrator Yuko Yamaguchi.

Considered Hello Kitty’s third designer (Shimizu left Sanrio three years after inventing the character and was replaced by Setsuko Yonekubo, who briefly oversaw design in the late 1970s), Yamaguchi helmed the visual identity of the character for almost 45 years. Speaking to CNN at Sanrio headquarters in Tokyo, she recalled joining the company at a time when Hello Kitty products were losing popularity.

In 1979, Sanrio decided to revitalize the brand and Yamaguchi was one of several illustrators tasked with creating and presenting new images. Realizing that Hello Kitty was a budding musician, she drew a scene depicting the character surrounded by her family after receiving her first grand piano.

“Even though Hello Kitty says she wants to be a pianist, she has never been shown playing the piano,” she said, adding: “I was asked to be the creator of Hello Kitty on site.”

Yamaguchi began meeting with Hello Kitty fans, past and present, to understand why sales were declining. She also made a formative year-long visit to San Francisco in 1984, amid growing American interest in teddy bears. After returning to Japan, Yamaguchi began creating new designs and a group of friends for Hello Kitty, including the teddy bear Tiny Chum.

“I wanted Hello Kitty to become more energetic,” she said. “And since she was the face of Sanrio and was born as a symbol of friendship, I wanted to make a lot of friends with her.”

A subtle evolution

Even though Hello Kitty’s key features have remained largely unchanged, Yamaguchi (who previously said Time review that the character had no mouth “so people looking at her could project their own feelings onto her face”) placed her in different scenarios, broadening her appeal.

“She’s good at sports, and she also looks cute and chic,” she explained. “I think of it as a blank canvas that you can turn into all kinds of things. There’s not much she doesn’t like… I think when everyone talks to Hello Kitty, she probably responds to it in some way.

Sales of Hello Kitty products flourished in Japan between the 1980s and mid-1990s. Much of the company’s earlier products were aimed at young girls, including school supplies and personal care items like brushes. with teeth. But even then, illustrator Yamaguchi knew that the character would have to evolve and grow with her fans.

It’s a realization that the illustrator traces back to a letter she received from a fan in 1987: “She was a big fan of Hello Kitty but, in the letter, she wrote that her friends and family parents had told her that he was a children’s character, and that she should have outgrown him. But she didn’t want to, so she asked me to make products for high school students like her.

Inspired by trends she observed at the time in Tokyo’s Harajuku fashion district, Yamaguchi began incorporating contemporary style into her designs, hoping to appeal to older fans. In 1999, Sanrio told the New York Times that the character appeared on 12,000 new product lines a year, covering almost every category imaginable, from clothing to board games, greeting cards to lunch boxes. The company also began using Hello Kitty on more adult-oriented items, such as electronics and kitchen appliances, as it became clear that nostalgia was becoming a major selling point.

As a result, some of Hello Kitty’s biggest fans today are those who grew up with her in the ’80s and ’90s. Among them is Asako Kanda, who started collecting Sanrio merchandise in third grade and now has over 10,000 items adorned with the character’s expressionless face.

“My mother gave me Hello Kitty stationery and school supplies like pencil cases and plastic boards. When I saw them I thought they were so cute and they quickly became my favorite. This is where it all started,” she said, showing CNN a room dedicated to Hello Kitty in her Tokyo home. “Once I started buying things for myself, I was able to get items for the kitchen, bathroom and other daily necessities. From that moment on, I wanted to unify everything with Hello Kitty.

After more than 36 years of collecting, Kanda still buys about two Hello Kitty items each month. Sanrio releases new products every week and she scans them for anything “memorable or cute.”

“As life goes on, there are times when you face unpleasant or sad experiences,” she said. “During these times, looking at Hello Kitty products brought me comfort and solace.”

Go global

As the Japanese economy stagnated in the 1990s, Sanrio expanded its international presence. In Hello Kitty’s early years, the company sold products door-to-door in the United States, before opening the first overseas branch of its retail store, Gift Gate, in San Jose in 1976. But following an explosion of Western interest in Japan, culturally – from “Dragon Ball Z” to Tamagotchi and Beyblade – it captured the imagination of American consumers at the turn of the millennium, according to Atsuo Nakayama, a specialist Japanese sociologist in the entertainment industry.

“Right after 9/11, the world was changing,” he told CNN. “And I think that Japanese ‘kawaii’ culture was, in one way or another, a suitable alternative for America.”

Much of Hello Kitty’s commercial success was achieved through licensing. It spawned books, video games and animated television series, such as the feature film “Hello Kitty and Friends,” which helped further develop her character. (Although, despite growing up in London, she was given a North American accent in the English-dubbed versions.) She also participated in deals with major consumer and luxury brands and appeared on a EVA Air plane, Fender Stratocaster and Swarovski guitars. jewelry.

And while the decline of Sanrio’s fortunes at the turn of the 2010s led to fears that Hello Kitty’s cultural relevance was fading, the company’s stock price has soared over the past two years. It is now more than 10 times its lowest level during the Covid era. According to Atsuo, nostalgia is once again a key driver – in Japan and abroad.

“Hello Kitty is on the rise again in America, and I think it’s because the first generation has now become parents and passed (its interests) down to their children,” Atsuo said, adding: “(Its popularity) has risen and fallen several times like that, and it creates a regular opportunity for people captivated by Hello Kitty to remember it and want to pick it up again.

Sanrio’s recent successes are also due in part to its diversification away from Hello Kitty. The character now represents only about 30% of Sanrio’s gross profit from product and licensing sales, down from 76% ten years earlier, according to the Wall Street Journal. Recent creations like Gudetama (a lazy egg yolk) and Aggressive Retsuko (an introverted red panda with a love for death metal) have both been featured in their own Netflix series.

Yet even if Sanrio’s business model changes, Yamaguchi believes Hello Kitty will endure.

“Of course, there are many characters in the world who have been around longer than Hello Kitty,” the illustrator said, adding, “I hope she continues to work hard so that she can celebrate her 100th birthday in 50 years. .”

The-CNN-Wire
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