Hello Kitty Not A Kitty???

Hello Kitty not a cat, company says ... or is she?
Published August 28, 2014 · FoxNews.com



For 40 years, her face has adorned backpacks and lunch boxes, jewelry and theme restaurants, TV shows and even laptops.

Hello Kitty has long been a staple of Japanese pop culture, but for decades, one expert says, the world has been under a false impression.

Hello Kitty -- despite having a name that's 50 percent devoted to the term that refers to a young cat -- is no feline.

She is, rather, a little girl, the Los Angeles Times reports.

"She's never depicted on all fours," Christine R. Yano, an anthropologist with the University of Hawaii who is curator of a Hello Kitty retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in October, told the newspaper. "She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat."

It's not a matter of opinion, either, Yano said. When she was preparing written texts for the museum's exhibit, she made the mistake of referring to Hello Kitty as, well, a cat.

Wrong answer.

"I was corrected -- very firmly," Yano told the Times. "That's one correction Sanrio (the company that owns the character) made for my script for the show."

However, a rep for Sanrio is now refuting the quotes made by Yano, saying that Hello Kitty is “a personification of a cat.”

“Hello Kitty was done in the motif of a cat,” the rep told Kotaku. “It's going too far to say that Hello Kitty is not a cat. Hello Kitty is a personification of a cat."

So there.

Some other facts about Hello Kitty, according to Yano:

• She's British.

• She is a Scorpio.

• She loves apple pie.

• She has a twin sister, and is a perpetual third-grader.

• Her actual name is Kitty White.

Wikipedia, for what it's worth, refers to Kitty as a Japanese bobtail cat, though her species isn't made clear on www.Sanrio.com, where a page devoted to the character's 40th anniversary says she was created "to inspire happiness, friendship, and sharing across the world."

Published 1 hour ago
Balenciaga unveils $2,590 Hello Kitty bag


Hello Kitty is moving up in the world.

The collaboration-crazy cat has partnered with luxury Parisian brand Balenciaga on a collection of accessories with the classic Hello Kitty character — and a hefty price tag.

The character, created by Yuko Shimizu in 1974, started out on a coin purse but expanded to decorate everything from skateboards and sneakers to Polaroid cameras and air purifiers.

And now Hello Kitty has hit runways, too. In September, at Balenciaga’s spring 2020 show, male models toted black, pink and white versions of the brand’s iconic Ville bag, all emblazoned with the unmistakable cartoon cat.


(Photo: Balenciaga)

The fashion world loves a good pop culture collaboration these days -- see the recent Levi’s hookup with Netflix’s “Stranger Things” -- especially when it comes to referencing childhood favorites. Throwback brands such as Good Luck Trolls have made their way from trinkets in children’s rooms to the runway, when they showed up on Moschino’s catwalk in Milan last year.

As for the Balenciaga Hello Kitty collection, the items still have that familiar cute face, but they’re clearly not for toddlers. This medium Ville top-handle bag is for serious fans with bank accounts that can handle a price tag of $2,590.

The collaboration includes other items that are bound to be at least a little more accessible, such as a phone holder, an XXS tote and an XS camera bag.

The collection will be available worldwide Jan. 27.

This story was originally published by the New York Post.