Yohji Yamamoto Hello Kitty

As was recently announced, Hello Kitty’s parent company, Sanrio, is collaborating with award winning fashion designer, Yohji Yamamoto, to create a new line called Kitty’s.

Following this collaboration, Yamamoto now adds Kitty’s to his impressive list of fashion lines, which includes his main lines Yohji Yamamoto and Y’s, as well as his sports fashion line Y3 (collaboration with Adidas).

Often described as the artist/poet of the fashion industry, Yamamoto is known for his avant-garde style and innovative designs. His chic creations are concurrently classic and progressive, which defy current trends and fashion stereotypes, and transcend gender norms. His desire to “achieve anti-fashion through fashion” had seen statement piece after stunning statement piece, firmly securing his position at the forefront of the fashion revolution.

Kitty’s will see Yamamoto’s team being in charge of production development and branding of the famous Sanrio character. The collection will include apparels and accessories featuring the Hello Kitty and My Melody characters, with two stores in Japan set to open this spring.

The Kitty’s line marks the second of such anime/fashion collaborations this year, with the first being this winter’s Frozen/Comme des Garçons collab. So what’s next? A Ghibli/Tsumori Chisato collab?

Given Yamamoto’s signature oversized silhouettes in black, it would be both bizarre and interesting to see how his style is juxtaposed against Hello Kitty kawaii-ness. The New York Magazine could not have described it better: “Since it’s Yohji, we can only hope that plenty of deconstruction monochrome will affect the whimsy”. Yes, here’s fervently hoping so.