#hkcon2014

Some photos from my friend Ichi and I at Hello Kitty Con 2014! We had so much fun!

Summary of con:

I was there for Hello Kitty everything….obviously. Ha ha ha. Honestly while I like Hello Kitty….I love some of the other Sanrio characters more. Cinnamoroll, Twin Stars, Charmy Kitty, and of course Tuxedo Sam are my favorites….so yea I had to go. I went with my friend Ichigo and while we somehow did not realize that tickets would sell out like they did we managed to get Friday badges; and then thankfully got some of the last slots for both the tea parties they held on Friday and Saturday. It was held in Downtown LA in Little Tokyo. Totally fell in love with that place by the way. Needless to say, seeing as this con sell completely out of all their badges about three months before the actual con it was very popular. There were all sorts of amazing people there and TV interviewers. It was nuts, but an awesome kind of nuts.

Expenses for the con: ¥¥¥¥¥

Badge: ¥¥¥¥¥

$30 (about for one day) and $40 (for the tea parties and this was per a tea party….but you got really big and cool gift bags worth almost the price of the tea party fee so more than worth it.)

Hotel per night: ¥

we stayed at the Kawada Hotel….which has very small rooms….so be warned…but really you’re not there except to sleep really and it was clean. For downtown LA the price was really reasonable and I would stay there again.

Travel: ¥¥¥¥

Our mode of travel was airplane and then taxi…and the taxi can cost about $100 from airport by itself….plan ahead and get a shuttle. And thankfully my friend and I split the cost so it didn’t completely kill our pocket books.

Food: ¥

Little Tokyo and Downtown LA in general have many great places to eat that are A-rated but super inexpensive.

Vendors Area:

I didn’t spend anything in the vendors area….I was very picky about what I wanted and they really didn’t have anything that was super crazy exclusive to the con. But Ichigo bought a mug for a friend and that was just over $15. Then there was a JapanLA booth and that had clothing pieces from about $30 - $60 or so. Anything I really did buy was in Little Tokyo honestly.

Cosplay Cost: ¥

I made two outfits and both my main fabrics were imported from Japan with licensed Sanrio prints.

Booths presented at the con:

All sorts of vendors were there. Of course they ALL had to deal with Sanrio (and mostly Hello Kitty) but really it was all over the place with booths like JapanLA, Hello Kitty Spam, and just random merchandise in general. I was really hoping for more stuff with the other characters on it but there wasn’t much to be honest. My only real complaint besides the badges selling out and the con not being prepared to sell at door like we originally heard. There was also a cosplay/outfit competition which we entered with our Twin Star Lolita dresses that we designed and made…and we happened to get second place at!

Guests:

All sorts of artists, fashion designers, bloggers, and what not were there. Including people like the current kawaii ambassador Misako Aoki who was super awesome to meet. There weren’t really any panels that spiked my interest for what they did have. There was a mini art school though and a fashion section, not to mention free permanent tattoos by super amazing tattoo artists….if you managed to get in for a certain time. There was quite a line for that.

Accessibility to other things:

Food at the con itself was a bit pricey so we didn’t eat there but there were plenty of places to eat outside the con and there were lots of things to do within walking distance. We had lots of fun just checking stuff out in Little Tokyo and China Town.

Overall feelings about the con:

It was such an amazing experience and I am sad that they won’t be doing it again (from what I have heard). On a good note they are holding a tour next year called Supercute Frienship Festival that seems to go across mostly the west coast. I really wish we could have gone all three days, but really we will be prepared for the tour. XD

Extra notes:

Go to Little Tokyo and try all the little drinks that you normally can’t find like Qoo and C.C. Lemon.

Go to Fairy Tale Boutique if you love Lolita stuff. They are super friendly there and have cute stuff from Swimmer and brand Lolita shops from Japan.

There is an arcade in Little Tokyo that has purikura (Japanese photobooth)!! My favorite random find! It was about $10 but it’s one of my favorite things to do when in Japan so I was super happy to be able to do it here in the states.

Jungle Anime is an awesome anime store. Go. Just go. Especially if you happen to like Kamen Rider. Lol.

Looking for a yukata or kimono or pieces for one? Check out S.K. Uyeda. The Japanese ladies there are super cute and very helpful. I really adored them. They were like the older ladies that are a bit gruff on the outside but really want to help make you feel pretty and find what you are looking for. I just wanted to hug them! <3

Eat at Fugestu-Do Sweet Shop if you get the chance because you won’t be disappointed. Super yummy handmade Japanese sweets!

The Daily Beast

By Sarah Bay Williams

In honor of the cute, cat child's 40th anniversary, an L.A. convention is bringing together Hello Kitty's biggest fans for a weekend of happiness…and oh so much consumption.

It’s days before Halloween and I’m at the party that goes way beyond dressing up. This is about a way of life. I’m at the first-ever Hello Kitty Con 2014 dedicated to the tiny, chameleon-esque cat child and held at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in downtown Los Angeles. The Geffen building is a 55,000 square foot exhibition space, and it’s been filled to the whiskers with Hello Kitty love, super-consuming and super-cute. The prevailing color is pink; the headgear: red bows and ears; the guests: super giddy. 

“This is, like, the pinnacle of our Sanrio experience,” says San Francisco-based collector and enthusiast Marty Garrett, who travelled to Los Angeles with his equally excited wife to participate in the conference and sit on a panel called “Guys Love Hello Kitty Too!” Sanrio, the billion-dollar Japanese company behind Hello Kitty and a universe of other characters cute as crackers began planning Hello Kitty Con 2014 in honor of the perpetual third grader’s 40th birthday. At the same time, they have mounted an exhibition with the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), conveniently located right next door to MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary.

And I’m there. I’m taking it all in. Overwhelming? Yes! I’ve never really been a Hello Kitty fan, but immersing myself in the nerve center of obsession insanity and drowning myself in a surrender to cute can be totally fascinating. There’s a word that keeps coming up at this conference: “I’ve been struggling over kawaii,” I say to Dave. “I know it means cute, but does that do the word justice?” His eyes light up a little, “Oh—no, it doesn’t. It’s way beyond cute,” he says. “When I ask my Japanese colleagues, they say it’s something you can’t really describe, like a feeling. Some say it’s like hunger; some say it’s like love. It’s something really deep.”

(I’ve since been corrected that kawaii does not have those subtleties, according to Christine Yano, Ph.D., the curator of the exhibition next door at JANM. “Kawaii is basically cute.” Then she asks me, “Who told you that?” I tell her it was someone from Sanrio. “I thought so!” she says. “That’s a good brand manager,” I think to myself. “Hunger, love, uncontrolled, yet non-sexualized, desire—this is a supercute brand strategy.”)

But back to the party! Happiness everywhere! On opening night, Chrissa Sparkles, a self-professed Hello Kitty fan and one of the moderators of the discussion panels sprinkled throughout the weekend on topics ranging from Sanrio designers to rabid superfans, flits about wearing white patent leather stripper pumps and a pink satin one-piece bustier studded with blossoms, her cotton-candy pink curls pinched back with a Hello Kitty barrette, her nails flashing diamonds and pearls. A flock of young women dressed in Lolita style, the fashion subculture out of Japan that merges school girl skirts and socks with Victorian grande dame ruffles, files into the building. Live models in Hello Kitty-themed evening wear designed by fashion brands like Fiori Couture, A-Morir, Mother of London, Abigail Greydanus, and more, arrange themselves between mannequins clad in similar couture for a display called Lovely Kitty Wonder curated by Stephiee Nguyen of JapanLA, a Melrose Avenue pop culture shop for cute fashions. (Mother of London wrapped one mannequin face in a full mask encrusted with rhinestones so big I couldn’t at first comprehend the Hello Kitty pattern it portrayed—it looked more like a fascinating, blinged-out Jason mask from the Halloween horror films.)

Also in attendance on opening night is Yuko Yamaguchi, Hello Kitty’s head designer (and Sanrio’s cutest mature adult, as far as I can tell, with her red cat-ear-like pigtails). She’s holding court, making and signing custom caricatures of the feline of the hour. Street artists Dabs Myla (a husband and wife team) and POSE (aka Jordan Nickel) cavort in the Art Corner, a spacious room of graffiti, neon posters, and scenery, for photo ops. In the main room of the Geffen, Sanrio has set up what they call Friendship Village with a stage for hourly performances and various interactive stations, like a telephone-booth-like box that blows paper “dollars” around. Visitors take turns trying to catch the green paper to win a Hello Kitty cupcake stand. (I saw a young woman do it. It wasn’t so hard.) Through a door adjacent to this is the arcade filled with Hello Kitty-infused activities: a fortune telling machine, spin-the-wheel prizes, video games, and the Mystical Cave where a wave of the hand scatters flowers over a large video screen. There is a mini-salon station that applies sparkles onto willing attendees nails. The bathrooms have Hello Kitty-printed toilet paper. And in what’s called the HK Ink room, anyone over the age of 18 can get a tattoo—a real, ink-and-needle, painful, tattoo—as long as it’s selected from five gorgeous flash sheets full of Hello Kitty designs specially made for the event, like Hello Kitty as a butterfly, riding an anchor, or transformed into a really spectacular Day of the Dead calavera skull.

I see a couple holding each other and longingly looking at flash sheets on the wall. “You guys going to get tattoos?” I ask. “We want to,” he says. “Did you plan on this or is this a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing?” I ask. “We just decided,” she says, “but they’re not taking any more appointments. We have to come back tomorrow.” Perhaps, once in awhile, scarcity will breed rational thinking, too

One of the most prized items of the HK Con sits in a small, dimly-lit room towards the back of the building, displayed with all the pomp of the Hope diamond on blue velvet in a huge glass box. It’s the original Hello Kitty clear vinyl coin purse, not much bigger than a large strawberry, introduced in 1975 by Sanrio—the genuine, super-rare, first Sanrio product that spawned the superfan mania. It portrays a tiny Hello Kitty, with her auspicious side whiskers, button of a nose, and red bow, sitting next to a bottle of milk and a goldfish in a bowl. “Hello!” is printed above her head, and her black dots for eyes lance cute-spears into the center of my gut. Two guards watch over the purse at all times, and, when I inquire as to the price, one tells me the value is unknown, while the other offers, “Maybe 10,000.” It’s not for sale, of course, but fans can commemorate the experience in a photo-op with a scaled-up version of the original. 

While the purse isn’t available for purchase, there are plenty of opportunities for conference-goers to spend their Benjamins acquiring new pieces for their Hello Kitty collections. The Super Supermarket is packed with “exhibitors and friends” selling Hello Kitty versions of their products, like Beats by Dr. Dre, Sephora, Bedhead Pajamas, Ty plush toys, and—yes—SPAM (selling a special Hello Kitty/SPAM musubi kit—I had to buy two). Upstairs in the Hello Kitty Friendship Station (aka the Sanrio pop-up shop), you can buy everything new from the official Hello Kitty line. And downstairs, the Vintage Village is filled with certified authentic Hello Kitty products from the beginning of Kitty time, like a Hello Kitty hourglass sand timer from the 1970s ($48), her 1980s candy house ($130), and her musical TV from 1976 ($80).

I suddenly feel a pang of urgency and ask one of the shopkeepers what would happen if everyone buys everything all at once from the Vintage Village, as I suspect they will with such a treasure trove. “Oh, we have more,” she says. “But we only have doubles of a few things, so lots of this stuff is unique. Once it’s bought, it’s gone.” This is like a Hello Kitty E-bay heaven.

It is about time to see some celebrities, I think. Actor Erik Estrada is expected to show, as are a slew of people from the Vanderpump Rules reality show, and rumor has it Ireland Baldwin, Alec’s daughter, has an appointment to get a tattoo (as of my last report, she had yet to do so). 

I venture outside and, low and behold, there is Estrada—posing with a gaggle of Lolitas and putting on his cardboard Hello Kitty bow-crown that the Lolitas are offering to anyone with a head. Singer Lisa Loeb is also in the house, as well as 11-year-old actress Quevenzhane Wallis, producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and a seventh grader named Lauren Rojas who sent a Hello Kitty doll up to the edge of space via weather balloon as a project for her school’s science fair. Later that night, Yoshiki, the singer from the hit glam-metal band X-Japan, will take to the stage to debut his Hello Kitty theme song—not glam metal, not raucous, but an uplifting, true pop song, danceable—while the entire audience wears remotely controlled wristbands that glow blue, purple, red, and white, connecting the crowd in a synchronized light.

Back inside the conference hall, standing dumbfounded and overwhelmed in the middle of Friendship Village, I imagine this spectacle over the following days, overrun with Kitty flair adorning fans of all ages, women and men, who will turn out to let out their inner cat, flaunt their cutest cute, and shop, shop, and shop. The Hello Kitty Con was sold out weeks ago, and all the workshops for flower arranging, scrapbooking, and cookie decorating, among other super cute and creative activities, are standby only. Even the lectures and panels (at least the ones I attend on “Cute Culture” and how “Guys Love Hello Kitty Too!”) are well attended. 

Then, all of a sudden, I see her. It is Hello Kitty in person! She has entered the building, her big white head bobbing and tilting as she walks—almost skips—across the room. My heart literally flutters. Hello, Kitty! And then she is gone, back to her safe room away from the crowds. This will be her routine for the conference: short visits to her fans, an occasional performance onstage, and then back to her Hello Kitty green room. 

But I’m left astonished, wondering: how does she do it? My heart—of all hearts—is all aflutter like a school girl? It took me by surprise. “Is she coming back?” I ask the guard outside the green room. “She won’t come out if people are standing here waiting for her,” the guard says. She is everywhere and nowhere, this little marshmallow-headed kitty.

The next day I ask the super fans on the “Guys Love Hello Kitty Too!” panel why she had no competition at the time in their lives when they were getting into Hello Kitty. What about Strawberry Shortcake? Mickey Mouse? Tin Tin? “The other characters talk too much,” says Prince Robbie, the founder of a small cosmetics company called Adam Haus who wears barely visible Hello Kitty contact lenses over his dark eyes. He fell in love with Hello Kitty as a teen when he was going through his goth phase—and she was too.