Twenty-seven years ago, a lady walked into a tiny store in Tokyo and saw, to her amazement, how this small space was packed with products (you name it, it was there) stamped with the face of a cat with black button eyes, a yellow nose, and three black lines on both cheeks which looked more like a child’s drawing of sun rays rather than cat whiskers. She stood in the middle of the store and told herself, "I have to bring this to Manila."
That’s what Virgie Ramos did after that fateful trip to Tokyo. She brought the cat to Manila and sprinkled stardust in the eyes of ‘70s children who were oscillating between superheroes and a super cat. Wonder Woman lunch box or Hello Kitty? Superman pencil case or My Melody? Green Lantern face towel or Dear Daniel? Oh, the decisions we had to make!
To celebrate the cat’s third-decade milestone, Gift Gate last Thursday put up a preview of Hello Kitty products in the penthouse suite of a Makati hotel. The preview was also for the benefit of prospective business partners as the company is beginning to pursue licensing and franchising options more aggressively. The former is for the manufacturing of Hello Kitty products under a licensing agreement, to be made and sold here; the latter is for putting up Hello Kitty Smile kiosks around the country. Gift Gate senior manager Marie Claire Garcia explains that the kiosks may also be converted into bigger stores but would have to carry the Smiles name because the name "Gift Gate" is for the exclusive use of the company, which currently owns 12 stores in Metro Manila and one in Cebu.
"We prefer young entrepreneurs for the simple reason that they are very dynamic, driven, confident and they’re willing to take risks," says Liza Marie Vengco, advertising and promotions officer.
The initial investment a franchisee makes is about P850,000 – P550,000 of it is for the franchise fee for one year and the rest for the initial inventory. In the beginning, Gift Gate required a product line to be displayed in the kiosks, but now it is up to the franchisee to select his inventory. Marie Claire explains that the best way is to have an assortment of all products, from the topsellers (apparel and bags) to the year-round mainstays (plush dolls) and school needs (pencils, stationery, etc.).
Franchisees cannot import their own products from Japan because Gift Gate holds the exclusive importation rights. Besides, it has a commissary where franchisees may purchase their inventory.
The presentation at the Hello Kitty suite displayed such head-spinning products we didn’t even know existed (Hello Kitty sandwich maker, hello?)
A lot of them came from the Sanrio stores in Japan and from Virgie’s own collections (hallelujah! the woman has kept all the classics) and not all are available on the local market – yet. "We want to show prospective licensees what we can do. We want the local designers to be encouraged, to be motivated and excited with Kitty," Liza Marie explains.
To give you an idea of how the suite was decorated, imagine the bedrooms and bathrooms, kitchen, living and dining rooms accessorized with all things pink and Kitty. If you’re not one for cute things, it would have been hell. If you are, you would have felt you died and went straight to Sanrio heaven.
Our drinks had Hello Kitty ice, we munched on Hello Kitty marshmallows and waffles. The bathrooms had Hello Kitty toilet-seat covers and mats, hairdryers, dispensers, towels, bath salts, toothbrush and toothpaste, and pajama bags. One bedroom was themed "Wedding" and had Hello Kitty lingerie (underwear and robe designed by Samantha Chang), plush toys and bridal trousseau, pillow covers, jewelry boxes and cake toppers, stylish bags by Heatherette’s designing duo Richie Rich and Traver Rains.
Liza Marie says there was actually one Pinoy couple whose wedding had the motif of Hello Kitty. The bridal bouquet had the cat’s face, so did the wedding car. The invitations were on Hello Kitty stationery and the wedding souvenirs were Kitty plush toys, etc.
In the closets of the suite were apparel for the young, like shirts and sweaters, and also souvenirs from the Hello Kitty fashion show a few years ago featuring clothes by young designers such as Patrice Ramos-Diaz. The designers used Hello Kitty fabrics imported from Japan.
Even some of Virgie Ramos’ own Kitty clothes were there. She points to a black jacket embossed with the cat on the back and says, "I wear that to business meetings in Japan." Well, okay, so they’re meetings with Sanrio bosses, but she has always been wearing such clothes with such candor.
In the 1970s, when she brought Hello Kitty to Manila, the Japanese businessmen still had this "super macho attitude," Virgie Ramos says. "And we were the first franchisee in the world!" It doesn’t surprise her anymore when some Japanese executives from Sanrio meet her for the first time and say, "Ramos is a woman?"
Virgie’s favorite cat is now 30 years old and so are we – well, over 30, at least for the first wave of Hello Kitty fans who had to contend with limited products compared to what’s available today.
When I was in grade school, my favorite Sanrio character apart from the cat was My Melody. How strange, I thought, that a rabbit had such pink ears and a flower that never wilted. I had My Melody and Little Twin Stars plastic wallets and pencil cases, erasers, bags, notebooks, and stationery I wouldn’t use even when writing letters to close friends.
In high school, I used Sanrio pens and rebelled against the required-by-law Mongol No. 1 pencil for the NCEE. Why couldn’t I use my Kitty pencil, dammit? And one year, when my late estranged father forgot my birthday, he tried to bribe me a week later with a wooden poster of Hello Kitty flying a plane, the scarf around her neck flying. I ignored the gift for several days, until finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and took a hammer and nail to the wall and hung the poster.
In a fit of nostalgia, we remember childhood memories anchored on commercial products we thought we’d die if we didn’t have them. How much tears did we fake for our own Kitty telephone?
Now this cat is 30 years old. How funny that she hasn’t changed, that she hasn’t added a wrinkle to her white face even if she has married, and funnier still that we haven’t changed either.