How a Hello Kitty guitar became the hottest Stratocaster



Novelty guitars emblazoned with the look of the chill animated movie feline are present changing hands for $1,000 acknowledgment to ‘put up-punk irony’

Courtney Love and girl Frances Bean Cobain rocking the Hello Kitty Strat. Photograph: Mark Sullivan/Getty ImagesCourtney Love and girl Frances Bean Cobain rocking the Hello Kitty Strat. Photograph: Mark Sullivan/Getty ImagesJames TapperSun eleven Dec 2022 06.00 ESTLast changed connected Sun 11 Dec 2022 09.04 EST

Electric guitars and testosterone transverse collectively similar Jimi Hendrix and lighter fluid, nevertheless the contiguous time lukewarm philharmonic instrumentality is simply a Hello Kitty Stratocaster.

The mean terms of a vintage crimson strat emblazoned with the look of the chill animated movie cat-female has other than doubled owed to the information that 2019, and immoderate owners are really asking much than $1,000.

Reverb, the nett marketplace for philharmonic gadgets, started retired tracking the hyper-adorable guitars aft its analytics unit observed radical attempting to find the guitar successful large numbers.

It had turn to beryllium a “habitual question clip period, adjacent to the pinnacle of the list”, stated Cyril Nigg, Reverb’s elder manager of analytics. “The terms inclination of this guitar has gone from astir $2 100 and present it’s selling for implicit $seven-hundred. There’s instances successful which radical person paid implicit $1,000 for it.”

A video by means of YouTuber TheDooo kicked disconnected hobby wrong the instrument, helium said, but telephone for had remained precocious adjacent erstwhile you see that helium stopped proposing the guitar successful films.

Guitar makers regularly did tie-united states of americawith ample manufacturers, Nigg brought, examples being Marvel-themed guitars for Iron Man and Captain America, devices proposing The Simpsons and Pokémon characters, and partnerships with beers including Budweiser and Heineken. He stated: “There’s a fistful of them which tin beryllium favored, but for the maximum portion you mostly thin to look them successful a pawn support oregon a guitar store for a mates of dollars, and that they’re sitting determination for months connected cease.”

Fender started promoting the constrained mentation Hello Kitty Stratocasters beneath its finances Squier scope successful 2005. At the time, selling executives connected the instrumentality shaper said, seemingly seriously, that “by mode of teaming up with the Hello Kitty brand, we are hoping to uncover young girls conscionable however tons amusing playing the guitar whitethorn be”, according to Tony Francis Bacon, a guitar historian. “It’s patronising truly – however insulting are you capable to be?” helium said.

The guitars person been disposable astatine the commencement handiest via Sanrio, which owns the Hello Kitty brand. “Then , connected the halt of 2005, gave it the apical spot for the Christmas listing of presents for the musically obsessed,” Beaverbrook stated. “That did them nary harm, and that they started retired to beforehand them usually successful January the pursuing 12 months.

“What appeared to look is that determination was a postmodern irony, oregon what I accidental I referred to arsenic wrong the ebook a submit-punk duality, wherein antheral gamers started to prime retired them up.”

Fender gave distant galore of the guitars astatine a Billboard awards rite, and soon Slash from Guns N’Roses and Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers posed with them. But that appears to person had small interaction astatine the terms of the guitars until much lately.

Paul Atkinson, a des prof astatine Sheffield Hallam University, said that guitars and philharmonic gadgets regularly held oregon preferred successful price. A Hendrix strat from 1968 offered astatine nationalist merchantability for $2m successful 1998. The guitar helium acceptable aflame connected signifier connected the Monterey festival did not proceed to exist, but 1 torched astatine the Astoria successful Finsbury Park years earlier fetched £280,000 successful 2008.

“Without a doubt, it’s the astir copied guitar ever,” Atkinson stated. “If you instrumentality a look astatine ads oregon cartoons with guitars, they’re some a Stratocaster, a Les Paul oregon a Flying V. If you inquire a toddler to pull a guitar, they’ll gully a Stratocaster.

“For years, it was champion related to males. But then, glaringly, that has changed implicit the past 30 oregon 40 years, and present it’s nary wonderment astatine each to adjacent women gambling electrical guitar.”

Hello Kitty go “a intimately gendered item”, helium brought. “So it’s this precise deliberate irony.”