Kuniko Kato
 | |
| Birth | Unknown |
|---|---|
| Associated Brand(s) | Metamorphose temps de fille, Physical Drop, Love Dice 56 |
| Website | website |
Kuniko Kato (加藤 訓仁子) is best known as the founder of Metamorphose.
Life and Career
In a 2003 interview with the Gothic & Lolita Bible, Kato-san explained that she wanted to be a writer from elementary until high school. In High school, a band craze swept the world and she too was caught up in it. She started a band and at the time, she wanted to do that forever.[1]
But, she needed a way to support her self so she started to look for career options. Fashion, beautician and chef were the careers she came up with, but being a female chef seemed hard and beauticians always had chapped hands and never get vacations, so she picked fashion by process of elimination. Because she got into fashion to pay the bills, she didn't really idolize any particular designers when she started, but she did love western styled clothing.[1]
When she was about 20, a shop clerk at a store near her part time job told her "there's a shop you might be interested in!", which ended up being a select shop that carried some of the biggest names in lolita fashion today, which were just indie brands at the time.[1] When she saw that shop, it transformed her way of thinking and she decided that it was OK to make things that weren't trendy, but instead brought her joy.[1]
Still, from the start the feeling was that I loved Lolita. It's not that I couldn't continue with Fashion Business, or that I didn't like it. The genre was not in question; I loved western clothes, it was only what particular brand I liked I didn't know. During that time, I became friends with a shop clerk and a customer at a store near my part-time job. They told me "there's a shop you might be interested in!". That shop turned out to be a select shop that carried the indie brands of the day, but today those brands are famous one-of-a-kind and Lolita style brands dealing in western-style clothes.
After that, all the homework she did for school was lolita. Unfortunately, the school she was attending at the time was very strict on theme and at first they didn't accept lolita at all because the current trend in Paris and Japan was to emphasize the silhouette of clothes by removing all extra decoration. Lolita was the opposite, so her scores in school weren't very good. But she continued to make lolita and some of the teachers came to recognize her and become more understanding.[1]
She started Metamorphose while she was in school at Osaka Mode Gakuen and the customers were also female college students around the same age.[1] She recollected 10 years later that when she saw people wearing her clothing she would say 'thank you', but internally she felt like she was apologizing.[1] At that point, she started to live on the income she made from Metamorphose. However, half of the income of each sale went to the cost of materials so it was difficult.[1]
Brands
This section is incomplete, you can help it by adding information about: brand descriptions
Metamorphose
Physical Drop
Love Dice 56
Love Dice 56 is a 1950's & rockabilly themed lined started by Kato-san in March of 2004 as a side hobby.[2][3]
Influence/Legacy
This section is incomplete, you can help it by adding information about: Influence/Legacy
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 "Metamorphose Temps de Fille - Brand Story Translation". Velvet Translations.
- ↑ "Poisonous Diary Feb 2003".
- ↑ "Love Dice Website 2004".
External links
- Physical Drop Twitter – Physical drop twitter
- Poisonous Diary - Kato-sans homepage from 2001-2010
- K Kato - Kato-san's homepage in 2010
- Kato's Metamorphose Blog - 2007-2009
- Love Dice 56 Website - 2004-2005
- Love Dice 56 Website - 2004-2010
