Jiji the cat and Totoro and friends feature on tops, pants, skirts, dresses and accessories in the collection.
With exclusive merchandise being sold at the Ghibli Museum and at Donguri Kyowakoku stores around the country, people can’t get enough of Studio Ghibli goods. This insatiable appetite for cute character-branded products has been the drive behind many new releases that keep us reaching into our pockets, but now the company is going back to nature with a whole new collection that aims to help the environment and be as ecologically minded as some of their best-known films.
Called “Studio Ghibli no Anofuku“, which loosely translates to “Those Clothes by Studio Ghibli“, the range is a joint collaboration between the acclaimed animation house and well-known Japanese clothing brands keisuke kanda and Anrealage.
To help promote the 15 September release of the new clothing collection, Anofuku Inc. unveiled a cute animation on YouTube featuring two of Ghibli’s most famous characters.
The stop motion anime clip shows Totoro and the Cat Bus making their way across knitted sweaters in a range of colours and designs.
Though the video is less than a minute long, hours of work went into its making, with a total of 200 sweaters used in the process. Each top was embroidered with the characters in different poses to help create the movement that appears on screen.
The handmade nature of the animated clip reflects the handmade nature of the garments in the collection, as each item is individually embroidered to create unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.
This focus on getting back to basics is also reflected in the materials, which uses natural fabrics sourced from used clothing to reduce waste and environmental pollution and help conserve natural resources.
With such attention to detail in each garment, the range isn’t cheap, but it’s still reasonably priced when you consider the time-intensive process involved in its creation. Each item also comes with a bright blue Studio Ghibli no Anofuku label stitched on the inside, with an image of Totoro that looks remarkably similar to the logo displayed at the start of a Ghibli anime film.
Currently, the majority of the collection is aimed at children, with prices ranging from 6,000-30,000 yen (US$54-$269) each at the official online store. Shirts, sweaters and coats for adults are available though, and are priced between 8,000 and 40,000 yen each.
The collection will also be sold for a limited time at the Tsutaya bookstores in Nakameguro until 5 October and at Daikanyama until 31 October, where you’ll be able to find displays featuring Totoro and his soot sprite friends.
With some of the items in the collection already sold out, it looks like this is quickly becoming a sought-after range. Here’s hoping they decide to keep it going well into the future, at least until the opening of the Ghibli theme park in the 2020s!
Source: WWD Japan
Images: YouTube/Anofuku Inc.