Kuma Cooking invites fans to “look at her dish,” and also own her clothing.

The whole point of making a cooking video, as opposed to just sharing a written recipe, is the visual appeal. Culinary techniques are often easier to demonstrate than explain, and nothing inspires your audience to try making the dish for themselves like presenting them with a lingering shot of the finished, delicious result.

In the case of Japanese chef Kuma Cooking, though (@kumacooking on Twitter), the visual appeal isn’t limited to the food on the plate, but extends to the chef herself, even though she never shows her face.

▼ Kuma Cooking shows how to make Spice Cod Roe Fried Rice

While you could argue the camera angle in Kuma Cooking’s videos is the optimal one from which to show the meal preparation, it also puts her chest right in the middle of the frame, and the amply-endowed chef is fully aware of that. In the past, she’s even sold ad space on her chest by putting sponsors’ messages on her T-shirt, and now she’s come up with a new way to monetize her clothing choices.

https://twitter.com/kumacooking/status/1226068817236783105

On February 8, Kuma Cooking announced that she’d be auctioning off the shirt she’s wearing in the video tweet above, listing the item for sale on Yahoo! Japan Auctions.

▼ The T-shirt is plain black on the back.

The auction would be an extremely quick one, though, with bids closing the very next night, just 27 hours after Kuma Cooking’s tweet went out. With bids opening at just a single yen, it’s not like she was going to make much money off the idea, right?

Actually, the auction attracted 118 bids, and the final price the T-shirt sold for was a whopping 202,000 yen (US$1,840)!

https://twitter.com/kumacooking/status/1226487101270544384

To clarify, the shirt isn’t from some high-priced, designer brand. It looks it’d ordinarily sell for somewhere in the 1,000-2,000 yen price range, meaning that simply by nature of gracing Kuma Cooking’s upper body for a period of time, it’s market value was multiplied by 100 times or more.

▼ Kuma Cooking’s recipe for thick-cut grilled pork wrap

▼ Previous sponsors

https://twitter.com/kumacooking/status/1211883144049086465

Given the tremendous response, this likely won’t be the last Kuma Cooking auction, assuming she’s not booked solid with sponsored shirts.

Source: Twitter/@kumacooking via Jin, Yahoo! Japan Auctions
Insert image: Twitter/@kumacookingm Yahoo! Japan Auctions
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