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SANRIO(R), Inc. Announces a New Collaboration to Go MAD For!

"This is one of those collaborations that our designers and hardcore Hello Kitty fans get super-excited about!" says Dave Marchi, Brand Marketing Manager for SANRIO. "The look of this line probably won't appeal to every Hello Kitty fan out there, but those who get it will go crazy for it!"

The Hello Kitty x Mad Barbarians collaboration is an original and serendipitous partnership that brings a unique look to the Hello Kitty brand. The fusion of Japanese design, underground art, and SANRIO's iconic imagery has created a distinctive style and approach for design concepts that interpret Hello Kitty in the Mad Barbarians' signature style. Product concepts and merchandising mediums will be utilized in apparel, accessories and compelling lifestyle products to complement SANRIO's legendary merchandise mix. The Hello Kitty x Mad Barbarians collaboration will debut in the U.S. exclusively at specialty retailer Hot Topic for Holiday '08, followed by a European roll out for Spring '09.

"The combination of Hello Kitty and Mad Barbarians creates a bold new look fusing pop art and nostalgia with a modern Japanese punk aesthetic," said Janet Hsu, President of Sanrio Global Consumer Products. "As Mad Barbarians' work emerges as an imaginative and diverse art style, we are energized to see how their styles merge with our properties."

The Mad Barbarians artists, Katsuya Saito and Masumi Ito, will be making a special appearance and autograph signing at Comic-Con from July 24-27. They will be appearing at the Toy Tokyo and Munky King Booths.

High resolution image available upon request

About SANRIO

SANRIO develops, distributes and licenses a collection of gift, stationery and fashion accessory items for women of all ages. SANRIO was founded in 1960 based on the concept that a small gift can bring a big smile to a child of any age. Today, over 50,000 Sanrio-branded items are sold in over 70 countries around the world. In the Western Hemisphere SANRIO character-branded products are sold in upwards of 12,000 locations including department, specialty, national chain stores and over 85 SANRIO boutiques. For more information, please visit http://www.sanrio.com.

About Mad Barbarians

Mad Barbarians is a Japanese design duo with a love of all pop, rock, cute, and foolish. Their work has been successfully adapted to advertising, characters, album covers, clothing, and collectible vinyl figures. They received attention by producing a figure 'Gas, Curry, and Spice'. Their dream is to "conquer the world by Mad Characters!" Mad Barbarians has had many co-brand partnerships inAsia from Kid Robot, Coca Cola & MTV, among others. Katsuya Saito is from Shiga prefecture and graduated from Osaka Designers College. Masumi Ito is fromOsaka prefecture and graduated Sozosha College of Design. They both worked as designers at other firms before creating the "Mad Barbarians" in 2000.

SOURCE SANRIO