Baby, The Stars Shine Bright

Stellar Style is Back in Britain!

When it comes to Lolita style, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright certainly lights up the fashion universe. Launched in 1988 by a husband and wife team, Akinori and Fumiyo Isobe, the brand is now an international favourite amongst Japanese fashion fans, particularly those who follow the Sweet Lolita (or ama-loli) style. Baby, The Stars Shine Bright takes “cute” and “pretty” as its defining concepts, and creates beautiful clothes with frills and ribbons and lace that seek to inspire the same kind of excitement about clothes that little girls feel in their party dresses. The brand gained international recognition when its designs were featured in the 2004 film Kamikaze Girls. Baby, The Stars Shine Bright now has 28 stores throughout Japan, as well as outlets in Paris and San Francisco. It's also one of the favourite brands of Kanon Wakeshima, the J-Pop singer who will be appearing at HYPER JAPAN.

For those who aren’t familiar with Lolita fashion, it is a style that originates in Japan, and has nothing to do with the Nabokov novel. Sweet Lolita, a sub style of Lolita, takes a lot of inspiration from the playfulness and intricacy of Rococo, uses light and pastel colours, and often incorporates cute themes in fabric patterns, such as fruit, hearts, crowns and teddy bears. A Sweet Lolita will often accessorise with bows, ribbons, lace and heart or teddy-shaped purses; anything to emphasise the soft, cute and fairytale approach to fashion that characterises this style.

The mastermind behind the Baby, The Stars Shine Bright designs is Kumiko Uehara, whose sugary-sweet, fantastically frilly dresses, headdresses, shoes and socks are beloved worldwide. Alice and the Pirates is a diffusion line of the brand dedicated to pirate and punk-pirate style, based on a simple idea: what would happen if Alice (from Wonderland) found herself in a land of pirates?

After appearing at HYPER JAPAN London 2010, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright will be back at HYPER JAPAN 2011. BABY fans also have a chance to win an outfit from BABY or Alice and the Pirates by taking part in our brilliant competition of cute, the UK Kawaii Star of the Year 2011. 

Kumiko Uehara, Chief Designer

Kumiko Uehara is chief designer at BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT. A fan of illustration and of Lolita fashion from an early age, Kumiko started her own clothing brand, CUTiE, when she graduated from university in 1999. In 2000, she was recruited by BABY to work her kawaii magic on their dresses, purses and umbrellas. Since then, Kumiko’s frill- and ribbon-filled designs have propelled BABY to the top of the Lolita fashion league, with fans worldwide. Kumiko’s fashion philosophy is simple: it’s not about what fashion thinks you should wear, it’s about what you want to be wearing.  “You can only wear a wedding dress once in your life,” says Kumiko, “but you can wear Lolita fashion whenever and wherever you life. I want my clothes to make the wearer feel good, feel like the princess she dreamed of becoming when she was a little girl”.