lolita media library: Kira Imai (今井キラ)

General info

Kira Imai (今井キラ) is an illustrator originally hailing from rural Hyogo Prefecture and currently based in Tokyo, Japan. She previously went by the name Shinnosuke Imai (今井しんのすけ). She primarily draws female characters in cute, feminine clothes and colored in soft pastel hues. Often, their cute clothes are in contrast to an unsmiling or mildly sad, mischievous, wistful, unsettling, or grotesque feature, expression, surroundings, or situation. She formed the doujin art circle 眼帯天国 (Gantai Tengoku, “Eyepatch Heaven”) in September 1996 and as far as I can tell she is/was the only member. She has been creating illustrations for Angelic Pretty for more than 17 years (since 2001).
Official website | Instagram | Twitter

Relation to lolita

Imai is best known for her illustrations for the lolita fashion brand Angelic Pretty. (An example is the left illustration in the above image with the girl in red wearing Angelic Pretty’s Candy Fun Fair print.) I would argue that her illustrations heavily shaped Angelic Pretty’s early brand image and are part of what made and continues to make Angelic Pretty such a popular, iconic brand. Maki (one of the designers) used to make illustrations before Imai was hired. According to an interview, the collaboration began when Angelic Pretty staff happened upon Imai’s personal website, which she maintained as a hobby after graduating from college to display her art. They asked if they could hire her to make some illustrations, she accepted, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Comments

I will make individual posts about each of the 4 books pictured above, and possibly more if/when I add to my collection.

With all the historical information I found, I’d like to make a Wikipedia page or something to chronicle all of her older art book releases in case others are interested in hunting them down. I feel like her older ones may be less known because they’re harder to find, there are fewer of them to go around, and they aren’t listed on her current website. Her old website on the Wayback Machine was really fun to dig through.