Welcome to KIRIKO Free Spirit
Born in Osaka, Japan.
As a child, she moved schools many times and grew up shy and often feeling isolated.
After graduating high school, she chose not to attend university and began working
in the fashion industry.
Her first overseas trip had a profound impact on her, and from then on,
she adopted a lifestyle of “working in order to travel.”
At the age of 24, she left her job and became independent, establishing her own design studio.
Running her own business allowed her greater freedom and a lifestyle centred around travel.
At 27, she became pregnant and married someone she had just met,
later divorcing three years after the marriage.
The following year, she gave birth to a baby boy weighing 2,450 grams.
While enjoying raising her child, her passion for travel remained strong.
When her son was around three years old, she opened a vintage clothing shop in Osaka.
This marked the beginning of frequent buying trips to the United States and Europe.
At the same time, she made a promise to travel with her son at least once a year in search of “places they had never seen before.”
During one of these buying trips, she happened to walk into a hemp shop and was deeply inspired.
Instead of sourcing vintage clothing, she began purchasing hemp fabric.
Alongside running the shop, she started making and selling hemp garments based
on vintage designs.These became popular, leading her to begin wholesale production.
When her son entered primary school, she closed the vintage shop
and opened an office near her home.
She moved clothing production to China and focused on wholesale as her main business,
holding two exhibitions a year and supplying to around 50 retailers nationwide.
As her son approached the end of primary school,
he told her he disliked studying and did not want to attend high school.
This led her to move to Australia so he could spend his three years of middle school learning English.
At the same time, she shifted production of her hemp clothing back to Japan to improve quality.
What was originally planned as a three-year stay became permanent residency through marriage.
Approximately ten years later, she divorced.
In 2018, she opened a combined hemp clothing atelier and ceramics studio in the industrial area of Byron Bay.
Since then, she has designed and produced tableware for many restaurants in the Byron region.
In 2023, with the retirement of the factory she had long worked with, she stopped producing clothing and underwear.
At the same time, she began collaborating with a hemp manufacturer in Chiang Mai, Thailand, by providing designs and patterns.
That year, she also took part in a six-month wood-fired kiln construction project.
She currently works two days a week as a Technical Assistant in Ceramics at TAFE Lismore.
While deepening her study of wood firing, she is focusing on the production of her ceramic works.
Currently building a soda-firing kiln in Alstonville.
Selected Exhibitions & Awards
– HELD, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Sydney (2024)
– West Gallery, Belconnen Arts Centre, Canberra (2024)
– TACA CAQ Siliceous Award for Ceramic Excellence (Selected, 2025)
– Creative Mullum Group Exhibition
– Surface, Civic Hall (2026)
and other group exhibitions and awards.