For Marie Kondo, doyenne of decluttering, it is television and not tidying that is tiring
She became famous for her KonMari method, teaching people to surround themselves with items that spark joy. Now, the Japanese tidying guru has moved to California and is poised to clean up with her lifestyle empire
Takumi Kawahara is watching his wife, Marie Kondo, massage her face with a brush. She’s wearing a white dressing gown and standing next to a bouquet of pink cherry blossoms. She has asked for soft instrumental music to be piped into the room. It appears to calm her on this February morning in Los Angeles as a dozen production workers mill about, capturing footage that will show Kondo’s 2.5 million Instagram followers how to dry brush their faces.
Kondo closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and starts making small circular motions on her forehead. When she opens her eyes, she has conjured up a euphoric expression for the camera.
Kawahara isn’t buying it. He taps me on the shoulder to show me his phone, on which he has pulled up the word “ticklish” on Google Translate. “Doesn’t that brush look ticklish to you?” he whispers, saying the word in English for the first time. He proceeds to wiggle as if someone were tickling him, giggling so much that his dapper grey fedora threatens to tip over onto his glasses. “There’s no way I would put that thing on my face.”
Kawahara, chief executive of KonMari Media, which he co-founded with his wife in 2015 and which is headquartered in Hollywood, California, is a fixture at Kondo’s photo and video shoots, like the one today showcasing products sold on the KonMari website. The production crew often turns to him expectantly, waiting for him to exclaim, “Beautiful!” or “Excellent!”, a signal that they have nailed the shot.
He’s also the life of the set. His goofiness is a foil for Kondo’s quiet spirituality, which is central to her mission, something she describes to me as “helping others to choose what sparks joy”. Kawahara punctures any seriousness, making funny faces, telling jokes and putting everyone at ease. It’s partly his personality, but it’s also a strategic effort to relax his wife.
Kondo has been in the public eye since 2011, when she published The Life-Changing, Pulsing Magic of Tidying Up in Japan, but she’s still happiest at home, with her daughters, aged three and four.