[1] Harumi spent her early childhood at Villa Medici, the residence of the French Academy in Rome, which was at the time run by her father.
In 1977, they moved to Grand Chalet in Rossinière where she still lives with her partner, photographer Benoît Peverelli, their two children, and her mother Setsuko.
As a teenager, she started making jewelry by adding semi-precious stones to handmade silk Chinese buttons from her mother's collection.
In her early twenties, she started as an intern to John Galliano and his team and quickly rose to the role of a PR assistant.
[5] She draws inspiration from various sources including nature (wild animals, plants, and trees), Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology, African art, and Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi.