| Founded | 2003, Los Angeles, California |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Simone Legno, Ivan Arnold, Pooneh Mohajer |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Key people | Ivan Arnold, CEO Simone Legno, CCO Pooneh Mohajer, COO |
| Products | apparel, toys, cosmetics |
| Website | http://www.tokidoki.it |
tokidoki ("sometimes" in Japanese) is the Japanese-inspired lifestyle brand created in 2005 by Italian artist Simone Legno and his business partners Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold.
tokidoki produces apparel, footwear, accessories and other products using art, iconic characters and the tokidoki logo designed by Simone Legno, including purses, t-shirts, vinyl figures, jewelry, and small toys.
Tokidoki has collaborated with several industries such as Levi’s, Skull Candy, New Era, Mikasa, Fujitsu, Be@rbrick, RIDE Snowboards, ASICS Onitsuka Tiger, Hello Kitty, Smashbox, Barbie and LeSportsac.
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In April 2005, the co-founder of American cosmetics company Hard Candy, Pooneh Mohajer, and her husband Ivan Arnold, discovered Simone Legno's personal portfolio website, which had some popularity, being listed as one of the The Independent's top ten "websites of the week".[1] They subsequently arranged to meet him, and Simone joined them in Los Angeles to form the tokidoki business venture. Simone has become a recent fixture at the San Diego Comic Con and makes appearances at various locations worldwide for signings and promotions. Simone has also made a guest appearance on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
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2011
Since launching, tokidoki has created the tokidoki for LeSportsac line of handbags in collaboration with LeSportsac (each bag comes with a Qee;[4] a toy collaboration for Toy2R, inside carabiner on stretch cord and a ball chain).
The first print was introduced in Spring of 2006, originally named Tokidoki, but deemed by fans as '"The Original Print", which includes Sandy and her Cactus Friends, along with the Moofia minions.
Since then, many other characters have been released and featured on LeSportsac bags, and the prints have also expanded to other merchandise such as jewelry.
The tokidoki for LeSportsac line of handbags have rare prints, increasiing value and escalating prices. This has led to the production of many illegal counterfeit copies.
There are also a number of tokidoki vinyl toys. These include the 10" Trexi Yukuun and the 3" Trexi that came with it, Yuki-Za and the tokidoki series 3 Dunny. There was a collaboration with Devilrobots for the 3" Trexi Plus series. The Cactus Friends and Moofia line of designer toys with Strangeco has been highly successful. Simone also designed an 8" Qee Bear named Sahara with Toy2R, available in several different exclusive colors (yellow, red, black and white). The original (yellow) Sahara Qee included a 2.5" version of Simone himself. There is also a collection of seven Cactus Pups that was released in 2007. These pups are the babies of Bastardino and Polpettina - each pup comes blind boxed with a little accessory, including a monkey, hot dog, soccer ball, skeleton head and a tiny grim reaper.
There have been two tokidoki Circus Punks. The Moofia is a line of 11 vinyl toys. The Moofia are milk box-themed toys, and consist of the following characters: Soya, Leche, Latte, Low fat Milk, Mou Mou Milk Bottle, Baby Milk Bottle, Choco, and Japanese Milk. There are three new Moofia that were released in 2008: Riso, Creamina, and Fragolina. In July 2008, two tokidoki plush dolls were released - SANDy and Mozzarella. In Fall of 2008, tokidoki released Mozzarella's boyfriend named Bulleto. During SDCC 2008, a grey-scale version of Bulleto was released in limited edition.
tokidoki, in collaboration with Toy Tokyo, premiered a limited edition soccer-themed tokidoki Be@rbrick at the New York Comic Con. Simone was pleased with the collaboration and subsequently created a limited edition Toy Tokyo geisha vinyl as well as another Toy Tokyo exclusive Be@rbrick (LA Robber) that was released at NYCC 2009.
There is a line of tokidoki clothing available which includes t-shirts, hoodies and jackets for men, women and children. There is also a line of jewelry, watches, and belt buckles. New Era produces tokidoki hats. Tokidoki has also collaborated with RIDE Snowboards to design a snowboard collection. RIDE produced snowboarding pants, a jacket, bindings, boots and a snowboard.
Tokidoki collaborated with Sephora and launched a new line of cosmetics in 2010. In the beginning, Sephora sold makeups that included eyeliners, eye shadows, lip gloss, and concealer. Later on, Sephora expanded its production and started to sell makeup accessories. Accessories included hair clips, hair brush, straightener, mirror, and eye brush.
These are the main character sets, but tokidoki continually adds to them.