The world painted pink
A Roman in America

Simone Legno

By Francesca Camerino
november 2009

Simone Legno is a soft-spoken 31-year-old Roman who might look like the fresh-faced boy next door but is in fact the creator of the multi-million dollar lifestyle phenomenon Tokidoki. Born in the capital’s Nuovo Salario district, Legno studied at the city’s prestigious Istituto Europeo di Design. For the last three years he has been riding a startling wave of success that took him from the Eternal City to the coast of California.
It all started when the co-founder of American cosmetics company Hard Candy, Pooneh Mohajer, and her husband Ivan Arnold discovered Legno's personal website Tokidoki.it, which the artist used to show off his creations. The couple fell in love with the adorable concept of Tokidoki – and realised its huge potential.
They immediately flew Legno out to Los Angeles and made him an amazing offer to move from Rome to California to build Tokidoki into a global lifestyle brand.
Tokidoki (“sometimes” in Japanese) was launched in 2005 and spread quickly across the United States. Recently the brand has moved into the European market in a big way. Tokidoki’s first products were tee-shirts but the brand expanded rapidly and now produces apparel and other products using art and iconic characters all designed by Legno, including vinyl figures, small toys, skateboards, watches, knitwear, sportswear, accessories and jewellery. The designer works out of his California home and does not have a special studio, preferring to work in the kitchen.

Tokidoki is inspired by Legno’s classical training as an illustrator and his love of all things Japanese. Tokidoki is a happy world that is delightful, charming, whimsical, and pure, with a sophisticated sexy edge. It transmits a positive feeling through everyday simple objects. Legno creates a dream-like world with his signature characters: Cactus Friends, Milk Carton, Ciao Ciao and Tulip. They transmit a positive childlike innocence which he believes everyone has within him- or herself. The designer also integrates a modest sensuality to his art with beautiful Japanese women with delicate postures and pop flair to them – elegant geishas for the modern age.
The characters in Tokidoki are not complex, they have no back-story. Their message is warm, innocent and simple – and appeals to the brand’s vast and varied target audience, which ranges from young children to kidults – those thirty-somethings who still haven’t lost the thrill of stylised, colourful characters. There’s clearly a global empathy for Legno’s style, which is constantly switching between young-adult and tender-passion.

Internet played a key role not only in making Legno’s designs better known, but also in developing his own highly individualistic style, full of animation and colour. Tokidoki.it began as Legno’s personal website, a creative diary where he could display the drawings which had always been his passion. Thanks to the internet, he was able to escape the arid artistic panorama of his homeland and find a global audience.
And sometimes it’s not just a question of talent but also flair and timing: knowing how to seize the decisive moment in that instant when it’s available. Dreams do sometimes come true; in this case thanks to a couple of far-sighted Americans who were willing to bet on the future of a young artist from a country where homegrown backers for talented youngsters are hard to find. But this is just the beginning for Simone Legno. He’s riding the crest of a wave and there’s still a long way to go.
............................................................................................................................................

A passion for Japan

Simone Legno has always been deeply intrigued by everything about Japan, from the timeless, magical beauty of its traditions, to the super pop flashy aspects of its ultra-modern cities, and most of all, it’s people. His fascination with Japanese culture started at an early age. He grew up in the 1980’s when Italy was bombarded with Japanimation cartoons and comics. Although influenced by the master Japanese artists like Takashi Murakami, Legno gradually began to develop his own highly personal style. He can also speak a few words in Japanese: his girlfriend and his closest friends all come from Japan.