Two years ago, after attending the 2006 Comic Con, I bought a tokidoki bag from the Duty Free Shop steps from Grauman's Chinese Theatre in L.A. I was hesitant to buy the bag because $100 seemed quite steep for rip-stop nylon, even if it was cute. Luckily for me, Joe insisted on buying the Playground Ciao bag (seen on the left) for me and I have enjoyed it ever since.
In the two years since, tokidoki has become a phenomenon. Prices rose in the season immediately after my purchase, but the brand continued to grow in popularity. So, when I heard that tokidoki would no longer be produced by lesportsac after Winter 2007, I was surprised that such a profitable brand would be discontinued. (See the complete lesportsac line of tokidoki bags minus Winter 2007 here.)
Thinking that tokidoki bags were a thing of the past, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the tokidoki booth at Comic Con 2008. Girls swarmed the counter and bought skateboard decks, t-shirts, accessories and whatever they could get their hands on. I found myself jumping into the fray but ultimately, walked away with nothing.
A few days after Comic Con had ended, I was at the Macy's in Union Square, San Francisco, when I came across new tokidoki bags that had just arrived, so the salesperson claimed. I looked over these new tokidoki bags and found them lacking, especially in comparison to my own tokidoki bag, which I was carrying. The teeth of the zippers were similarly multicoloured but much harsher in tone. All the hardware had a flashy gold tone unlike the more subtle brushed gold of my bag. A closer look at the finishing of the bags also showed a careless hand.
When I returned home, I checked the Wikipedia entry for tokidoki and was surprised to learn that lesportsac is reportedly the manufacturer of the new tokidoki line of bags. Apparently, the brand's illustrator and co-creator, Simone Legno, was given complete creative control and chose to leave out the lesportsac logo for a "cleaner aesthetic". These new bags are also expected to cost more than the previous line.
Either Wikipedia is mistaken in its claim that lesportsac has anything to do with the new line of tokidoki bags or lesportsac is screwing over Simone Legno by producing a sub par product.
It is understandable that Simone Legno and his business partners might want a bigger cut of the tokidoki pie, and separating themselves from lesportsac is a first step. However, will tokidoki fans buy any product with the tokidoki characters emblazoned on them, even if it is poorly made? Only numbers will tell.
3 comments:
Hah! I just bought a couple of bags like this, too, at Ardene ($20, buy one, get one 50% off)
In the end, colourful nylon bags can be bought anywhere but lesportsac did do a very good job as did Simone Legno. You can see a difference in the details. The latest tokidoki bags just fall short.
The new tokidoki bags are still produced by LSS and Simone. They just aren't cross-branded. I'm on a lot of tokidoki fan sites/forums and everyone seems pretty thrilled with the new bags overall.
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