Geisha - Tokidoki

Toy Tokyo is a renowned specialty toy store located in New York City’s East Village at 91 Second Avenue, between East 5th and East 6th Streets. Established in 2000 by owner Israel “Lev” Levarek, the store has become a haven for collectors and enthusiasts, offering a diverse selection of toys and collectibles.   The store specializes in a wide range of items, including vintage and contemporary toys, action figures, designer art toys, and pop culture memorabilia. Much of its inventory is imported from Japan and Hong Kong, featuring products related to anime, superheroes, and iconic franchises. Notably, Toy Tokyo offers exclusive items from brands such as KAWS, Funko, Ron English, and Medicom Toy. Simone Legno is the creative director and co-founder of tokidoki. Born in Rome, Italy, Legno, drew incessantly as a child. The boxes of chewed, broken and unsharpened pencils he adored as a kid were the beginnings of a passion for art that led to the eventual creation of tokidoki, Legno’s online portfolio of the same name. tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese. Legno, who has always had a deep love of Japan and fascination with world cultures, chose the word because he feels “everyone waits for moments that change one’s destiny, by chance or by meeting a new person”. Simone's special moment arrived when his designs drew the attention of entrepreneurs Pooneh Mohajer and Ivan Arnold, who spied the art on his personal website and convinced him to move to L.A. to start up a dynamic new partnership with them. Simone has been a sought-after speaker around the world at museums, universities and conferences, from MOCA (the Geffen Museum-Los Angeles) to the Adobe MAX conference, UCLA, USC, the Flash Film Festival in San Francisco, Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, Grafika Manila and many others.