Why I ended up fancying a freakishly kawaii fanny pack

Last night, I went to glorietta with bf to look around for the perfect gift for his dad. Within 10 minutes of stepping inside the mall, his mom suddenly called to say that his dad is eyeing this one shirt in topman and that we could get that if we wanted something he’ll like for sure. So we were like, hmmm.. okay… that was easy! We didn’t have to search high and low for ‘the gift’ anymore! And besides, a topman shirt is such a cool choice. Bf’s dad is so cute!!! Of course I kept asking myself how come my dad doesn’t buy anything topman... (the closest thing he’ll consider to such a fast-forward trendy place is Celio and Van Heusen. XP ) hahaha. Oh well, not all dads can be the same, can they? (Peace dad! heehee.. *hiding in my chair now* although I doubt that you’ll get to read this anyway. Mwahaha!) Well, you know guys, actually my dad is, um, cute too... in his own little way. *futile attempt to redeem myself before my dad smacks my head with a newspaper*

Anyway, back to the mall… I ended up looking around for post-holiday potential buys instead, which wasn’t so bad at all. hehehe! I was initially looking at the cutie quirky accessories section to look for a pretty beanie when suddenly the Lesportsac area caught my eye. The winter tokidoki prints have recently been brought out and they were really eye-catching in a kawaii japanimania way. Here are swatches of how they look like:

Tokidoki Winter 2006: Paradiso and Inferno Print

There are two new prints called Paradiso and Inferno (translating to paradise and hell in Italian, quite obviously hehe.) Paradiso is a lighter print with mostly pinks and blues which emulates little babies and rainbows in heaven (hence the name) while the Inferno print was a rockin' print that had more grays, reds and yellows (amongst the characters were little devils, skulls, bullets and chili peppers). Both bf and I thought the latter looked really really rad! hahaha. And that was then that I fell in love with the funky fanny pack they had from the line.

Here's a screencap of the opening page of this collection at lesportsac.com

I'm pretty sure you can tell which one is inferno right? heehee, looks like I'm into the "naughty" line. haha!

To get an idea of how the fanny pack looks like, here are some stock photos of this style:



And *drum roll please* here's the stock pic of the inferno one! so kawaii!



Aptly called canguro (Italian for kangaroo), the fanny pack is quite functional, pop cultsy, and edgy at the same time. It’s also just the right size such that it doesn't seem to be too overwhelming even with the super colorful print. When I tried it on, it actually gave the vibe of a sort of modish belt. Very cute indeed, but perhaps not for the faint of heart when it comes to fashion. *nods head* I think you may have to sort of be into pop graphics or something like that. (Well, I’m from the rainbow brite generation so I certainly can take bright colors in tokidoki doses. hahaha!) Sadly though, my pocket could not handle the price tag of this new waist candy at the moment (around $110). *sniff sniff* so I had to slowly put down the last piece of inferno canguro back into the display shelf. (The SA said they had ran out of the inferno ones but still had 2 stocks of the paradiso ones). It was really hard! I almost felt like the little devils in the print were telling me to steal the stupid bum bag. hahaha!

When I got home though, I couldn’t get the darn thing out of my head and so I started researching about the tokidoki lines. It so happens that tokidoki (which means sometimes in Japanese btw) is a company created by Simone Legno, the designer himself, who might I add, is a pretty hot young Italian guy. LOL! Well, I was surprised as I always thought he was a Japanese guy that looked like Takashi Murakami. 8D

There he is on the right, taken from a korean mag of some sort I think. He seems to adore facial piercings. hehehe.

And here's another shot of him with two fans whilst wearing his signature fedora hat, taken from a comic or graphic convention i think. (Look, the girls are actually rocking the canguro! hehehe.)

Simone initially was simply a graphic artist until the owners of Hard Candy Co. invited him to start a company when he first stepped on American soil. And so was the birth of tokidoki and of numerous collaborations such as with fornarina and nike. Check these out:

Ads of Fornarina collabs

A super cute pair of nike's!!!

I also learned that apparently, Tokidoki stuff are very hot in the market with fans coming from all over the world. (*sigh* and now I just had to become one. hahaha.) Just look at these cool HK girls sporting those tokidoki bags!

They really look smokin' with those bags! *oggle oggle* haha.

But more importantly, I became more infatuated with the cute fanny pack the more I researched about this line. I mean just look at these pictures.

Pic from Nylon Magazine 2006. Now that's how i'd wear mine! (sans the multiple fannies of course *wink*).

Shoot, even Jessica Alba likes it! I really was in a dilemma over this bag by the time I saw this pic. hehehe!

Oh well, such is the start of my fixation with the tokidoki inferno fanny pack. I’ve always thought belt bags were going to make a big come back after being dealt with a long bum rap in the fashion world. *wink*