Tokidoki SM City with Simone Legno

I’m writing this on the eve of the 5th birthday of the Googly Gooeys and I couldn’t be any more grateful. I think I just met the awesomest, inspiring & most humble artist in my life! Ponggo & I were at the Tokidoki launch at SM City North Edsa today & we got to meet the artist Simone Legno!!!

It’s always refreshing to heart artists talk about their art and above, we wrote down some pretty quick notes & made our Tokidoki-inspired illustrations. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I missed Graphika Manila the year Simone was one of the speakers so meeting him personally was a treat! *I swear, I’ll stop it with the exclamation points.*

The Block in North Edsa was surrounded by these life-size statues. We all wanted to take them home–especially the unicron!

I knew that the event was going to have so many awesome visuals but I didn’t have a lot of expectations for the meet and greet. Throughout my semi-secret alternative career of fan girling, I would usually meet artists & musicians who are in a hurry to sign & smile or are fazed by the busyness and business that they’re currently attending to. But today was different.

Here’s a pretty Sprinklette sitting pretty beside Donutella. I’m all for colorful sprinkles! I wish all doughnuts looked as good as this!

Above: Simone is being greeted by the crowd. Apparently, throughout the interview, we found out that Simone used to play for a band in his 20’s which explains his the punk rock style of his graphics.

During the event, while Italian artist Simone (prounounced as see-MAW-ne) was being interviewed by DJ Sanya Smith, it already felt unimaginable that some globe-trotting artist who already worked with the likes of Karl Lagarefeld, and iconic characters like Hello Kitty, Marvel, Barbie plus giant brands such as Sephora, Le Sportsac & Onitsuka Tiger would be so down-to-earth and unassuming. *Yes, that was a run-on sentence.*

Above: The awesome Mr. UK–a vinyl toy collaboration of Simone with fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld.

At first, Ponggo & I were too shy to ask any questions during the public forum. But, come the announcement for the autograph signing session, we were so eager to get our stuffed toy & art book signed, we were the first in line. *Woops!* Hehe .

Above: Stellina of Unicorno & Bastardino of Cactus Friends–Anne Franco & I are just so stoked we got to have our plushies signed.

My two rules-slash-stuff-that-I-hope-to-happen during these kinds of events: (1) Do not be too starstruck so as to end up speechless with a sheepish grin & (2) Do not blurt out random awkward things if you’re at a loss for words!

Above Left: Mozzarella, leader of the Moofia “Milk is power. Milk is protection.” *Yeah!*
Above Right: Donutella who “comes from a planet where sugar is used as energy.” I honestly believe I belong to this planet. 😉

It’s just so awesome that Simone got to draw & sign our stuff and even shook our hands & thanked us for attending the event. I was like, “Whaaaatt?? Wait, I’m supposed to thank YOU!” But of course, speechless me just said thank you in a muffled tone and a big grin. Gahhh…I failed to follow rules 1 & 2…yet again! I have yet to master this art of not getting too overwhelmed with moments like these.

Above: Yours truly with Ponggo & Simone. All smiles (and yes, Ponggo forgot to breathe in).

Tokidoki means sometimes in Japanese and to quote Simone he chose it “because everyone waits for moments that change one’s destiny”. Well, this is really enlightening. I’m always stuck with that Stacie Orrico song lyrics from more than a decade ago that goes “There’s got to be more to life than chasing that temporary high”. *I think I just gave away my age* I love that line but I didn’t know how to reword it more positively.

I would love for my kid to sport this hairdo someday. 😉

I guess “sometimes” is a good word to remind us that wonderful things will happen but if it happened too often then we won’t be able to appreciate it as much. *I know. I already sound like a reflection paper…I’m this close to writing some lengthy philosophical reflection here*. Anyhooz, I must stop now before I bore you and before I get too emotional.*