Present Perfect with Poketo

Do the upcoming holidays have you in a panic over presents? Look to Poketo for its impressive and unique series of artist-designed wallets, tees, messenger bags and more.

I first met Angie Myung and Ted Vadakan, founders of Poketo, in Tokyo last year at the city’s famous Design Festa. Their line of colorful tees and wallets immediately attracted my aesthetic sensibilities, and the thought of supporting emerging artists by taking home useful, artwork-emblazoned products really appealed to me. Later, I ended up launching a Japanese artists series of wallets with Poketo this past August! Since their humble start in 2003, Poketo has grown an amazing line-up of artists and honed a great eye for design. After nine successful wallet series, Poketo is now expanding their line into housewares, messenger bags and stationery, and has been mentioned in countless magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, ReadyMade, and Bust. And for those fashion-savvy, as mentioned in The New York Times Magazine, “Marc Atlan, a designer who has done work for Comme des Garçon and Yves Saint Laurent, …got in touch [with Poketo] and has a T-shirt and wallet [design] out.” Check Poketo’s website at www.poketo.com to snag one before they’re all gone!

I sat down with Ted and Angie to ask them a few questions about Poketo.

What’s the origin of the name Poketo?
Well, we started out with wallets first so I was playing around with the idea of the pocket. My grandparents (who lived through the Japanese occupation in Korea) always pronounce words in a Japanese manner—they’d pronounce “cup” as “cuppu”, “pocket” as “poketo”, and so on.

People pronounce Poketo in all kinds of ways. Some call it “pocket-to”, most call it “poquito”—we’ve even heard “poke too”, but we don’t mind. We think it’s kind of fun!

How did you get your start?
We first launched our artist wallets in 2003 with a handful of emerging artists, produced in very limited edition. These wallets acted as artist promo pieces to accompany the art show we produced. They were pieces of art that we wanted people to walk away with, keep on them always, and be the catalyst for interesting conversation. The artists designed them exclusively for us and we were able to promote the artists by adding bio and contact info inside of the wallet (something we still do on all Poketo stuff). The key to Poketo is promoting the artist and getting both unknown and established artists out to a wider, global audience. Our first art show and collection of artist wallets were a hit and we continued to release more collections with different artists and slowly branched out into other products, like tees, sketchbooks and housewares.

Why wallets?
A wallet is something that you’re always carrying; it’s always on you. To have a piece of art in your pocket or in a bag seemed like a perfect idea: it’s a little piece of something special that is always with you. It’s goes with our whole motto: art for your everyday thing. How and where do you find artists?
We search for new artists and receive artist submissions regularly. There isn’t one particular type of work or artist that we look for. Artists that are passionate in what they do, clearly reflect their energies and passion in their work, and that really attracts us.

We also team up with other curators in developing Poketo collections. Inviting other curators and artists expands our circle and allows us to connect with people that we would not have on our own.

What’s the Poketo aesthetic? the Poketo goal?
Poketo is eclectic. It’s important for us to combine art and utility in common objects—to truly provide artist-driven products for the everyday. We’d love to have a store someday!

Can you suggest some great gifts for the holidays?
Wallets and tees! For fun we’re offering a secret grab bag where you’ll get a whole bunch of assorted wallets and tees. Also, check out our Mood Bottle Openers, Zigzag Calendar and Dream Books! Any upcoming projects you’d like to mention?
We’re continuing with more series of wallets and tees, more stationery and home goods—we’ve got many exciting projects coming soon!

What does Poketo want for the holidays?
A huge rent-free studio with lots of rooms for artists to stay where we can sell goods, have parties, make art, eat, drink and be merry. Anyone interested in giving us that for Christmas? Oh—and $100,000 to start our own line, an internship at Banana Republic and new Saturn Sky Roadster…sound familiar?

– Chako Suzuki