Why mess with a winning formula? What’s good for ‘08 is a good bet for ‘09. Onitsuka Tiger has once again teamed up with the Japanese inspired, but Italian created brand Tokidoki in a sneaker collaboration. This time, two low-top kicks were created (in white and gray colorways). The shoes have classic Tiger styling with bright accents you’d expect from Simone Legno.  A lace charm and a full bottom gumsole depicting the characters adored by junior high girls and collectors everywhere round out the creation.

Via Formatmag

Not so many years ago, an Italian by the name of Simone Legno created a site from which he could display his artwork. A successful Rome-based illustrator, Legno had formed a love of Japanese culture in his early childhood, and his artwork reflected as much. Dark eyed women, equally shy and strong, gave the term “cute' new meaning — a meaning as dangerous as it was endearing, and as forceful as it was adorable.

The site was tokidoki, and before long, Legno's cute-oozing, Japan-blasted caricatures had attracted the attention of Hard Candy Cosmetic's co-founder Pooneh Mohajer and her husband, Ivan Arnold. In 2003, the pair flew the artist to Los Angeles, where talks were soon underway to turn Legno's tokidoki into a brand of it's own — a brand that would soon be bigger than what any of them expected.

Now, only a few years after that first meeting, the world of tokidoki covers everything from shoes, snowboards, and skate decks, to bags, walls, and tour busses. Legno's trademark mix of innocence and allure has won fans the world over — a side effect that seems to strike regardless of age, sex, race, or gender. We chatted with Legno about his inspiration, his long list of collaborations, and his plans for the future.

Joshspear.com: A lot has changed since you first came to L.A. in 2003 — did you ever dream that tokidoki would become what it is today?

Simone Legno: Yes; I dreamed so, I believed in it, and it happened. I was lucky, but I've worked very hard for it, day and night — weekends included. READ MORE…

Judging by the amount of times we've posted about the Onitsuka Tiger footwear imprint, the Japan-based Asics brand may soon come to be known as the sneaker that launched a thousand creative endeavors. While it's not the only footgear included in Nina Braun's, snug stable of knitted sneakers, the Onitsuka Tiger Fabre is one of our favorite, featured footwear facsimiles in her entire collection. The German designer has created an impressive line of puschen, (German word meaning “slippers”) “for the cosy generation,” that flaunts the facades of some of the choicest kicks on the planet. While we wouldn't recommend cavorting around town in these stylish slippers, they certainly make for a fashionable way to keep your feetsies from freezing, whether you're getting ready for bed or just futzing around your flat.

Next May, the beginning of a lengthy collaboration between tokidoki and Onitsuka Tiger will give fans of both companies something to blog about. A blend of Italian artist Simone Legno’s modern characters and Onitsuka Tiger’s popular footwear, the two year-long collaboration will result in a steady stream of tokidoki love (that’s already been flying around like the herp, but we’re not gonna stop it) and will help both companies further spread the gospel of modern Japanese art. As far as I can tell, this will be the first athletic shoe collab for tokidoki (though they did some good work with Italy’s Fornarina earlier this year), so high fives to both companies for locking down something so rockin’. News of this pairing should be flying all over the internets in no time at all, but we recommend keeping your eyes here for the most up to date info.

Onitsuka Tiger, the hip tattoo artist to its parent company Asics‘ podiatrist, is showing off. These Onitsuka Tiger Rakugaki shoes have a unique scribbled-on look — which makes sense because apparently rakugaki means “doodle” in Japanese — while maintaining the classic and recognizable Onitsuka Tiger logo. I don’t have a lot else to say about these except that I covet them but there’s no information anywhere as to their availability or the release date. But while you’re at the Onitsuka Tiger website, and you didn’t catch it here the first time around, you may as well check out the Made of Japan link as well. It’s a collage of tiny images from the Japanese internet which combine to make a shoe; each image is linked to its origin, so you could probably spend about two days just clicking around it if you wanted to…and I might do just that.

Check out this clever promotion for shoe brand Onitsuka Tiger called Made Of Japan. The mosaic shoe shown above is dynamically created using hundreds of tiny images from Japan-related web pages posted or updated in the past 24 hours. They’re then configured by color to recreate the classic Onitsuka shoe. As a user you can mouse over and view each little pixel for a preview of the site it came from or click to go to a random Japanese page.

One of my favorite sneaker shops I found while hunting through Tokyo was Pistacchio. It’s located in Daikanyama, on a small back street called Sarugaku-cho just across from the Onitsuka Tiger store. The shop was primarily full of obscure Nike and Puma sneakers. I picked up a pair of these Puma Limited shoes I’d never seen before called “WAKE“–the blue color apparently a Tokyo exclusive. They feel like a slip on with a neoprene sock and a surprisingly comfortable hard-shell molded heal. They were available in 3 colorways, and if you look closer, each camo-eqsue pattern is actually made up of the signature leaping puma. If you speak Japanese or just like looking at pictures, Pistacchio has a stellar online shop with dozens of great sneakers to choose from.