SEATTLE — This Seattle-based company is out to revolutionize gift giving by getting rid of gift wrap. And there’s a reason behind the name – Tokki (pronounced Tow-Key).
“I named my company Tokki because Tokki is Korean for rabbit, and when you gather up our unique gift bag ears it looks like a rabbit,” explained founder and CEO Jane Park.
Every year Americans go through 5 billion yards of wrapping paper, most of it isn’t recyclable because of dyes, glitter and paper finish. So Park created reusable high-quality cotton wraps to make gifting more sustainable. The idea come from her Korean grandma who wrapped special gifts in squares of silk. The company name is also a homage to a song from Park’s childhood. "‘Tokki’ is one of the most popular children’s songs in Korea, my mom used to sing it to me and I actually had her sing it with me on Instagram,” Parks laughed.
Instead of a card, Tokki gifts come with a scannable QR code so the gifter can go online to add a photo or video of themselves to personalize the gift.
“What’s so exciting about the Tokki tag is that you can show up with your gift,” said Park. All the gift receiver has to do is hover their phone camera over the tag, and a link pops up, with a personal message from the gifter. A perfect way to bridge that social distancing gap. The gifts that go into the bags are curated by, or created by the company. Like handmade candles with unique toasts on them.
“So this one is Mercury in retrograde, it’s a new one we just came out with, it says ‘Here’s to blaming it on the stars’,” explained Taylor Hoit, Tokki’s Chief Innovation Officer and candlemaker. She crafts them in her Spokane home.
“We took a labor of love to come up with our own creation, we were not candle makers but I guess no one is, it’s not something you go to school for. It took a long time to get the product right, get the formulation right, but we just came up with something that we really love,” said Hoit about the soy/coconut oil blend candles with wood wicks and perfume grade fragrances, and pandemic perfect appreciations printed on the labels.
Best of all, it’s okay to regift a Tokki wrap. It’s designed for it.
“It’s really like Sisterhood of the Traveling Gift Wrap,” laughed Park. “This is made to be handed from person to person, used over and over again.”
A sustainable way to gift, that also sustains our connections.
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