About toolly

 

toolly's founder, Berlin based textile designer Tomo Pook was born in 1972 in Japan. She grew up surrounded by sewing materials and tools as her mother was a dress maker and a kimono dresser. During the trip to NYC in the 90’s, she was fascinated by the city’s magical energy and instantly decided to move there.

She studied textile and surface design at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology). After graduating from FIT, she worked as a textile designer at renowned fashion house for several years. Tomo unexpectedly fell in love and married with a German graphic designer and the two moved to Berlin in 2003. Her family grew quickly, she lives now with her husband, 2 teenager sons and a small mixed-breed brown dog.

She then found a new inspiration from Berlin’s eco life style and witnessed the growth of ethical fashion scene, which led her to start working with organic fabrics. At the same time, Tomo often questioned herself about the fact that ethical crafters' limited awarness of tools whilst working with organic materials. Consequently, Tomo realised that the market place for eco-friendly notions are much more limited than the market place for organic materials such as fabrics and yarns.

That’s when she knew what her next adventure would be. She decided to open toolly, a shop where offers exclusively sustainable notions, plastic free packaging and shipping. Under the motto “Craft with Care”, Tomo wishes her customers to take a moment to give the tool good maintenance in order to keep them in a good condition and to make them last. And think about how she and her customers can work together to reduce unwanted waste.

She enjoys the thrilling moment of discovering sustainable and super functional tools and notions to share with her customers. This is rather a slow process, but she promises to expand the collection at toolly and for the future.