It was the velvety plush boxer with his furrowed brow- the image of my childhood canine pets- that first caught my eye in a small bear shop in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. My Family had always had boxers, but the last one had died about a year earlier. Now that my recently widowed mother was living in a yardless condominium, it was clear there wouldn’t be any more.

 Though I usually refrain from inflicting my love for toys on other adults, I couldn’t help myself. The boxer, whose label bore the unfamiliar name “ Naito Design,” showed up under her Christmas tree. Months later, she still reports that she pets the stuffed pup nightly.

            Hisako Naito, Japanese founder of the innovative toy and plush manufacturer, didn’t have adults in mind when she began making stuffed animals in the 1950’s. “My first designs were two simple rabbits I created out of my own clothes, and their job was to make friends with my two daughters and keep them happy,” she relates. She and the cadre of designers that make up the Naito Design Institute in Tokyo still focus on making children happy, but more and more adults-collectors and impulse buyers alike- are finding themselves drawn to her creations. “ I’m blown away by the expressions on the animals’ faces and by the body positioning,” says Gretchen Wilson, president of the doll company Little Souls, who was so taken with the Japanese company’s pieces that she asked them to produce her new doll collection, Little Dandles.

             Naito’s plush toys are indeed distinguished by body postures and facial expressions that are highly whimsical, yet true to life. The designers’ forte΄ is fabrics, whether it is the velveteen they select for the 16 breeds of Tailwaggers and Bowtie Pups; the colorful boucle΄ for their infant-toy collection, Rainbow Patches and Whimsy Patches or the stringy cotton-terrycloth mix used for their Comfy collection. Their various Teddies include the Corduroy Bears; the angora Romance Collection; the Dignitaries, of fine chenille; the pudgier Kuddly Bears, made from a more squeezable chenille; the well-stuffed Java Bears; the rumpled Snoozers; the Blueberry Family; and the coolest crew of all, the Hip Hop Bears (and their Hip Hop Bunny pals). Something that makes the Naito pieces especially attractive is their price:  it’s hard to spend more than $50 on a piece, and most sell for less than $30. “ Their dogs fly out of my store,” says Cynthia Richards, owner of Manhattan’s Bear Hugs and Baby Dolls. “ They have personality plus; they talk to you-and at that price they’re just too cute to leave behind.”

            For Hisako Naito, who celebrated her 30^th anniversary of incorporation in 1997, it’s been an incredible journey from young Japanese housewife to sought-after plush designer to international entrepreneur and global manufacturer. Those two first rabbits spurred her to make more and more animals and, as she explains, “ some friends suggested the idea of making stuffed toys for a living. At that time the toy industry in Japan was basically making Christmas ornaments for the American market, and to create a product for the domestic market was a new idea. Consequently my products started to sell well.” Her traditional husband, however, didn’t like her stepping outside of the typical Japanese wife’s role and eventually gave her an ultimatum. Hisako decided, in her words, “ to marry fabrics instead. As a single mother,” she continues, “it was difficult to balance the production business and raise my children at the same time, so I decided to focus my efforts on design and creativity. I wrote to all the soft-toy-related companies offering design and technical consulting.” Eventually her pieces came under the distribution of Sansei Corporation, and she found herself designing, anonymously, for a variety of international companies. In 1967, seeking to uphold her own high standards, she incorporated as Naito Design and began manufacturing pieces under that name. That same year she founded her Naito Design Institute, formalizing an already existing studio system in which young Japanese designers, inspired by her innovative work, came to work under her umbrella. When the pieces were successful, Hisako would offer their designs to companies for which she was already creating toys. It was, and still is, an unusual mentor relationship, which eventually expanded to include international designers from those same companies, who come to the Naito Design Institute for three- to six- month internships. Richard Wadiri, president of Naito Design in the United States, explains the appeal of the Institute. “ Mrs. Naito’s credo is ‘never give a designer instructions, because you take the chance of limiting his or her imagination.’ So a typical studio scenario might be like this: A designer makes a frog and shows it to Mrs. Naito. She suggests he try a cat or dog from the same fabric, in the same style, and then the designer understands that the frog didn’t work. She does not ever give instructions.” Hisako explains, “ Many people visited our studio just to be in a free creative atmosphere, which no other company allowed back then or even now.”

            By the early 1980’s, Naito Design’s pieces were appearing in Mattel’s Emotions catalog. Hisako visited the factory, at the time in Korea, for product quality inspections and to introduce new patterns. At the Korean factory, she developed a close relationship with S.H. Chang, president of Mattel in Korea, who was to play a crucial role in the development of Naito’s manufacturing in China. (In an important side note, Richard Wadiri points out that “ Mrs. Naito’s close relationship with Mr. Chang broke the gender barrier prevalent in both Japanese and Korean cultures.”) It was Hisako’s nephew, Kazuma Ando, a worker in one of his aunt’s factories, who took S.H. Chang as his mentor, working under his tutelage to learn production and quality control. In the late 1980’s when Mattel and most other manufacturers left Korea for China, Ando decided it was time to turn Naito into a “ real business.” He started the first Naito factory in China and, a few years later in Sri Lanka. Now each factory employs about 750 people, who work from designs and samples made at the Naito Design Institute in Tokyo by a group of designers numbering from 12 to 20. Kazuma Ando and Richard Wadiri gave the company a global presence and network with the establishment of Naito U.S.A.

            That may be why Naito Design toys seem to be everywhere. Stores like General Nutrition Centers, Bath and Body Works, and Urban Outfitters are selling everything from Naito key chains and Tailwagger Christmas ornaments to Hip Hop Bears. “ Naito has caught an adolescent attitude in those Hip Hop Bears with their cocked heads,” notes Little Souls’ Gretchen Wilson. What about Teddy Bear shops? Cynthia Richards plans to branch out from the Tailwaggers to include Hip Hop Bears in her shop. “ They’ll add variety and spice,” she says. “ You want to have bears that are different and pop.” Hisako Naito says that “ our goal has been… to give a greater thing- love, which grows from the relationship between the child and the toy, and from the child to the rest of the world.” While she didn’t plan it this way, if you substitute the word “ collector ” for “ child, ” her statement still holds true.      

Home    Company History    Manufacturing References    Contact Us   Terms and Conditions

© Copyright Naito Design, All Rights Reserved