Q-pot Special Event (5/7/2017) Report

Sunday was a sunny, breezy spring day in San Francisco, a perfect day for a savory lunch, fabulous desserts, and a celebration of the sweetest food accessories ever concocted.

Don’t let the setting fool you, all of those doughnuts and petit fours are jewelry.
 
This weekend Japanese jewelry brand Q-Pot celebrated their 15th anniversary and the introduction of their new clothing line at Harajuku Hearts, a J-fashion boutique in the heart of San Francisco, California, with designer Tadaaki Wakamatsu himself as a special guest! I had the honor of attending the afternoon event (ticket sales were initially so popular a second time was added).
 
Q-Pot specializes in hand-crafted jewelry and accessories that look like incredibly realistic miniature foods such as macarons, doughnuts, sorbet, whipped cream, chocolate chip cookies, and occasionally savory foods like hamburgers and french fries. Their new line features honey and lemon motifs just in time for summer!

This is no mass-produced factory-made plastic -- each piece is meticulously created by hand by Japanese artisans.
 
Q-Pot often features fun collaborations such as Disney, Sailor Moon, Rose of Versailles, and Blythe dolls but also artists such as the dual-natured J Pop star Tommy Heavenly 6/ Tommy February 6, Hawaiian ukelele player Jake Shimabukuro, and Japanese goth rock band VAMPS for their annual Halloween Party. Q-Pot has even been sought after for collaborations by high-tech companies like Sharp and Mercedes, who commissioned a chocolate car.
 
It’s not just delicious-looking goods either -- for their tenth anniversary in 2012, Q-Pot opened an actual cafe in Tokyo featuring real food that’s just as lovely to look at as it is to eat.
 
Since Q-Pot is so food-centric, it was appropriate that the anniversary would also combine food and jewelry. The event started off with lunch and a custom rosette making session. Attendees selected several different colored ribbons with which to accent a button, each with different designs created specially for the Q-Pot event -- a stylized Q, cherries, and of course, cake. I came attired for the occasion in a dress called Chess Chocolate by lolita brand Angelic Pretty so I made myself a mint and brown rosette to match it. It was a lot of fun seeing the different designs and color combinations everyone else came up with. You can see more cute examples on the official Harajuku Hearts Instagram.

The food was an interesting choice for an event that would likely be attended by numerous lolitas -- Burger Bar on the sixth floor of the Macy’s building in Union Square. Our meal included a wide variety of tasty offerings including chicken wings, fried zucchini, fried pickles, onion rings, hummus and flatbread, fresh fruit, salad, and a large cheese plate. The hummus was mostly flavorless but the breading on the fried foods was fantastic. I ate several fried pickles slices without realizing I usually can’t stand the things.
 
Picturesque flights of milkshakes befitting the Q-Pot brand were brought out as we waited for our rosettes to dry. From the choices of strawberry, salted caramel, and Nutella, I chose the Nutella and I wasn’t disappointed. It was accented with whole hazelnuts and the texture was so thick the straw may as well have been decorative.

But that wasn’t all! Just when I thought I had stuffed myself with hazelnut goodness, a final treat was brought out: a dessert hamburger consisting of a sliced doughnut sprinkled with sugar instead of sesame seeds to stand in for a bun, a hamburger patty recreated in dark chocolate fudge, kiwi slices standing in for pickles, strawberries for tomatoes, and a thinly sliced passion fruit gelatin representing a slice of cheese. The flavors went together perfectly. It was complex, uniquely tart and sweet at the same time, and absolutely delicious. I would go back to Burger Bar just to eat another one.

After that it was time for a short walk to the Harajuku Hearts store to meet Wakamatsu-san!
 
Everyone filed into Harajuku Hearts, where the pink, black, and white interior is as cute as the products it sells. We were given an introduction to the brand before Wakamatsu-san came out to a round of applause. He was dressed in one of Q-Pot’s brand new shirts patterned in stylized strawberries.
 
The Q-Pot brand was created when Wakamatsu-san realized that food is something that universally makes people happy, regardless of place of origin, age, gender, etc. He thought if people could wear delicious food, it would always bring about a smile. In order to help perfect the quality and appearance, he has taken culinary classes to better understand his own products. The addition of more savory foods was due to his own personal desire to eat something salty after something sweet and vice versa.
 
As the 10th anniversary was marked by the opening of Q-Pot Cafe, Wakamatsu-san wanted to do something equally new and exciting for the 15th anniversary and decided to try his hand at clothing. He chose a strawberry motif to fit not only Q-Pot’s image but also as a fun play on words -- in Japanese, the numbers one and five are “ichi” and “go” and the word for strawberry is “ichigo,” hence a line of clothes emblazoned with delicious strawberries. 
 
This new clothing line was on display and available for guests to try on and pre-order. The designs are simple and timeless: A-line dresses that harken back to 1950s Americana, perfect for a picnic or business, loose, casual black and strawberry vests, forest green and white cardigans featuring wide, exquisite custom Q-Pot lace that serves as a peter pan collar, and a red cardigan dotted with strawberry seeds (perfect for everyday wear or to tie together a lolita coordinate!). Photos inside the store were not allowed but you can get a peek on the Harajuku Hearts website and they will go on sale soon!
 
In addition to the new clothing, all of Q-Pot’s currently available jewelry including the hottest new designs were on display. A beautiful array of every sweet imaginable in just about every hue -- lavender milkshake pendants, blue seashell macaron rings, mint chocolate chip earrings, dark chocolate biscuit wristwatches, as well as additional chocolate-themed accessories including purses, backpacks, wallets, teddy bears, towels, and phone cases. Two popsicle-shaped purses were also available in sax blue and lemon yellow.

Here is Eliza modeling two new Q-Pot releases, a lemon earring and a chocolate-dipped lemon slice. Although not visible from the front, the earring isn’t a mere slice but the entire back half of a lemon, complete with a lovely milky yellow acrylic “rind.”
 
As if the fun of getting a sneak preview wasn’t enough, we were divided into teams for a coordinate contest and allowed to dress one of our own up with several Q-Pot items and take photos together with Wakamatsu-san.
 
All the entries were adorable. One team’s theme was a Victorian beach postcard and included ice cream sundaes paired with the model’s vintage-inspired Angelic Pretty sailor dress. Another team was refreshing citrus on a summer day and used the honey and lemon themed accessories to accent the model’s yellow sundress. Another centered around the coffee and doughnuts designs to match the model’s rockabilly aesthetic and create a1950s drive-in diner theme. It was a pleasure to collaborate and admire everyone’s ideas.
 
After group photos, we were presented with darling strawberry-themed Q-Pot clear files, which Wakamatsu-san was kind enough to autograph and chat with everyone briefly while others had the chance to shop and try things on.

It seemed like everyone had a wonderful time at the event (I sure did) and I’m very grateful I was able to attend and participate. Wakamatsu-san was friendly and warm and his desire to spread joy through cute things is an admirable one. It was fascinating to learn that each Q-Pot piece is a tiny work of art and to get to handle their exquisite miniatures (and not-so-miniature accessories). I hope their clothing line takes off and can’t wait to see what comes next for the brand.
 
Make sure to check out Harajuku Hearts and Q-Pot online or in person if you’re in the Bay Area or Tokyo! Follow them on Facebook (here and here) and Instagram (here and here) as well!

-Laura