The circus rolled into town last Thursday — the plastic circus, that is.
Despite the global economic crisis, the Taipei Toy Festival is still going strong.
Since 2004 the annual event, which ran from July 9 to July 12 this year and is the largest convention in Asia dedicated exclusively to art toys, has brought together an international coterie of toy makers and distributors. More than 200 designers made an appearance at Huashan Culture Park, where this year’s edition was held, more than double the approximately 80 designers who attended in 2008.
For the grand opening at 10:30am last Thursday, a long line of fans snaked from Huashan’s east entrance down Jinshan North Road (金山北路) around the corner to Zhongxiao East Road (忠孝東路). Wang Shu-ching (王淑卿), who was waiting near the back of the line with a friend, said she arrived early in the hope of getting her hands on a limited-edition C.i.Boy figure, one of four toys given out to the first 500 fans to arrive on each day of the festival.
“I consider these toys works of art,” said Wang, who counts Husky x 3, Jason Siu and Toys2R among her favorite brands and designers. Wang added that she has invested about NT$20,000 to NT$30,000 in her collection of nearly 30 figures since attending the first Taipei Toy Festival six years ago.
“Designer toys weren’t really well known in Taiwan back then and I went because I was curious to see what it was all about,” said Wang.
Since then designer toys have become increasingly popular in this country, thanks in part to their use as marketing tools by retailers. Designer Demos Chiang (蔣友柏), a grandson of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), and popular toy designers Devilrobots of Japan and Hong Kong-based C.i.World, creator of C.i.Boy, have all made limited-edition series for convenience stores.
The birth of the designer toy trend is commonly attributed to Michael Lau, a Hong Kong artist who in the late 1990s began making limited-edition vinyl figures based on a comic he had created. The trend quickly spread through Asia and then on to the rest of the world. The terms designer toy, art toy and urban vinyl are often used interchangeably because many of the figures are created by artists or graphic designers, influenced by street art and style, and made from high-quality plastic or vinyl in limited runs.
Jen Huang (黃仁壽), founder of toy distributor Monster Taipei (台北怪獸), launched the Taipei Toy Festival as a networking event for designers in Taiwan. The festival’s scope has since expanded, and this year’s roster of exhibitors hailed from the US, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Italy, England and Australia.
The theme of this year’s festival was “the secret forest.”
“When designers gather, it is like a forest of creativity,” said Huang. “The festival has gotten bigger and bigger. It lets people know that creativity can make everyday life more enjoyable, even when the economy is not so great.”
The move to Huashan from Core Pacific City Living Mall (京華城), where the event was held in previous years, allowed for bigger booths that many designers set up like mini-galleries. Toy distributor Medicom’s glass cases were filled with limited-edition and one-off items for enthusiasts to cast covetous gazes upon, while Carousel Toy Shop set up a large Chinese checkers board manned with figures by Taiwanese designer D-La (陳岳樟). There were more crossover products for sale this year, including flash drives from US-based Mimoco and sneakers, bags and T-shirts by like Taiwanese line The Black Skull Union (黑面聯盟) and Hong Kong-based design house Apple Kingdom.
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