Word: horvath
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...Horvath, 35, knew since childhood that they wanted to make toys. Growing up in Seoul, Kim's friends played with Barbie houses while she fashioned dollhouses out of cardboard and clay. On the other side of the world, in the U.S., Horvath's mother designed toys for Mattel. "She would bring home her beautiful unique prototypes, but when I saw them in the toy store, they looked the same as everything else," he recalls. "I always wanted to make toys, but I knew I never wanted to work for a toy company...
...illustration class at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City in 1997. "Right away we realized we had the same vision: making toys that are a storytelling device," says Horvath. "I chased her for a year, and she kept saying no. When I started to give up, she came around." But in 2001, Kim's student visa expired, and she had to move back to Korea. "I was completely devastated," says Horvath, who during their two years apart took a job as a manager at Toys International in L.A. "I interfaced with buyers and distributors and realized...
...Horvath's mother started to worry and persuaded him to show his drawings of what were to become Uglydolls to a major toy company (he's mum about which one). "They flat out told me none of my characters could translate into anything," he says. Frustrated, that night he wrote Kim a letter with a little drawing of Wage at the bottom. "Basically I was like, I'm going to work hard and find a way for us to get back together." When Kim received the letter, she decided to do something with it. "I knew it would make David...
...Horvath was so thrilled that the day he received the doll, he carried it around with him and at one point ran into his friend Nakamura. "It was original and simple in a time when handmade plush dolls were too ornate and craftlike," says the Giant Robot owner. "The prototype had great energy and didn't ask too much in terms of analyzing it as a form or design concept. It was just easy to like. So I ordered 20." They sold out immediately. Kim sewed a second batch of a new character, Babo (Wage's blue, buck-toothed, dumb...
Over the next 18 months, Kim sewed 1,500 dolls by hand, interpreting and mixing and matching the drawings Horvath sent her. "For the first two months I didn't have a sewing machine," she says. In 2003 they went into full production and set their sights on a spot in the American International Toy Fair. "Every time we sold a doll we would save for a booth at the fair. Our 10-ft. by 10-ft. booth was made out of felt and a couple of pieces of wood. We were there with spray glue 20 minutes before...