Word: kim
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HOPING YOU HAVE A BLAST KIM JONG...
...first designer plush dolls, and they probably won't be the last, but a cast of 15 unattractive, ever evolving characters called Uglydolls?each accompanied by a quirky, amusing narrative?have plopped down at the forefront of the designer-toy movement. The dolls' creators, David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim, are themselves outsiders in a nearly monopolized corporate toy industry. Their first doll, a snaggle-toothed, apron-donning orange blob named Wage who, the story goes, works at a grocery store and lives for chocolate-chip-cookie dough, was born in 2001 not as a pop-culture collectible...
Since then, over a million Uglydolls have been sold in 2,500 stores around the world (including high-end retailers like Barneys and Takashimaya), and last year Kim and Horvath's company, Pretty Ugly, did $2.5 million in sales. The dolls have amassed a cult following, with a fifth-anniversary convention, UglyCon, to be held in Los Angeles in December. "I'll bet there are toy-company boardrooms filled with Uglydoll samples and that they're scratching their heads as to why it works and why they didn't do it first," says Eric Nakamura, owner of L.A.-based Asian...
...Kim, 30, and 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...
...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 I wasn't just interested in toy design...