PUBLISHED: TATLER HONG KONG, JUN 2010
Designer toys are surging in popularity among collectors. The only problem is defining exactly what they are.
Toys have been around as long as human beings have. But the same can’t be said of designer toys. The latest hot category of collectibles really only started to come to prominence about 30 years ago. According to Sotheby’s Hong Kong contemporary Asian art specialist Jonathan Wong, designer toys are rooted in 1960s pop art and the more recent neo-pop art movements. “The former combined popular mass culture and fine art, bringing comics and cartoons to galleries and museums, while the latter was initiated by artists whose signature images are from Japanese subculture,” he says.
