Michael Lau and The King of All Designer Toys
In celebration of the Crazy Children‘s 10th anniversary, Michael Lau is releasing what is perhaps the king of all designer toys: The 12-inch Crazy Children King.
For all the wrong turns, less-than-successful co-branding and allegations of plagiarism in recent years, this child king really evokes the original Michael Lau. Its very being is a celebration of designer toys.
This is the kind of detail-driven toy that changed the game in the late 90s. Just take a look at the clothing in the image gallery below. It’s very hard to do clothes at this scale and oh-so-easy to do it wrong. Lau gets it right: I mean, look at those slippers! Or the buttons, tag and stitching on the polo shirt. Pants that tie with plaid boxers underneath. Flocked hair, a gold foil crown, a mouth that opens…I could go on. People talk about “playability” a lot lately. Lau’s 12-inch figures are articulated everywhere you want them to be. The Crazy Children King is a designer toy you can play with.
Although, if you are the type of person who plays with ~$500 USD “toys,” I’d like to meet you and also for you to buy me dinner sometime. To me, the Crazy Children King is a great statement piece for collectors. It’s a bit of a “fuck you” to the haters who don’t understand our passion and proclivities. It’s a man-child who is the king of his own kingdom, sitting atop a throne made of toy boxes. And it’s got a bit of a meta-thing going too, by way of the mini-Crazy Michael action figure the child king holds. Maybe it’s saying “I control my own destiny!” [I can’t quite understand the deal, but there are 3 different mini-Michaels (standard, black and gold). I’m not sure if these are blindly packaged in the multi-layered gold boxes.]
International ordering for Crazy Children King is open now through October 9th. I clicked my way through the ordering process and had to stop myself. I’m trying hard to be content with a Hello jpeg and an animated gif. If anyone out there wants to go in on this and “foster” the king with shared custody, I’m open.
[Most images via J.ME]
