Down @ Toy Street with Scrills & DLUX (Recap Interview & Event Pics)

I've said my piece. Posted a heck load of coverage. Now we chat with Gainu 'Scrills' Ledejobi of Cookies-n-Cream (interviewed here in 2010) and Sean Gallagher of DLUX Studios = organizers of Toy Street, for a recap-round which includes images of the event by Ryosuke Suzuki (Seen in full HERE / all images posted here via).


[Above: Ron English
Below: Lou Pimentel / Steve Talkowski / SideKick Labs / Sucklord]

TOYSREVIL: How was Toy Street these year? Compared to the last?

GAINU 'SCRILLS' LEDEJOBI: This year's Toy Street blew last year out of the water! We had attendance of over a 1000+ within the 8 hour event! That is triple the amount we had last year. Also, this year brought in a lot more toy vendors as well as the appearance/booth one of the greatest artists of our generation - Ron English. This year truly showed the amazing potential of the event to be a force in promoting the toy culture and we look forward to making it even more amazing next year!


[Above: Various brands and crafts @ Toy Street]

[Above: MishkaNYC / Below: Sub-Urban Vinyl Toys]

TOYSREVIL: Sweet! From the images, it looked to be an interesting vendor mix, which included quite a number of retailers, and quite a number of swell looking crafts  -are you happy with that? What else are you guys looking for?

GAINU 'SCRILLS' LEDEJOBI: We feel it is important for Toy Street to not only showcase toys but also to promote creativity in any field. Whether it's toys, clothing, jewelry etc, we are all inspired by the same hunger, and that is to create our own products/art. So we wanted to not only have toy vendors there, but also to showcase other creative individuals/brands in different fields. We wanted it to feel like the type of event that we would want to go to and were quite happy with the vendor mix. We will look to continue to build Toy Street with this same perspective.


[Above: Argonaut Resins with Jelly Empire
Below: Jesse DeStasio]


[Above: HalfBad Toyz]
TOYSREVIL: You guys KNOW I'll def bug you for a boothspace if I'm in NYC, right? LOL ~ With a dedicated website and facebook - how are Toy Street going to top the buzz?

GAINU 'SCRILLS' LEDEJOBI: The addition of the dedicated website and facebook definitely helped a lot this year as well as the Toy Street twitter (@thetoystreet). More people were able to learn about the event plus the website just looked so rad! (Thanks to our new Toy Street partner Sean of DLUX who designed the site. He's amazing and we're happy to have him on board the Toy Street team). In addition to all the above, next year we'll be looking to do some guerrilla stuff and out of the box methods in promoting the event so stay tuned!


[Above: Toy Tokyo / Below: myplasticheart]

TOYSREVIL: Also, what can you tell me about your booth/space? I'm looking at loadsa giant robots and Sneakerhead-customs …

GAINU 'SCRILLS' LEDEJOBI: Our booth space was a collaborative one with Sean (DLUX). We wanted to create a booth space that allowed us to show what we were working on but also an amazing display of toys. The space included:

- Giant robots "Jumbo Machinders" as well as lots more pieces from Sean's collection.
- Sneakerheads (the O.G version as well as 5 customs by Steve Talkowski, Sucklord, Argonaut Resins, TTK (gottkgo.com) and Sean (DLUX).
- Sean (DLUX)'s hanging around cloud piece
- and apparel from Cookies -N- Cream


[Above: Cookies-n-Cream / Below: Sean Gallagher's collection]

SEAN GALLAGHER: I am honored to be a partner with Cookies-N-Cream on Toy Street and look forward to growing the type of positive recognition of toys as industrial art and design again next year. Hopefully Toy Street can continue to better define Toy Genres not just for modern, archival and historical classifications.

The Toy Street booth really represented how Toys as art, in both classical / vintage toys and modern designs like the sneakerhead, can be inspired from a vintage sneaker and also create new lines of apparel. It all flowed really well as a cohesive space.

All of this energy and creativity comes from people who are passionate about the art for and of Toys. This is why the presence of toy designers, manufacturers, retailers and customizers works at our show so well with other visual artists, apparel brands, and products or sponsors. They all appreciate and respect the genre and industry.  It's creative power is unrivaled and considered one of the most avant garde forms of industrial design.


TOYSREVIL: Nice! Cheers for the time and trouble guys, and am looking forward to pics of them SNEAKERHEADS!