#toyhunt: Toy Shack E17
For this week's Tuesday #toyhunt, we bring you to the United Kingdom, where Luc n Rob of Triclops Studio has just opened Toy Shack E17 - a physical brick-n-mortar presence at 47/48 Wood Street Market, Walthamstow, London E17 3HX. Thanks to their shop-dedicated Twitter @ToyShackE17, we have snaps to share (thanks to @Wandster, @anti_peter & @triclopsrobot IG) of their "soft opening" Saturday just, and as well a quick Q&A with the boys themselves!
TOYSREVIL: First up: CONGRATULATIONS for the launch! But why a "physical" shop? What made you guys do it?
LUC n ROB CLOPS: A physical toy shop is something that we have dreamt of for a long time but the set-up costs of anything on the high street were prohibitive. When the Toy Shack space came up, it was so perfect for us, both location (only 15 mins from Triclops Studio) and costs-wise that we couldn't resist any longer.
There is a real dearth of toy shops in London now with the recent closures of Kidrobot and Playlounge and we wanted to do something a little different with a balance of classic and contemporary, weird and wonderful. Basically, all of the stuff that inspires us as Triclops Studio (the Design Consultancy) and informs our work for both mainstream and designer toy clients.
We wanted to collect an eclectic bunch of toys together into one space and sell them at reasonable prices to the kids of today, who may not be familiar with feature-driven action figures, as well as supplying a fix to savvy adult collectors (like us!).
We're keen to run workshops out of Toy Shack to introduce the next generation to making toys and Character Design although this idea was popular with the adults we mentioned it too as well!
The Toy Shack space also enables us to have a hot desk for the Design Consultancy so we can spin several plates at once as and when we need to.
TOYSREVIL: Are there any specific treasures and/or collectibles you would like to tease collector's with?
LUC n ROB CLOPS: The display is pretty random, although we have stuff from classic toy lines including Ghostbusters, Toxic Crusaders and MOTU, we also have some bootleggy big hitters secreted from the likes of Sungold and a few choice, in-pack delicacies. We're avid collectors ourselves so some of the stock is surplus from our decades of collecting and covers '80s, '90s. 00s and urban vinyl stuff.
TOYSREVIL: Will you offer, or do you accept online purchases for items from your shop?
LUC n ROB CLOPS: We are intending to instagram some exclusives to the virtual audience, some of our stock will target collectors rather than the local market but we want to strike a cool balance between the two. We don't have plans for an online store per se at the mo, but that might change as we get things properly up and running. We kind of like the idea that people will make a pilgrimage to check out the shop, the best toy shops we've visited across the world often involve a trek to find them!
We'd really like to thank everybody online for all of the retweets and interest in Toy Shack E17 so far, hope to see you in-store soon!
