Barbie x Keiichi Tanaami. Scorching Wheels x Daniel Arsham. Masters of the Universe x Virgil Abloh. Uno x Shantell Martin, Takashi Murakami, Gary Baseman, Kartell . . .
These collaborations may sound like an Andy Warhol pop fever dream, however they’re very actual inside Mattel Creations, the toy powerhouse’s hub for innovation and premium collectibles, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary because it continues carving out all-new enterprise for the corporate.
In February 2020, when the Cybertruck was extra an anomalous conceptual piece of popular culture than a concrete political assertion, Mattel was celebrating its seventy fifth anniversary. The toy firm launched its experimental wing—and its first official product—a 1:10 scale remote-control Cybertruck created in session with Tesla’s chief designer. The duplicate was priced at $400, may cruise as much as 25 miles per hour, and even got here with a cracked window decal.
“It was hobby-grade, large-scale, and full-control,” Chris Down, Mattel’s chief design officer, says. “It was completely lovely, however not one thing that you’d see on the native Walmart. Inside three or 4 hours, it fully offered out.”
In doing so, Down says it grew to become the primary actual proof level {that a} high-end collectible platform may very well be viable for Mattel. It confirmed that the model may join with fans with extra spending energy than its common buyer by creating high-quality toys with a luxe packaging and unboxing expertise.
And that was prescient. In accordance with Circana, world toy market gross sales declined 0.6% in 2024. On the identical time, gross sales of collectible toys elevated 5%, accounting for 18% of general volumes. Toy gross sales have been on the decline over the previous couple of years at giant, however adults have been buying extra for themselves, a phenomenon that kicked into gear across the pandemic, and has solely elevated since.
Down says that grownup shoppers have change into Mattel’s fastest-growing shopper section. Gross sales on the toy purveyor have been down 1% last year, however maybe it has a secret weapon in Mattel Creations, which a rep for the model says has risen to change into the corporate’s fourth-largest home retail level, and its fifth-largest globally.
MSCHF AND MASHUPS
The model inside a model takes its identify from the signal that hung above the corporate’s authentic 1945 storage/workshop in Los Angeles. When Mattel launched Creations, Down says the aim was to hearken again to a inventive time of product ideation and enterprise fashions, providing “a reset of how we take into consideration alternatives.”
And it’s one which Mattel’s staff apparently love as a lot as toy collectors do. The core Creations crew is made up of 20 to 25 individuals overseeing 150 to 200 high-quality limited-edition merchandise yearly, from exclusives like that first Cybertruck to artist collaborations, mashups, and extra. However that crew can be a conduit inside Mattel HQ in El Segundo, California, to the corporate’s bigger beloved manufacturers like Barbie, Scorching Wheels, and Masters of the Universe. And the main focus is on craft.
“From a design/product improvement and a care viewpoint, we put extra into each single a type of objects than we do on a $1 die-cast automotive that sells . . . half a billion models throughout the board,” Down says. “It’s good for Mattel, it’s good for the followers, it’s good for the creators. The groups internally love the stuff as a result of it additionally showcases a few of their most attention-grabbing work.”
That features, say, a hypnotic, kaleidoscopic Barbie from pop artwork icon Keiichi Tanaami, alongside his Uno card deck and Magic 8-Ball (a life-size model of the Barbie was featured in his Tokyo profession retrospective); a rusty, Frankensteined Hot Wheels “Not Wheels” by artwork collective MSCHF, created in “homage to the beat-up however dependable automotive that many drivers begin off with,” as Mattel places it; numerous Monster Excessive mashups, with companions like Squid Video games and Beetlejuice; and exclusives for the Barbie, Scorching Wheels, Monster Excessive, and Masters of the Universe fan golf equipment, which Mattel Creations has helped develop over the previous 5 years.
Reps for the model declined to say how a lot all of it contributes to Mattel’s backside line, however the effort seems to be price its weight in advertising and marketing gold—notably when a product just like the LeBron James Ken doll goes viral, because it did earlier this yr.
THE ART OF THE DROP
Whereas some Mattel Creations toys are offered outdoors of the model’s devoted website, the artist collaborations are completely unique to it, they usually have been a signature a part of the innovation lab for the reason that begin.
How do they arrive collectively? Organically, Down says. Mattel Creations works 12 to 24 months out, and the collaborations start as conversations. “They could by no means flip into something,” Down says. “It’s not one thing that you would be able to power.”
Different occasions, it’s kismet. Take painter Mark Ryden. Down says Barbie was a muse to the artist and had performed a task in a few of his pop surrealist creations, so collaborating on a set of dolls was easy. Likewise with Masters of the Universe and Japanese artist Madsaki, who Down says discovered English whereas watching the cartoons.
The artist dictates the model and format they’d prefer to create inside—and in the end the artist brings their fan base to the following product, which little question is a boon to Mattel.
Given the experimental nature of Mattel Creations, the product runs are typically as small as a number of hundred and go as much as the tens of 1000’s. Styling toy launches as “drops” kicks up the fervor, and has change into a signature of the model, with greater than 100 over the previous 5 years.
Every now and then, Mattel Creations has even examined concepts with crowdfunding—typically to success within the case of, say, the WWE Ultimate Edition New Generation Arena, and typically not, in the case of Jurassic World the Gates. For the latter, that may imply 1,600 disenchanted dino franchise followers, however for Mattel, fewer unsold models sitting in a warehouse (learn: fewer duds).
“Not every part works,” Down says, “however numerous what we placed on Creations has exceeded our expectations when it comes to how rapidly it sells by—and the way a lot it sells by.”
WHITE SPACE
This yr Mattel Creations debuted its second dwell Apple-style annual occasion, “Revealed,” the place it introduced what followers may anticipate from the yr to come back. Down says the model is targeted on new methods of participating with these followers, in addition to increasing the kind of creators it’s partnering with on new merchandise.
In the end, “It’s been a compelling inventive experiment,” he says. “Our entrepreneurs, our people in digital and e-comm, and our enterprise leaders are additionally excited by it . . . as a result of it represents white area—and it fuels the remainder of model well being and really creates curiosity, the place individuals begin to notice the dimensionality of how our manufacturers present up.”
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