ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

Upper Playground Releases Volume II: 10 Years of Artistic Endeavors

Upper Playground always has these great free catalogs in their shops that are cut more like paperback novels than anything Lillian Vernon.  I’ve been saving them because it’s handy to have the artist bios/statements and view each designer’s range and watch how they (and the company) have evolved. To commemorate its upcoming 10-Year Anniversary, Upper [...]

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Urban Artists Take On Mickey: David Flores, Slick, Mear One …

M-I-C …K-E-Y…M –O-U-S-E! Yeah, we all know what that spells. Annette made sure of that. Mickey is one with our culture and country. Those mouse ears, which debuted eons ago, have infiltrated everyone on the planet’s life in some form or another. Since Steamboat Willie, our pal Mickey had gone through many incarnations, Disco Micky, [...]

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Upper Playground and Pals Get the Last Laugh

Skid row is cleaning up. San Fran based retail giant Upper Playground along with Estevan Oriol (photographer/director) and Mister Cartoon (artist) will be injecting Los Angeles’s seedy downtown area with four “one of a kind retail establishments”. They’ll be apparel pieces galore as well as the finest of fine art – urban style of course. [...]

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