Birth of the Uglydolls

Ugly Dolls is a company that got its start from the international love letters of a couple in a long-distance relationship. David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim met while attending Parsons School of Design in New York City, but after September 11, Sun-Min's family wanted her to move back to Korea to be with them in a less volatile environment.

Horvath, who was living in Los Angeles, and Kim sent frequent pining love letters back and forth. An illustrator for Japanese market animation and video games, Horvath drew one of these little characters at the end of each letter. That Christmas, Kim surprised Horvath by sending him a plush, hand-sewn version of Wage - the first character that Horvath created.

When Horvath received the hand-sewn doll, he showed it off to Eric Nakamura, owner of a shop called Giant Robot in L.A. that sells books, toys, and t-shirts made by artists. "He thought I was pitching him a product," Horvath said, "He said, 'Yeah, man, that's great, I'll take 20.'" And so, in 2002, the handmade Ugly Dolls began selling batch after batch.

Eventually, the sewing got to be too large a job for Kim to do; she stopped hand sewing them and they are now handmade in China by a Korean company. Today, Ugly Dolls are sold at stores that usually would not carry toys - Urban Outfitters, Barney's New York and the Whitney Museum, among others. "There's a reason that the dolls sell in places more suitable to a fashionable bit of home d￩cor than Hokey Pokey Elmo," comments one New York Times reporter.

The question that everyone seems to be asking is why are these dolls so popular? They don't even fit our conception of "cute" or "cuddly." David Horvath told the Los Angeles Times, "we're kind of taking away from the modern-day meaning of ugly."

In an article that appeared in the New York Times in 2004, the writer explains, "Early interest in the stuffed toys came from hipsters who were into design and ambivalent about adulthood." In fact, it turns out that the primary demographic of Ugly Dolls customers is not even children.

About half of the people buying Ugly Dolls are adults who have no intention of giving the toy to a child. It looks as if the reputation of the Ugly Dolls has spread more like a fashion designer or hip-hop artist than like a toy. The reason that the Ugly Dolls have caught on with the twenty- and thirty-something crowd is that they have the aura of fashionable chic, without the fashionable chic price-tag. 

Created: December 6, 2007