How did you align yourself with De La Barracuda, for your upcoming Los Angeles event? How do you feel about showing in the US for the first time?

I’ve been involved with my friends over at MINDstyle for many years, however we’ve never really found the right venue to present my work and nothing really came to fruition. I’ve waited a long time before presenting my work in the United States. It’s sort of ironic, I would have figured upon Gardener’s conceptualization 10 years ago, that I would present him in the US a lot sooner seeing as so much of street culture’s roots come from the US.

How did MINDstyle get involved?

Originally MINDstyle was sourcing for factories to make their own toys, on a similar theme to my personal style, and they contacted my factory which led to our current relationship. As well, MINDstyle has a strong US-based network so it helped me in connecting the dots as I wasn’t that familiar with the US-market.Going forward, expanding in the US is something I’m definitely interested in exploring.

How has the toy/art industry changed in the last 10 years, in your opinion? Do places such as Hong Kong and the United States have distinctly different toy cultures?

In Hong Kong, the toy culture scene is too fast and lacks a certain artistic respect. Everything is quite trend-driven and people will pay these ridiculous sums of money to get “that toy” when the trend is popular, but as things die out, all of a sudden they lose that appreciation. The trend aspect of toys is no different than other things locally such as cameras and cars. There’s only a small dedicated group of fans that continue to collect and get excited about new drops. Conversely, in the United States, the market is much larger and for the most part people are better educated about the toy scene. With it comes a greater respect and admiration for toys. The toy scene is no different than other product markets, it gets saturated, but quality will still emerge on top.