Toy Machine

Toy Machine was founded in 1993 in Huntington Beach, California by skater-and-artist Ed Templeton as an artist-driven skate-deck-and-streetwear brand specifically focused on what Templeton described as 'a deliberately-art-anchored skate-deck-and-streetwear vocabulary anchored to Templeton's own contemporary-art practice and broader skate-and-art cultural references.' The brand has been one of the defining post-1993 American-anchored 'art-skate' brands. The Toy Machine vocabulary settled around several recurring elements: the iconic Toy Machine skate-deck programme featuring Templeton's hand-illustrated and hand-painted skate-deck graphics (Templeton's deliberately-childlike-and-deliberately-grotesque art style has been the brand's defining visual signature since 1993), heavyweight cotton tees and hoodies with deliberately-art-anchored graphic-design references, the brand's iconic Toy Machine 'Sect' graphic programme (the deliberately-cult-aesthetic skate-deck-and-tee graphic), the long-running Toy Machine × Hockey Skateboards, Toy Machine × Vans, Toy Machine × HUF, and Toy Machine × Quasi Skateboards collaboration capsules, and a colour palette anchored to washed-black, washed-navy, ecru, oxblood, plus the brand's recurring use of saturated red, electric-blue, butter-yellow, and the iconic Templeton-art aesthetic colour combinations. The brand is owned by Tum Yeto (the Southern-California skate-industry parent company that also operates Foundation Skateboards, Pig Wheels, Bro Style, and various other defining post-1990 skate-industry brands). Toy Machine distributes through skate-shop wholesale globally — including Supreme, Slam Jam Milan, Civilist Berlin, FTC, the broader US-and-European skate-shop network, and the Japanese skate-specialty retailers Beams, Ships, United Arrows, and the broader Japanese skate-specialty distribution. The brand has been one of the defining post-1993 American-anchored 'art-skate' brands.