Toy Soldier

As co-founder of Spy, Tom Phillips was publisher of one of the defining magazines of an era, a funny, tart-tongued chronicle of the excessive 80s. Now he's on to something completely different: toys.

"The change in life-style is almost too obvious to talk about," says Phillips, 37, standing in the loft that houses his latest venture, the Brooklyn Toy Works. "When I was 29, starting a satirical monthly magazine was the coolest thing in the world. But now, what are all my peers doing? What are we interested in? What do we talk about? Kids." The Toy Works' first catalogue, featuring cherry-wood rattles and castles hewed of northern birch—made mostly by small-town craftspeople—is sure to be anathema to the Toys "R" Us polyglot. Phillips says his own favorite is a handsome maple-and-walnut ferryboat. This seems best to sum up the particular Zeitgeist he's after: it's designed by a former IBM engineer who quit business in order to build toys

RANDALL FULLER