Party at the Build-A-Bear! Plus:

• Let Cathy Ames be a monster
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Why Adults Are Playing with Toys

After decades of depending on customers who had to beg their parents for pocket money—and who would eventually grow up—the toy industry has found a savior in “kid-ults.”

By Diego Lasarte

Illustration by Nick Little

We might call it the Great Regression. This summer, the toy industry hit a milestone: reportedly, adult-only households accounted for the majority of toy sales in the U.S., suggesting that childless grownups are rapidly becoming the main consumer base for action figures, trading cards, plushies, and other products traditionally designed for kids. Even still, when I recently visited the F.A.O. Schwarz flagship, in Rockefeller Center, I found it mildly uncomfortable to be a grown man alone in a toy store, despite my being a member of the statistically appropriate demographic. Thankfully, I was there to meet someone: Sharon Price John, a toy-industry veteran, who helped popularize the increasingly prescient term “kid-ulting” during her time as the president and C.E.O. of Build-A-Bear. We had plans to, well, build a bear.

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