Half-inch high toy which was huge hit for inventor

THE co-creator of Polly Pocket says it feels great to know he has enriched childhoods around the world.

Chris Taylor, 68, invented the tiny dolls with his friend and business partner Chris Wiggs.

The pair studied industrial design together at the Central School of Art and Design in London. After graduating in 1997, they set up a company called Origin which created patents for toys.

Mr Taylor went on to develop racing cars and more recently set up the illuminated boat parade on the River Thames, which was held in Henley for the first time last year. His home in Wharfe Lane overlooks the river.

He describes his former profession as “strange”. Mr Taylor explains: “We would come up with ideas, create a prototype which would be identical to the product we wanted to manufacture and then present it to a manufacturer. If they liked it, they would buy it and we would earn royalties from every sale.”

The company initially created Orb, which was the successor to Rubik’s Cube, and then Rubik’s Clock in 1988.

Origin then teamed up with Bluebird Toys, a toy manufacturer in Swindon, and created a spaceship designed for boys called Manta Force, which was released in 1987.

Mr Taylor says: “It was really popular and made an enormous Christmas gift. We had a good relationship with Bluebird.”

The idea for Polly Pocket came to Mr Wiggs in a New York toy sale showroom in 1983.

Mr Taylor recalls: “Chris had received a huge steel badge, about four inches in diameter, promoting a product. It had a patch on it called ‘Cute as a button.’ I could hear his brain working. He bought a powder compact, took out everything inside it until there was just the shell and whittled out of wood a doll and a little house interior.”

Mr Wiggs gave it to his eight-year-old daughter Kate to play with. When she grew out of it, Kate gave it back to her father.

The two men decided to turn the idea into a commercial toy and approached Torquil Norman, who had founded Bluebird Toys in 1980.

Mr Taylor says: “Torquil, a 6ft 7in, splendid and flamboyant man, absolutely loved it but requested it be an articulated doll, with moving limbs.”

The result was Polly, or Stephanie Street, as the toy was initially called.

“The gnomes and elves who worked for us sketched eight compacts and the board approved it and bought the licence,” says Mr Taylor.

“Origin developed the engineering prototypes for the toy. Each item in the range had metal tooling worth £100,000, so it was a considerable investment.

“The toys were initially produced in Portugal but we had a disaster with the first batch. They were on a top deck container on a ship which went through a storm and were lost in the deep.

“This was very stressful as we had already been paid by the reseller and it was a huge shipment.”

The compacts first appeared in stores in 1999 and cost £4.99 each, which made them perfect birthday presents.

Mr Taylor says: “The birthday parties helped spread the word about the toys. Bizarrely, the recession helped us, too. A Barbie house costed £49.99, whereas these dolls, which were only half an inch tall, costed a fraction of that.”

Origin retained the intellectual property rights so other companies came to the two men asking to use their design.

Mr Taylor says: “A German company wanted to turn Polly into Bardii and make her a duck. We suggested that she was fine as a human girl.”

Stephanie lived in Stephanie Street with all her friends but was renamed Polly after a photographer pointed out how the compact could fit in a pocket.

Mr Taylor says: “She fits in your pocket, so why not call her something to do with that? Polly Pocket was born. Polly was part of the trend of what I call ‘doinky doink play’, where you play with the doll while bouncing her around her house.”

In 1998, German company Mattel, which created Barbie, bought Bluebird Toys, having had a distribution deal with the company for several years. It then also bought Origin, which held the rights for Polly Pocket.

Mr Taylor said: “Towards the end, it became a bit confused. Manufacturers tried to take advantage of the good value by lowering the quality, which wasn’t in our ethos.

“It was sad to sell but as the brand became bigger, the relationship with Mattel became harder. When you sell a brand, you relinquish it to the next person. Most wait too long to sell and miss the time when it is at its peak value.”

Mattel eventually stopped producing the smaller, original toys in 2002. These are now highly sought after by collectors, fetching thousands of pounds on websites such as eBay. Mr Taylor says: “Collectors are insane. One wrote to us telling us about each doll, each animal, how many of each were made and the specials each year: things we didn’t even know. We were shocked as to how they got their knowledge.”

His own favourite is the Tiny Houses collection. He says: “All the houses lit up and it was really special. Probably the most impressive was this suitcase-sized box with every single toy, which retailed for £99. It took three hours just to unwrap every piece.

“Polly was obviously inspired by Chris’s daughter but I myself have two daughters, Daisy and Rosie, and parts of Polly Pocket were inspired by them. Of course, they had it, but it came a little late for them at their age. It actually spoilt their childhood a bit as every time I went into a toy shop with them they would groan: ‘Not another toy shop’.”

A film based on Polly Pocket, starring Lily Collins, is due to be released. Mr Taylor is also collaborating on a documentary series about the brand.

After the sale of Origin, Mr Taylor became chairman of the Longridge activity centre in Marlow in 2007, raising funds with other investors to buy the site and prevent it from being turned into housing.

He says: “I wanted to teach other children the joy and independence of boats.”

In 2012, he and his two brothers invested in Formula E, the electric car racing series. He says: “It was designed for a global television audience and there were no rules. It was scary but exciting.”

Since the cars were quiet, Mr Taylor invented a character, a DJ called EJ, who played at the races. He also developed the patent for the halo on the cars to flash in different sequences to explain to the audience what the car was doing.

He says: “I am trained to always think about how to improve something.”

Mr Taylor helped set up a sub-series called Extreme E, which involves off-road racing in remote parts of the world in electric sports utility vehicles.

He is now helping out with a new project called E1 Series, which is the first electric race boat championship to be sanctioned by the governing body of powerboating, the Union Internationale Motonautique.

He says: “Weird things happen when you're so active. You never know where an opportunity will arise. You have to grab them, you can’t sit at home waiting for the phone to ring.”

Mr Taylor is proud of his legacy. He says: “My family is low profile but I feel like a rock star. Mattel received a huge number of letters and they were comforting and gratifying to read. I am happy to have enriched so many childhoods.

“Polly Pockets are like Lego: people build huge collections and don’t get rid of them, which is also a testament to the quality of Bluebird manufacturing. We had customers who held us to a high standard so the products have lasted so long.”

He says it is harder to design a “smash hit” toy now.

“We live in the advent of the cell phone,” said Mr Taylor. “This has changed the way children play with toys. The industry still needs new toys but nowadays it is harder to get a smash hit. But people still want something fun to open on Christmas Day.”

Toy makers are adapting to the market and many offer online games and television shows as well as toy. Mr Taylor was also an early investor in the cartoon series and toy range called Bing Bunny, which is now one of CBBC’s most downloaded series.

When he retired, he was able to return to boating, his first love.

He grew up on Rod Eyot Island, opposite the River & Rowing Museum in Henley.

Mr Taylor says: “You could only reach the island by boat, so I was in a boat the whole time and had to learn to row and sail. My father was in the navy and he bought a narrow boat that was used to transport coal and converted it into a houseboat.”

He was living in Cookham when he set up the illuminated boat parade in 2015.

He says: “It started off with locals at the pub watching boats and ended up with more than 40 boats taking part and about 400 spectators.”

When he moved back to Henley during the covid pandemic, Mr Taylor decided to bring the parade with him. He personally underwrote the cost of the first event last year.

Mr Taylor says: “It was a great thing to end the year with. It was held late in the season when it gets dark early, so that children didn’t have to stay up too late.

“I was a bit nervous that no boats would turn up but there ended up being 30 and 40 paddleboarders. Almost 1,000 people turned up. The Henley Standard’s publicity really helped make it a success.”

Mr Taylor believes his talent for inventing is a combination of instinct and learning.

He says: “I have a talent for marketing. I just assume I’m the customer and ask myself the questions a customer would.

“I still believe there is an eight-year-old inside me, although I look like an 80-year-old. You never retire from being an inventor.”