The story of how PlayFair Toys came to be from its humble beginnings in a Victorian house on Boulder's legendary Pearl Street, PlayFair Toys has had two common threads - fun and experimentation. It's no coincidence that fun and experimentation are also the underpinnings of science. After all, PlayFair was started as part of an experiment, and has truly been a play on words in multiple ways for over 20 years.
Dr. Phyllis Katz, founder and director of Boulder's Institute for Research on Social Problems, conducted ground breaking research in the 1980s on children, play, and stereotypes. Dr. Katz's research showed demonstratively that children were heavily influenced by which toys adults offered them, and that adults would more often than not offer toys associated with gender-based roles. In other words, adults would offer a doll to a girl and a football to a boy. They would do this without thinking about it. Dr. Katz began PlayFair Toys in 1986 as a way to demonstrate to parents the wide array of toy choices that did not involve stereotyping.
Much has changed since that first store opened on west Pearl. PlayFair moved to a prominent location in the heart of Boulder's retail district, and began a mail-order catalog. The response was tremendous.
PlayFair is maintaining the business focus on toys that promote values of fairness and that steer away from stereotypes. Our on-going goal is to create and maintain a business that helps children find their place as members of a local and global community. Toys are always evolving and changing, and so PlayFair is always evolving and changing, offering new merchandise and options all the time.
Today you'll find PlayFair packed with toys that encourage children to move, to explore, to learn. Many of our favorites have been around for generations - a pogo stick today is as much fun as it was decades ago. That bright red wagon will still cart your stuff around the neighborhood.
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