BY CHARLI BATTERSBY | It has been a year and a half since the last Toy Fair. Back then (October of 2023), Mattel seemed to be caught off guard by the massive success of the Barbie movie that summer. But this year, I assumed Mattel would drape the entire Javits Center in pink—so I wore my Barbie outfit, which made me something of an oddity at the event; people generally don’t dress up for the Toy Fair. There aren’t cosplayers rampaging through the convention center like at Comic Con or Anime Fest. Instead, there are thousands of toy industry professionals in gray suits and sensible shoes carrying their briefcases through the candy-coated wonderland, hastily making their way to marketing meetings and conferences with retailers and manufacturers. It almost sounds dull. But…if you can hustle your way into the Toy Fair (aka the 2025 North American International Toy Fair, March 1-4 at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center), you will always find people who are there to play.

I strolled into the convention center without being hassled by security. Again, this isn’t Comic Con, so none of the security guards were on the lookout for people with counterfeit tickets trying to sneak in to meet movie stars. I nearly forgot to pick up my press pass, and proceeded right onto the show floor. With my bubblegum pink dress, people just assumed that I was supposed to be there.

I was surprised that not a single person did the “Hi Barbie!” meme at me as I walked through the convention center. In fact, several people yelled, “Look, it’s Glinda!”

The color pink has been completely appropriated by Wicked. The fickle consumers have already forgotten about the history-making cinematic accomplishments of the Barbie movie. A cultural touchstone from two years ago has been assimilated by the biggest newest movie franchise. And, yes, there are lots of new Wicked toys in development for the second movie. The prototypes were on display at Toy Fair and they will hit store shelves just in time for your kids to demand them on opening weekend.

I had the chance to play dress-up with some of the prototype Glinda merch by the Noble Collection. They make kid-friendly plastic replicas but, for grown-ups there is a silver-plated adult-sized Glinda tiara.

Eventually, the staff at the Noble Collection’s booth managed to pry the tiara away from me, so I wandered up to the top floor of the convention center to see what Mattel thought about Glinda stealing Barbie’s signature pink. It turns out that Mattel is also producing Wicked merch.

And… Barbie will be in red this year, anyway.

Barbie, and all of Mattel’s core products, have been re-released in a dark shade of red, which matches the Mattel logo. This is being done in honor of the company’s 80th birthday. Fifteen years before the first Barbie doll was created, Mattel’s founders were making wooden dollhouses and ukuleles in their garage.

In the coming year there will be limited editions of red Hot Wheels, the iconic Magic 8 Ball is going to have a special red edition (which will make it look like a Magic 7 Ball), and the Uno card game is getting red packaging. The new version of Uno—called “UNO Show ’em No Mercy”—actually won the Game of the Year award from The Toy Association.

The new color for the classic toys is an example of the toy industry’s perennial nostalgia phase. This year, at the Toy Fair’s “Toy & Play Trends of 2025” talk, they were calling it the Newstalgia Trip.

The definition of nostalgic changes depending on how old someone is, but 90s kids are now old enough to have children of their own, so 90s classics like the Tamagotchi are being re-imagined for today’s kids. In fact, the Tamagotchi Adventure Companion was unveiled at the Toy Fair. It’s an egg-shaped backpack with giant plush versions of the Tamagotchi critters inside. Parents can let their kids hug the stuffed Tamagotchis while mom and dad insist that the little key chain computer game really was the height of mobile technology in 1997!

Also at the Trends talk was the newest version of the “Skip It” ankle spinner. This latest model has 21st century tech which lets it count up to one million skips!

There were some completely new toys too. New to Toy Fair this year is a line of fuzzy, huggable whoopee cushions called “Fart Monsters” which are from Scentco, the makers of “Smelly Ballz.” Their booth staff was well-aware of the joke, and they invited me to smell their balls, and squeeze the whoopee cushions.

Many of the booths had similar playful stratagems to lure in prospective buyers. LEGO went out of their way to create a life-sized plastic Central Park with LEGO plants, and real park benches where people could sit down and rest.

Iscream (whose plush throw pillow shaped like a Lucky Charms cereal box was featured in the Trends talk) had a fully functional candy machine at their booth. While attendees were munching on free candy, they could make jewelry at an activity center built for crafting friendship bracelets. It’s a cunning tactic to get people into the booth and hear about the upcoming product line.

Meanwhile, the Kawaii Slime Company had a non-edible ice cream parlor for serving up scoops of their colorful slime—which, they assured me, I must not eat.

As always, the Toy Fair provides a prophetic view of what the Javits Center will look like when New York Comic Con rolls around later in the year. Three months ago, consumers lined up at Comic Con to buy Funko Pop dolls for last year’s big superhero movie. At the Toy Fair, a suspiciously similar Funko booth displayed the prototypes for the dolls that fans will line up to buy in eight months.

It’s a conspiracy theorist’s nightmare confirmed: Products are being manufactured, and the demand for them will be manufactured later. Some of the merchandise shown at the Toy Fair is for movies that are still being filmed. But the demand for those items will arrive right on schedule to coincide with opening weekend at the box office, then again on Halloween with officially licensed costumes, and ultimately more merch for Black Friday and the “Holiday” blockbuster season.

And yes, Funko has a new line of Wicked dolls on the way.

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