Home & Design
The Dallas Morning News
1992

The Stuffed That Dreams Are Made Of
By Mariana Green

Phebe Phillips has a severe case of writer's cramp. Her knuckle is rubbed pink, almost raw. The reason: She personally signs each of the thousands of stuffed animals produced by her Dallas toy company.

There is RaBunzel RaBunny, a long-eared rabbit who is perhaps her most popular creation. There is Good Bunn Izard, "friend to the chameleon lizard," and Forest Bear, "the hunter in the woods." There is Tucker's Tairy, "the nine-life fairy" cat, and Doogie ZaZa, "fibber of tiny dog tales."

All of them have one paw made of soft suede, bearing Phebe Phillips' handwritten signature and the animal's name. At personal appearances, Ms. Phillips also writes dedications on her "couture toys," which retail from $60 to $120. She will appear at Neiman Marcus Prestonwood on Monday and at Neiman's downtown on Tuesday.

Ms. Phillips, 32, grew up an only child in East Texas and Dallas. She earned a degree in film and journalism from Southern Methodist University and also studied literature and poetry at Queens College, Oxford. She always wanted to design toys, and in 1983 started her line with six teddy bears. But it was her first rabbit, Hippity Hoppity Harris, that launched her reputation.

Her toy line will bow in July at Nordstrom's and F.A.O. Schwarz. Ms. Phillips also is readying an exclusive "woodsy-look" bear for Disney World. Only 25 will be made, "and they're being reserved already, sight unseen," she says. She also plans to start catalog sales for customers who live far from the stores that carry her line.

Seventy percent of her customers are adults, including celebrities such as The Cosby Show's Tempestt Bledsoe. Every week, Ms. Phillips says, she receives letters from appreciative fans. "The customers need these toys as much as I need to make them," she says.

Ms. Phillips believes her line "will be a historic name, like Madame Alexander (dolls).There's nothing mass-produced about these toys." Each is hand-cut and hand-stitched, with Ultrasuede noses and individually designed collars, and all are produced in a small Dallas workshop.

The toys' creator works an average of 12 hours a day, seven days a week. "I don't have a life," Ms. Phillips says, confessing that she fell asleep on her last date and "he didn't ask me out again." At home, she is "owned" by four felines: Simon the Blue Cat, Sebastian the Fat Fellow, Miss Sophie-Willow and Tibby Wilcox, the New One.

By the way, the plush-bear empress owns only one well-worn stuffed toy, a childhood friend named "Bunny." After all, Phebe Phillips shrugs, "I live with them all day."