For the thesis question that I will be researching throughout the semester deals with the loss of joy that toys bring to adults. Asking the question, at what age do children lose happiness when playing with toys before going into adulthood? In my body of work, I reference back to my childhood multiples times getting inspiration for my next collection. Looking back toys brought me happiness as a child but at what age did I stop playing with these objects for entertainment? In my last collection of handbags and scarfs, I played around with the idea of incorporating board games into these products. These products are strictly only seen to be worn for style on the body. I had creating it to be more than just a handbag or scarf, it would be able to fold out into a board game letting the user play with friends. Throughout the whole semester, I was incorporating toys into my designs making me interested in merging children’s products with being an adult.

In our class reading, coming across the writing of Roland Barthes in his piece Mythologies. The piece contains short passages about the world and his opinion on the different situations that people go through in their life. The pieces that made me think about my thesis question was reading about how toy shaped the children in the 50. For example, little girls are given the baby dolls to prepare them for the domestic housewife when they get older. After reading this passage made me think about, are parents aware of the toys they give to their children and how the children’s brain process the toy for future development in life? This helped me come up with my question today.

In this process of coming up with a thesis question, I have been working with my tutor to formulate what route of research I want to conduct from my question. The first possible route is identifying what is the user giving up? Looking into articles about human development and psychoanalysis the connection that people have with toys. What part of a person is lost when toys are not being used for joy? The second route of question that I can look into has a more political stance on the question. Dealing with society and how people are raised in the world? How race and gender are designed in toys without people knowing it because it has become a commonality in our society to see this type of toys. This question sparks my interest in leading to potentially answering my question.