Floss & Rock

Children's Gifts and Toys from a Blackpool Seaside Brand.

Floss & Rock is a UK children's gift and toy brand founded in January 2016 by husband-and-wife team Tim and Gill, based in the seaside town of Blackpool in north-west England — and the brand name carries its origins openly: Blackpool is the spiritual home of candy "floss" and sticks of "rock," the two confections most associated with British seaside holidays. The proposition is the substantive version of "screen-free, plastic-free children's play": every Floss & Rock product is exclusively designed by the in-house team in Blackpool, and the editorial position deliberately avoids tech-led toys in favour of traditional play values — illustration, storytelling, tactile discovery, and the wider imaginative architecture that older generations of toymakers built their reputations on. The brand has grown internationally to a properly serious scale, exporting to more than forty countries and receiving the 2023 King's Award for Enterprise for International Trade — the most prestigious British business award available, and a signal of the brand's substantive growth from a small Blackpool start-up to a global children's-gift name. Floss & Rock is the trading division of Atelier Home and Gift Limited.

The catalogue is broad and properly characterful: 3D colour-changing umbrellas (the brand's runaway hero — printed designs that reveal additional colours when wet, a small piece of magic that transforms a rainy school run), shaped jigsaw puzzles (including the bestselling Animal Ark three-in-one), Memory Match games (Construction, Rainbow Fairy, and other themes), play boxes, foil-and-play activity books with wooden styluses, tin tea sets with musical teapots, scented secret diaries with locks, jewellery boxes, backpacks, belt bags, chalk-in sketch boards, and Transfer Fun activity sets — all designed for children aged roughly two to ten. The recurring themes are the more useful ones: dinosaurs, rockets, ballet, fantasy, construction, animals, fairies, unicorns, and rainbows. Eco-friendly materials are prioritised throughout, packaging is thoughtfully considered, and the brand is stocked by the more discerning independent toy stores and gift shops on both sides of the Atlantic. A useful answer to the perennial question of what to bring along to a children's birthday party.

For more pieces from independent makers, browse our Baby & Kids and Baby Toys collections. Discover home-grown design through our British Makers selection, find considered presents in our Baby & Kids Gifts edit, and find brands chosen for how they make things through Sustainable Brands.