Vilac

There are wooden toys that you recognize immediately, even if you never had them yourself: a metal ride-on car in a vintage color, a train where each wagon is a letter, a drum with a strap attached. Vilac has been making those kinds of toys since 1911 in Moirans-en-Montagne, the village in the French Jura that is also home to the toy museum. The wood (beech, hornbeam, alder, and boxwood) comes from French forests that are replanted, and it is sawn, lacquered, and painted on-site. Since 2011, this French toy brand has carried the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label, the recognition for rare craftsmanship. Wooden toys don't break; they only get more beautiful.

More than a hundred years of French craftsmanship

At Vilac, wood really remains wood: plastic or metal is only used where a child's safety requires it. The plastic windows have disappeared from the French studio's packaging, sawdust from production heats the factory, and pieces that don't pass inspection go to the village toy museum instead of the trash. That makes them sustainable toys in both meanings of the word. At the same time, the brand does not stand still: Vilac regularly has its classics redesigned by illustrators, artists, and designers, so that a form that is a hundred years old still fits into a nursery today.

Alphabet trains, ride-on cars, and outdoor games

The most famous Vilac toy is the wooden letter wagon: one wagon per letter that clicks onto the next, forming an alphabet train that is both a name above a bed and a first reading lesson. Equally recognizable are the metal ride-on cars in retro colors, with a push bar for those just starting to walk and a cargo bed for everything a toddler wants to bring along. This also makes it a baby gift that will last for years.

In addition, you will find pull-along toys that roll through the hallway on a string behind a child, small musical instruments like an accordion, a drum, and sound boxes, wooden board games and skill games for the kitchen table, and outdoor toys like pétanque, stilts, pinwheels, and child-sized garden tools. Toys meant for doing, not just for looking at.

Toys that you pass on

A wooden pull-along dog or a ride-on car from Vilac effortlessly survives one child and then goes to the next, and that is exactly why we love having this brand in our home: we have been selecting toys since 1970 that can still be used after three years of play. A letter wagon is a small and affordable gift, a ride-on car or a musical instrument is a birthday present that a child grows into. You can see what is currently available from Vilac below: ordered in a few clicks and on its way.