The little miss comes with myth
George FARIS’ little girl, Chelsea, was taking a break from shopping at the new American Girl store on Fifth Avenue. Her adoring dad watched as she examined her treasures -- a toy dog named Coconut; a box filled with Coconut’s miniature accessories; a red American Girl “New York” sweatshirt for Chelsea and a matching one for her 18-inch doll, Josephine.
Faris, a car dealer from Morgantown, W.Va., had spent more than $200 already and was about to drop another $60 on lunch at the store cafe for himself, his wife, his 9-year-old daughter, and, yes, for Josephine, who would be sitting in her own booster seat at the table before her very own little place setting.
“There is no doubt this company is in it for the profit,” said Faris, smiling at blue-eyed Chelsea sitting on the store carpet struggling to get the sweatshirt on her doll, “but they do it right. You look at Britney Spears and those type of role models for little girls and you’re happy to spend the money on an American Girl.”
In case you don’t have a daughter or simply missed this wholesome-girl obsession, the American Girl offers a series of dolls -- eight of them representing a different era in American history -- and each comes with her own life story told in chapter books and in a fantasy world created through clothes and accessories.
For the base price of $84, you can buy a chubby-faced doll and paperback book that explains her character and history, ranging from Samantha, an orphan growing up in New York in 1904, to confident Kailey, an environmentally minded 10-year-old who not only surfs but fights off developers who want to build near tide pools. To enjoy the full Kailey experience there is Sandy, her $18 dog; her $22 wet suit and bikini; her $20 boogie board; her $16 snorkel set. To get the most out of Samantha, there is a $74.95 hardcover series describing how the world might have looked to a little girl in New York at the turn of the last century, not to mention a $64 doll-sized brass bed and $70 worth of travel accessories for her ocean liner adventure.
The merchandise can be bought only through a direct-mail catalog, a Web site and until recently, one store, in Chicago on Michigan Avenue. Now there is a second store, American Girl Place-New York, on Fifth Avenue at 49th Street across from Rockefeller Center. It is also the newest attraction in New York-land, yet another tour bus stop after the Empire State Building, FAO Schwarz, the “Today” show set and Broadway’s “The Lion King.”
In the New York of middle America’s imagination, this 43,000-square-foot, three-story American Girl store fits right in. In fact there were so many sweet, scrubbed faces on blond little girls from Minnesota and Texas at the store last week, it didn’t feel like New York at all but rather a Girl Scout get-together in the heartland.
But while every girl seemed to have brought a beloved doll in her arms, she wasn’t always accompanied by a parent able to buy her everything she wanted.
Tacy Haws and her parents came directly from Grand Central Station to the Fifth Avenue store. The Minneapolis family was visiting family in Connecticut for Thanksgiving but Tacy had to get into Manhattan so Tacy could touch, see, soak up the American Girl atmosphere and then, after much agonizing, spend her own $16 -- on the very same toy dog that Chelsea Faris bought, Coconut (“Every American Girl needs a four-foot friend at her side,” says the catalog).
Ann Haws, a teacher, didn’t want to linger because she wasn’t prepared to buy Tacy much more. “I don’t even spend $24 on myself, never mind on an outfit for a doll,” she said, noting that she supports Tacy’s American Girl habit by making the doll’s clothes herself.
“I may end up buying Tacy a backpack here,” Haws said, smiling at her 9-year-old’s broad grin upon hearing this news. “But I can tell you now I’m not getting the doll a backpack, too.”
The Wisconsin-based Pleasant Co. began planning the store after the terrorist attacks here in 2001 while the city, not to mention the rest of country, was plunged into a recession. It would seem risky to contemplate a store where you spend $20 to have your doll’s hair braided or buy a tepee for $70, a price so high one Washington mother, who was about to order it from the Web site, thought it had to be the real life-sized deal only to discover it was 28 inches (not the right size for her 4 1/2-year-old daughter, but just perfect for Kaya, a Native American doll from an Idaho tribe).
But the company went ahead because it wasn’t just offering stuff, according to spokeswoman Julie Parks. With an average customer spending two hours in the Chicago store versus the industry average of 20 minutes, the company decided that because it was selling an “experience, rather than just another product,” it could do well in New York despite the economic downturn, said Parks.
“Our customers can come here and spend half the day,” she said. “They come to shop for sure but also to spend quality time with each other -- daughters and moms, dads and little girls.”
Besides the doll hair salon and cafe, the store has a live revue in a 130-seat theater, where the stories of each of the eight basic dolls are told with some modern commentary thrown in. Thanksgiving week, all 16 shows were sold out.
Parks said around the home office in Middleton, Wis., where the company was founded in 1986 by Pleasant Rowland, a former teacher, the lessons that come with all the products are referred to as the “chocolate cake with vitamins.”
The company, now owned by Mattel, is upfront that American Girls’ mission is to market -- really to indulge -- the experience of childhood, perhaps a little longer than our navel-ringed, television-glazed American culture may encourage.
This is aimed at people grasping for what they can comprehend -- family, togetherness on vacation (including bored brothers), and a little girl’s bond with her doll.
At the counter of the doll hospital a little girl from Picayune, Miss., was tearfully handing over her broken-limbed doll for repair. A new arm would cost her $25 and a new head or body $38. The doll would be returned to Mississippi in a box with a Certificate of Good Health, a white hospital gown, an ID bracelet and a “get well” balloon.
Frankly, Jamilah Spears, the intake person at the hospital counter, and many of the young women braiding hair in the doll saloon looked a little baffled by the whole scene.
Spears, 21, said she’d never even heard of the American Girl doll in her Bronx neighborhood although she had seen some of the books in her local public library. “I guess I’m too old for it,” she said with a giggle, recalling her Cabbage Patch doll phase.
But after working at the Fifth Avenue store, which opened Nov. 8, she’s become a believer: She is even thinking, for Christmas, of buying her niece one of the dolls. If Spears has enough money, she will also buy her niece an outfit that matches one for the doll. The grand total: $130. “The point is to make your child happy,” said Spears. “You can’t always put a price on that.”
