Recently, I received four tickets to a special mom-daughter event for the new line of African-American line of dolls, So In Style (S.I.S.). Since I don’t have a daughter, I was so happy that my fellow blogger and friend Linda could attend the event with her daughter on behalf of Mom in the City. Below are her thoughts (and pictures)…
The line was created to serve as role models for girls in the African-American community by fellow mom, Stacey McBride-Irby. I loved hearing Stacey’s story about playing with Barbies as a girl, dreaming of being a designer and realizing that dream culminating in the launch of the So In Style line. I must say that my daughter was completely smitten with Stacey and her story. She really brought home the notion of dreaming big and following your dreams.
Stacey created the line not just as a repainting of the current Barbie line of dolls but featuring the physical aesthetics of African-American women. Meaning, African-American women are not all the same color which is what I love about the 6 characters, they are not all the same color or hue or have the same hair. Trust me, as a bi-racial person, my sister, brother and I all have different hair texture and skin color, this is so wonderful to see. I also love that each of the dolls has unique interests that are more realistic that just Doctor Barbie. Doctor Barbie is fine but stating explicitly that Grace interests are science and drill team makes sense. It provides a role model that science is cool but it is realistic that drill team is probably also an interest.
The event was held at Alice’s Tea Cup which is the perfect place to have the event, Tea and Barbie Dolls. How can you go wrong? You could not ask for a better place for girls to play. We arrived at the restaurant where my daughter was sprinkled with fairy dust. She was so thrilled by this touch, just like in the fairy tales. As we entered the third floor, there were numerous little girls playing with the dolls and all their accessories. My daughter had the best time, just playing with all the different dolls. I have to say that the hit of the event was the hair accessories. The So In Style line includes new Aqua Curl Technology, in English, there were all these fun hair styling tools that actually braids the hair and curls the hair, both hair styling techniques that are more in line with African-American women daily/weekly hair routines.
My only concern is that there is a possibility the even though Ms. McBride-Irby and Mattel want to provide role models for girls, providing very detailed profiles for each of the dolls that girls at the end of the day just like to play with dolls, no matter the doll’s back story.
I asked my daughter what she liked about the doll and her response, “I like playing with her hair and using the curling thing to curl her hair.” It did not seem to matter that the Grace doll was interested in science.
All in all, I am happy that Mattel has put out the new line as it doesn’t hurt to see dolls that look like my daughter.
On a side note, I (Kimberly) was able to see the dolls at a holiday event last week. I really like the range of skin tones and that the features (noses/lips) are more African-American looking. There was not as much realism with the hair though – it was typical doll hair. Overall though, I would say that the line is DEFINITELY a step in the right direction towards representing the variety of little girls that play with dolls.
