Bye-Bye Barbies. Hello Frozen Dolls, Monster High, and American Girl dolls

Is Barbie being Frozen out? Doll sales plummet as kids favor Disney’s Elsa and American Girl 

• Experts say Barbie doesn't have a rich enough story line to engage kids as much as competing dolls

By ERIN CLEMENTS

PUBLISHED: 10:52 EST, 28 July 2014 | UPDATED: 12:47 EST, 28 July 2014

 
 
 
 

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Despite efforts to stay relevant, Barbie's popularity is on the decline: Mattel has reported a 15 per cent drop in sales for the blonde doll in the latest quarter.

However, the company saw a 6 per cent increase in sales of its American Girl line and also found success with toys associated with Disney's Frozen.

While Mattel has attempted to keep the brand up to date with the recent launch of Entrepreneur Barbie - a tech-savvy doll that comes armed with a tiny smartphone and tablet, and even boasts a LinkedIn profile - experts say that Barbie doesn't have a strong enough narrative to capture kids' imaginations.

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Image problem: Barbie's sales have declined due to competitors with more engaging story lines

American Girl, for example, features 'historical character' dolls accompanied by books that tell of the characters' adventures.

Jim Silver, editor of TTPM.com (formerly Time to Play Magazine), says that competitors such as Mattel's Monster High dolls do a better job of engaging children with more complex story lines.

'With Monster High, you have Draculaura, Lagoona Blue, Clawdia Wolf, and they keep developing more characters and more backstories. Barbie is a superstar, but she’s just one character,' he told the New York Daily News.

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Pure heroine: Elsa, from Disney's beloved animated hit Frozen, has become an increasingly popular doll

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A doll's life: American Girl characters, such as Josefina (pictured), feature engaging backstories

He adds: 'Kids are growing up fast, and lines like Monster High are much edgier than Barbie. Girls 3 to 9 used to play with Barbie. Now it’s down to girls 3 to 6. The kids have grown up faster. They’re on iPads. Their fashion is different.'

And having turned 55 years old this year, Barbie may have a harder time being viewed as edgy by children whose parents grew up with the doll.

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Ghoul talk: Monster High dolls are seen as 'edgier' than Barbie, and more appealing to older children

'Barbie is a very nice girl, very pretty, very clean cut, very Caucasian. But girls very often are not as nice as their mothers would want them to be,' Lutz Muller, owner of toy intelligence firm Klosters Trading Corp. in Williston Hills, Vermont, told Canada's Financial Post, adding: 'What girls are waiting for is another icon, one which is different from the idealized Barbie … which the mothers and grandmothers of current girls played with.'

And, of course, it's difficult to compete with Elsa, the heroine of Disney's wildly popular hit Frozen, which has become the highest-grossing animated film of all time since its 2013 release.

'We’re working very hard to literally chase demand' for dolls based on Frozen characters, Mattel CEO Brian Stockton told the New York Post. 'It gets greater and greater every week.'

Read more:

• Sorry, doll: Barbie sales plummet as little girls grab 'Frozen' and American Girl dolls 
• How Barbie may need more than a career makeover to save Mattel's iconic doll from sliding sales
• Barbie 'Frozen' out; sales slide 15% in steepest drop since 2009

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Boxed Dolls

Since my husband, Mike, and I moved three times in two years, most recently landing in Santa Fe, we decided to downsize; and, also, buy a future vacation/retirement home in the Teton Valley. Most of my dolls now live in a climate controlled storage locker back in Denver. My dear son, Steven, helped me wrap each and every doll in acid free paper, read all of the doll markings for my collector's catalog, and neatly box them all. I miss each and every doll. I can hardly wait for Mike's promise of building a basement doll room, or doll house, for me! The second and third picture are dolls we had to box-up when we moved to Santa Fe.   :(

I must admit to collecting a few dolls recently: all of the Disney Frozen Dolls and coloring books/paper dolls/sticker books; Angel Pulips, and the rest of the Hearts to Hearts dolls. At first, I easily found the Frozen dolls in the stores. However, I only bought a couple at once; and, when I went back to the store for more they were all gone. So I bought the rest, for good prices, on Amazon. Angel Pulips were very inexpensive on Amazon, too, as were the discontinued Hearts to Hearts dolls. All of the new collection resides in our office closet, and guest room closet, now.

Oh, I went to Tokyo a few months back! Mike had to attend a business meeting in Shiodome.

We even flew in our daughter, Jill, from her Peace Corps assignment in Albania. It was wonderful to see Jill for the first time in a year and a half! Anyway, we only spent part of the time at Kiddyland, where I bought some Licca dolls. My dear husband also took me to the famous store, Junie Moon. I bought a couple of Petite Blythe dolls there. Junie Moon has a museum-like aspect to it. If you want to see all things Blythe, check-out their online store:  http://www.juniemoonshop.com/  Of course, most of the dolls are the new Blythe dolls, not the old $1,000+ Blythe dolls from the 1970's. So wish I had one of the old Blythe dolls. Maybe someday...

Basket 'o Barbies!

I rescued these Barbies, and their friends, from a thrift store bucket. I dress them in vintage Sindy and Barbie outfits. Anytime I need a lift for the day I get out the clothes, and little hairbrush, and spend an hour in play. Actually, I read a true story about a Barbie collector whose collection helped her get through a tragic event in her life. And Stuart Brown is in the news lately with his new book, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. I haven't read it yet, but I have it on hold at the library. His contention is that we all need play every day, especially during times of economic stress.

I am reading Johan Huizinga's book, Home Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Huizinga contends that all culture comes from play.
I just know that spending time with my dolls takes me out of myself and allows me time to just be for the moment.

Betsy Goes Visiting

Betsy borrowed cute pink flower boots from the petite blythes' closet and went visiting yesterday.

Kelly

One of the things that I noticed when I found Kelly dolls on Amazon is how inexpensive they are, even new-mint-in-box. I went over to ebayland and saw large lots of Kelly dolls starting at $10.00. Hmmm...maybe I should get some of these dolls and practice fixing their hair, cleaning, etc., and then I could do the same for Liddle Kiddles! And maybe I should get one of these large lots of shoes and clothes, too, because all of that is less than one good Liddle Kiddle, I reasoned. So I did and as soon as I opened the packages I fell in love with Kelly. I must say that I don't like the Kelly with the round, open, mouth for bottle or pacifier. It's not so cute and it brings back bad memories of trying to get my son off of the "binky" many years ago!

Here is a nice website page about Kelly dolls: http://www.lilfriends.net/guide/basic/kiddle.html

Tutti

When I first started collecting I had a set amount of money I could spend and I was only focusing on Liddle Kiddles. And every day I would be disappointed because I couldn't afford many of the kiddles I wanted. My boyfriend volunteered to go to antique stores, doll hospitals, doll stores, Goodwill, Savers, flea markets, etc., to search for kiddles. After all that, he was able to find two locket kiddles for me. To this day, we both cannot go into a thrift store without searching through all of the bags of dolls, just in case a kiddle is hidden amongst all of the McDonald-land-toys--which, by the way, some people actually collect!

During this time, I was checking out any doll book I could find at the library. One was about Barbie, and had loads of great pictures. I saw Chris, who is a friend of Barbie's sister Tutti, who herself is a twin of Todd. Chris's face really looked quite a bit like a kiddle face. So, I started looking for Chris on ebay. Too expensive again! However, I did find a doll lot of 10 Tutti dolls. The bidding was over the Thanksgiving holiday and luckily my daughter, Jill, was home from college. She logged in at the last minute and won the Tutti Lot, and case, for just $40.00!

(BTW--Jill, who herself thinks most dolls look "weird", surprised her mom at Christmas and Birthday with gifts of 10 kiddles! Apparently the university has quite the high speed internet which, I am told, is a must have for successful ebay bidding :-)

I really like my Tutti's! I found out that Kelly's ballet slippers fit Tutti's feet. I dressed two of them in Kelly dresses; the rest all came with their original clothes. The hair was the biggest challenge, so I used a mixture of fabric softener and water to get out tangles then shampooed and added hair ribbons. Voila!

Peekaboo Petites

I discovered Barbie Peekaboos at the beginning of October 2008. I remember that I was looking up Liddle Kiddle collecting info on Amazon and I noticed a couple of Kelly dolls at the bottom of the page. You know, "Customers who bought this item also bought...". So, I clicked on a Kelly doll, then I did a search for Barbies and I came across a Barbie Peekaboo. That very morning I went over to Target and success!--many Peekaboos to choose, and they were only $4.98 (since then they have gone up to $6.98 in just a manner of a few months)! Right then I decided to buy all five dolls in the tea collection. Nearer to Halloween, I was at the local Walmart and ran across the Halloween Peekaboos in, of all places, the Halloween candy isle! In December I started to look for the Christmas edition Peekaboos at Walmart, Target, Toys-R-Us, really anywhere, and we just must be really behind the times here in Colorado because they did not show-up until a week before Christmas, and only at Walmart. As for Valentine Peekaboos, forget it, we didn't get any here! I am hoping for better luck at Easter...:-)

The Kindness of Others

I've been amazed at the reaction of others when I tell them that I collect dolls. Some, I can tell, are holding back judgement with their,
"Really??" comments. Often times, I feel compelled to tell them that doll collecting is the 2nd biggest hobby outside of collecting sports memorabilia. This little factoid, garnered from the internet--may or may not be true--seems to impress these skeptics. Far more often, I run into ladies who, when we talk, happily begin to remember how much they loved dolls as little girls. You can always tell: it shows up as a distinct sparkle in the eye! Anyway, that is how I got the dolls pictured here. A lovely friend of a friend heard I collected dolls and insisted upon giving me all of her childhood Nancy Ann Storybook dolls, along with some dolls her grandfather had brought back for her from his travels years ago. Her only caveat: pictures of the dolls in their new home. How lovely!!! And, yes, I am going to take new pictures soon because my boyfriend just gave me a digital camera. I've been practicing and practicing and it is much more difficult then it looks to take pictures of small dolls. Any ideas, tips, welcome!

I went to the library and checked out a book on Nancy Ann Storybook dolls and all of the pictures were in black and white...can you believe it? Anyway, my dolls do have the markings on the back but I still haven't been able to identify them individually yet. There were lots, and lots of Nancy Ann dolls produced. Apparently, as these were before Barbie, whom, I read, was the first doll to have her own complete wardrobe, the only way to have new outfits was to buy new dolls. However, back then, everyone sewed so I bet many girls had OOAK Nancy Ann outfits.