NEWS

Dolls, Meet Your New Friends With Natural Hair Texture

By A Mystery Man Writer

Crazy but true: Even now, in 2016, you would be hard-pressed to walk into any old toy store and buy a fashion doll with brown skin and natural curls. You might find one with a dark skin tone, but chances are that she, like most of her plastic sisters on the shelf, will have relatively straight hair, maybe some loose curls. I say this as someone with two young girls who browses the doll aisle on a regular basis. We live in an ethnically diverse area of central New Jersey, a half hour outside of New York City, but it's safe to say the fashion dolls in our local Targets and Toys 'R' Us-es don't exactly reflect the shoppers in the aisle. Nothing new, really—but that doesn't make the situation any less perplexing. There's hope, though. One woman has stepped up and is providing an alternative to the usual straight-hair doll scene. Model Mala Bryan's crew of fashion dolls, called Malaville dolls, have varying tones of brown skin and a range of natural hair textures and styles, including Afros. "The focus was for the hair texture, the skin tone, and natural/no makeup to be relatable," Bryan—a longtime doll enthusiast
Crazy but true: Even now, in 2016, you would be hard-pressed to walk into any old toy store and buy a fashion doll with brown skin and natural curls. You might find one with a dark skin tone, but chances are that she, like most of her plastic sisters on the shelf, will have relatively straight hair, maybe some loose curls. I say this as someone with two young girls who browses the doll aisle on a regular basis. We live in an ethnically diverse area of central New Jersey, a half hour outside of New York City, but it's safe to say the fashion dolls in our local Targets and Toys 'R' Us-es don't exactly reflect the shoppers in the aisle. Nothing new, really—but that doesn't make the situation any less perplexing. There's hope, though. One woman has stepped up and is providing an alternative to the usual straight-hair doll scene. Model Mala Bryan's crew of fashion dolls, called Malaville dolls, have varying tones of brown skin and a range of natural hair textures and styles, including Afros. The focus was for the hair texture, the skin tone, and natural/no makeup to be relatable, Bryan—a longtime doll enthusiast