The Glorious, Unmitigated Hysteria of the American Girl Doll Store

"This place is three floors? Oh my God," a wide-eyed dad let slip after taking a quick pic of his gleeful daughter. "Holy cow," he added a moment later, still unable to process what he'd gotten himself into. Clearly someone had not been properly prepared for the sublime majesty of the Fifth Avenue American Girl Place.
Body Acceptance Might Be Killing the Barbie Doll
Sales of Barbie dolls are down 12% as parents ditch Barbie for more realistic, "full-figured" dolls—possibly due to the modern movement toward not hating yourself. Success! The only problem is, the most popular alternatives to Barbie are either extremely expensive gingham extortion rackets (American Girls) or…
The Weird and Amazing World of American Girl Doll Music Videos
A few weeks ago, an unsolicited American Girl Doll catalog arrived in my mailbox, featuring what I found to be fairly ground-breaking accessories: A hearing aid; an allergy-free lunch, a wheelchair. While researching how long these options had been around, I stumbled into a rabbit-hole-esque YouTube phenomenon: The…
Vogue Authorizes Six Kinds Of Womanhood
To tie in with the Met's upcoming Costume Intitute show, Vogue produced an editorial (allegedly) offering modern takes on classic American fashion. Vogue calls them "historic archetypes of our national style." We call them reductive stereotypes of bygone ages.
The Newest American Girl Doll Has A Secret
For those of you who aren't familiar with the New York Post's Andrea Peyser, she is a very furious person who, today, turned the force of her rage on the latest American Girl Doll - a topical doll:
America's Most Wanted
The new American Girl, WWI-era Lower-East-Side-dwelling Jewish doll Rebecca Rubin, unfortunately has the same name as a serial arsonist wanted by the F.B.I. "We feel confident that people will clearly see this as nothing more than what it is - an unrelated coincidence," says a spokeswoman. [NYT]
Meet The Newest American Girl
Meet Rebecca Rubin, the first historical Jewish American Girl doll, whose story will introduce young readers to Russian-Jewish immigrant life amongst the tenement houses of the Lower East Side of New York City in 1914.
This Week We Paid Our Respects To An American (Doll) Icon
- R.I.P. American Girls original, Samantha Parkington. May you rest in peace with the other overpriced, historically accurate plastic toys in the sky.
- Another American icon on the decline: Hugh Hefner's bunnies and balls are musty.
- Speaking of old balls, John McCain mocked women's health in an apocryphal argument against…
