Okay, I get why people find dolls creepy, I do. But dollhouses? Obsessive and weird, maybe, but not creepy. Dollhouses are about craftsmanship, about perfection. Half the time they don't even have inhabitants. (The best ones - that would be Queen Mary's Dollhouse and Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle - in fact, don't. ) Yes, the hobbyists are intense, but that's...hobbyists, for you. And, according to one enthusiast quoted in the Guardian, "the overall standard of miniatures is much lower than it was during the 1990s, a high point of doll's house collecting."

When I was little, I was highly dissatisfied with my dollhouse, which was homemade, rough-hewn and eccentrically furnished, a far cry from the perfection I saw at the snooty dollhouse store or at the homes of a few lucky friends. The best one, though, was at the home of my best friend's grandparents. They lived in a venerable Upper East Side brownstone and had an antique dollhouse that was a miniature replica of a similar building. It was inhabited by a family of mohair mice, who had an extensive wardrobe of tiny antique outfits. It was a tiny world, and as any enthusiast knows (maybe not weird adult ones who are obsessed with scale and don't let kids in their dollhouse stores) the whole charm of miniature is the sense of another life going on when the lights go out. Or at least that was the premise of every single one of the strangely intense dollhouse-themed novels I devoured as quickly as the school librarian could provide them. Plus, there's something intrinsically appealing - or scary - about small-scale. (See Gulliver, Lemuel. Or The Borrowers.) Or maybe it's just this explanation from one collector: "You can fill your dolls' house with something you can never afford in full size. You buy according to your own pocket and they do seem to hold their value."

Cheat Sheet: Best Doll House-themed Books:

The Doll's House, Rumer Godden (1947) This being Rumer Godden, this story of an antique doll's house rescued from obscurity whose harmony is then disrupted by the introduction of an evil doll named Marchpane, is lurid, bizarre and depressing. However, the sense of a secret world at the mercy of humans is perfectly rendered - and the description of the house is incredibly detailed. (See also: Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, Homeward the Sailor . Godden was really the Shakespeare of dollhouse fiction.)

The Doll's Christmas, Tasha Tudor (1950) The dolls in this book are, like, a foot tall and the dollhouse takes up an entire room. This being Tasha Tudor, it's obviously all taken from life.

Honorable Mentions:
Hitty Her First Hundred Years, Rachel Field (1929) In her first hundred years, Hitty really only lives in a couple of houses - the Quaker one with its tiny writing desk, and, later, her setup in the Maine antiques shop - but because she's dollhouse-scale, this best of all doll heroines qualifies.

Miss Hickory, Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (1946) This all-natural doll lives in a dollhouse made of corncobs.

The Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1906) In which the peg-doll residents of Racketty-Packetty House go head to head with the elegant parvenus of Tidy Castle.

Doll's House Collecting: A World In Miniature [Guardian]

[Kiev, November 25. Image via Getty]

Ukrainian artist Elena Kuznetsova straightens the hair of a doll representing Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as she prepares an auction of dolls of presidential candidates in Kiev on November 25, 2009. The artist plans to auction her exclusive, handmade dolls of most popular Ukrainian politicians for the benefit of a children's house. The presidential elction is set for January 17. AFP PHOTO/ SERGEI SUPINSKY (Photo credit should read SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

The "burka Barbie" in question is one of 500 dolls, many dressed by Italian designer Eliana Lorena, currently on display at Florence's Salone dei Cinquecento and to be auctioned off for Save the Children in association with Sotheby's. The exhibition, in concert with Barbie's 50th anniversary, has Mattel's blessing.

Anna advised me not to do the show. Not only is she unimpressed by previous segments in which Jezebel was mentioned, she was pretty sure they'd "play the concerned "feminist" card" while in fact getting in more sweeping digs at the pernicious influence of Islam. Indeed, although the doll hasn't generated a ton of media attention, it's been enough to prompt both reflexive anti-Islam rhetoric (ahem, Daily Mail commenters!) and feminist outrage. NOW's Marcia Pappas has apparently released the statement,

As feminists we believe that women must be able to make their own choices and that includes choices about the clothing they wear. But the burka is more than a choice. Women are forced to wear the burka or risk being murdered. Mattel should be ashamed. Making a profit by selling a doll that is clearly wearing a symbol of violence is not acceptable and there should be a public outcry to take this doll off the market.

But there were other reasons that dressing Barbie in a burka wasn't exactly the cause I wanted to get behind, especially on Fox News. A non-Muslim dressing a non-Muslim doll in a burka trivializes it and reduces it to a costume as surely as Barbie's Mackies and bikinis and doctors' coats. Also, the burka in question is scaled strangely - not to mention lime green and vermillion. Perhaps more problematically, the doll is dressed in a burka "or" a hijab, and the two are not the same thing.

But most of all... I don't think it is really that big a deal: it's a single doll. It's not mass-produced. It's presumably not intended for any children, Muslim or otherwise, and doesn't seem to involve any more social commentary than Malibu Barbie does on Proposition 8. That said, whether the designer intended it to be or otherwise, it's obviously a loaded choice: Saudi Arabia outlawed Barbie in 2003, and as the Christian Science Monitor reminds us, "in April 2008, Iranian prosecutor Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi warned in that Barbie dolls are 'destructive culturally and a social danger,'" prompting attempts to ban them from stores, although several Barbie-substitutes have failed to catch on. (Fulla, a more naturalistic fashion doll from the United Arab Emirates, has been successful across the Middle East.) And for many, Barbie can never be de-sexualized.

In the end, I spent so much time debating and deciding that by the time I'd made my decision, the Fox segment had already aired. Too bad: I'd arrived at what I thought was an inarguable thesis: at the end of the day, all Barbies are going to end up in the same place - naked and spread-eagle on the floor.

It's Barbie In A Burkha [Daily Mail]
Burka Barbie To Raise Funds For Save The Children [Christian Science Monitor]
Boycott Burqa Barbie [PajamasMedia]
Burqa Barbie [Fox News]

Kenneth Clark's famous study was dispiriting: almost every child preferred the white doll. In
2006, filmmaker Kiri Davis re-created the experiment, and 15 of her 21 young subjects chose the Caucasian baby doll. While, as we all know, children "have to be carefully taught," this is clearly ingrained early - and dies hard. On the View yesterday, Elisabeth Hasselbeck remarked on the looks her daughter got when she carried a Tiana doll from The Princess and the Frog on the street (although I personally might have been looking at the celebrity, but that's just me. And she says she was wearing a hat.)

Yet, what makes the whole thing even more depressing is that on the surface, there have never been so many doll "choices": a piece in today's Wall Street Journal points to the trend in doll-girl matching and, amongst toy companies, "an intensifying concern with matching the characteristics of the figurine with those of its owner."

There are, of course, several different issues at play here. On the one hand, we've got standards of beauty - kids need to see more varietals than Barbie, and know that all kinds of appearance and coloring are equally valid - that one is not always the heroine while the others are the chorus, the satellite, the token friend. In a word, we need diversity of dolls to become commonplace, taken for granted.

And then there are the different forms of play: some children like to "parent" their dolls; just yesterday I saw a little girl assiduously mothering her baby doll while her mother tended to a real-life infant sibling. In these cases, you don't need a shrink to tell you that the play is helpful for transitioning, for working out issues, and for learning positive behaviors. And you don't need to be a sociologist to know that for a little kid, your baby most often looks like you. (Although Brangelina may be putting paid to this notion for any child whose mother has a Star subscription.)

Of course, for most kids, it's not about that particularly. Like Hasselbeck's daughter, most young children just want dolls as friends or characters. As the Journal put it,

More commonly, children have enjoyed dolls not for narcissistic satisfaction but for their imaginative potential as hand-held adventurers that can be moved about and made to talk or fly. A corncob doll works as well for those purposes as a custom-made mini-me.

Which is what makes the whole "model-of-myself" trend kind of strange. There is a difference between wanting to see a wide spectrum of dolls, to know that you're represented as a valid human being, to own a toy you identify with (hopefully unthinkingly) and needing your doll to be a replica of you, the child. One is all about imagination; the other is about the opposite.

For children who wish to see their own faces reflected back at them, the toy industry has never before strained so assiduously to please. American Girl, the Mattel-owned company that sells 18-inch dolls with realistic hair and moveable limbs (including a line of historical dolls), offers an array of mannequins that can be configured with Godlike genetic specificity: For $95 to $109, parents can purchase a playmate that mirrors their daughter's hair (blond, red, auburn, caramel, brown, dark brown, brown-black or black-brown), eyes (blue, hazel, green or brown), skin (light, medium or dark), and even attributes such as freckles, bangs, curls and pierced ears.

While they may be contemporaneous phenomena, companies producing a wide range of ethnicities and features, being able to find a doll with glasses or one with a wheelchair, seems to me a very different thing from the mini-idols that every company from Madame Alexander to Bratz is now producing. I feel like the two get conflated, but they're different. I remarked on this phenomenon when Strawberry Shortcake got her infamous makeover: why, I wondered then, do toy companies think a child can't relate to a doll who isn't exactly like herself? I speak purely as a passionate doll-lover, but it seems to me a real lack of understanding of the toy's appeal. Would I have wanted such a thing? Well, for one thing, I never saw a sallow Blythe doll with matted hair (the only approximation that would have come close), but I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun to see yourself mirrored on Christmas morning, and I imagine there's a satisfaction to acquiring each accessory, making the doll's hobbies and wardrobe mirror one's own, but doesn't that get old, fast? That's not a doll that looks like you in the general sense; it's a model of you.

Do Our Dolls Have To Look Like Us? [Wall Street Journal]
Kiri Davis: A Girl Like Me [YouTube]

Barbie has been stumbling over the past few years, her once powerful pink plastic empire taking a hit as Bratz, tarted-up sass-pots your daughter could love, stole much of her thunder and a great deal of her business. Like many other competitors, however, the Bratz were eventually taken out by Barbie and her crack team of lawyers, leaving the blonde pilot/doctor/astronaut/beauty queen shaken but once again at the top of her game.

The cracks in Barbie's armor, however, are providing opportunities for new challengers to slip in and try to take her broken-like-two-seconds-after-you-get-it-out-of-that-dumb-plastic-tie-thing-in-the-box crown. Two "fashion doll" lines, the "Liv" dolls and the "Moxie Girlz" (we're still doing the "z" for s thing, eh?) are currently the biggest threats to Barbie's reign in the doll aisle, offering girls dolls that celebrate the fun of fashion over the cost of fashion.

According to Ruth La Ferla of the New York Times, the Liv and Moxie lines (along with Barbie's new "Fashionista" line) veer from the limousines and bling of the Bratz era. The Liv dolls, she notes, are "positioned as the anti-Bratz, decked out in denim jackets and tooling around on tiny motor scooters," and the dolls are geared toward "pint-size consumers who mimic girls in their teens," which I take to mean that the dolls are more representative of young girls wanting their dolls to dress like cool teen idols Demi Lovato or Miley Cyrus as opposed to wanting their dolls to look like billionaire whores in their 30s, as the Bratz line often did.

The Liv line, La Ferla notes, is also specifically designed to veer from Barbie's oft-bemoaned appearance, as the dolls have "plump facial features and contours softer than Barbie's," as well as wigs that can be interchanged to allow girls to have more options with styling, a great idea, in my opinion, as I ruined at least 5 Barbies as a child by trying to "style" her hair. Of course, the new dolls are not without criticisms; there are still several accessories to "collect" and, as child psychologist Susan Linn tells La Ferla, "These girls remain immersed in a world obsessed primarily with looks and clothes."

Whether or not the Liv dolls or the Moxie Girlz will eventually overtake Barbie is yet to be seen, and I suppose the new lines are a step up from the horrendous Bratz line. But still, it's hard to get excited about another "fashionista" product aimed at little girls. Yes, the limo may be gone, and the clothes may be more age-appropriate, but I'm so tired of the message being sent to little girls that fashion is the most important thing on earth (somehow, "fashion designer" has become the be-all-end-all job for kids), and that even their dolls have to keep up. I suppose in the end it comes down to a balance; there's nothing wrong with having fun with dolls or fashion, as long as parents remind their kids that it's more about having fun than having all the right things.

Losing The Limo [NYTimes]

[Image via New York Times.]

Many of Ostlie's creations feature shorter hair, textured hair, or curly hair - a hard thing to get right, but the effect comes through beautifully.

The features and styles used on some of the dolls defy easy racial categorization.

Some of the dolls look like they are modeled on women from the real world.

Am I the only one that thinks this doll looks like Brandy?

Oh wait a sec - there was a Brandy doll! And it looks true to life! What did Mattel do, say "fuck this mold" when they were done and lock it away somewhere?

I used to wear a very similar style when I was a child - big, thick braids, though I am sure if I had this doll, I would have begged my mother for this twist style.

This pixie-esque curly do is really cute!

Loving the highly textured hair as well as the skin tone.

Could this be the first genderqueer doll? It's certainly the first one I've seen - and I have a friend I'd love to gift it to.

Okay, that's a trick question. It's hard to make an adequate representation of anything, and have it appeal to a mass market. Interestingly, creator Stacy McBride-Irby came up with the doll redesign out of a desire to have a doll that reflected what her daughter looks like

"They mean so much to me because they did come from a positive place," McBride-Irby said. "My daughter loves the dolls. I've had dads thank me for creating this line of dolls that represent their little girls. These dolls are for girls all over the world."

Over at Racialicious, I had two separate submissions, begging to disagree.

Seattle Slim wrote:

Mattel, you disappoint me. What was wrong with giving these dolls from your S.I.S line natural hair, dark brown eyes, and features that fit with most of the particular demographic, black girls, that you are looking to cater to?

If you guys think that these dolls don't mean shit, might I kindly ask you to check out the Doll test?

You should not be lauded for this, Mattel. I appreciate you thinking of us and all, but you dropped the ball on this.

Even if you wanted to keep these dolls, that's fine. I've already described my grandfather and family history here. Where is MY doll? Where is the doll with the Afro? Where is the doll with twists? Where's the doll with the lowboy? Where's the doll with the dark brown eyes, and the flatter nose, and the voluptuous lips? Where's the doll that has all of those things, not just some? Where's the doll for little girls that look like me?

Let me be more clear, these dolls (except for Kara's crazy lace front) are not terrible. I think they are actually perfect for little girls who have a mixed background. These pretty much cover a broad aesthetic and look like plausibly like someone with mixed heritage. In that respect, these dolls are perfect!

However, for the little black girls that look just like ME with unmistakably Afrocentric features, these dolls appeal to the tried and totally untrue, but respected, hip-hop beauty ideal that has become an "exotic girls only" industrial complex. So not only are young girls bombarded with those images on television, if their parents aren't careful, they are basically kicked while they're down walking through the toy store.

Tami, the editor of Love Isn't Enough, opened by explaining what she likes about the dolls. However, she still had heavy reservations:

Like a lot of women, I am uncomfortable with Barbie and her role in the development of young girls. It's not all Barbie's fault. It is the space she occupies in the universe of things that influence how girls grow up to be women: what goals they ultimately have, how they see themselves, how they judge their self worth and how they define womanhood.

I also have a beef with the word "authentic" to describe the three acceptably "blackified" dolls. Let's face it, these dolls don't represent any sort of break-through in representation of black faces. The skin tones and facial features fall within a narrow range that is acceptable within Eurocentric beauty standards. And to say that their hair is "curly" like that of most black women (as McBride-Irby does in this video on the consumer page for the new dolls) is being a wee bit disingenuous. Most black women have hair that is more kinky than curly in its natural state. (These dolls ain't no nappy heads.) Of course, most black women chemically straighten or weave up, which makes the dolls an accurate representation. Fine, but don't try to market them as some representation of "authentic" black physicality.

I also note, in the linked Mattel page above, the use of vaguely "urban" music, a gold, blingy necklace and a backstory that involves Barbie's friend Grace moving from California to Chicago, where she hooks up with Kara and Trishelle. The story and associated imagery is relatable for many black girls, but not all. What about the many, little black girls who live in the burbs? Of course, these dolls can't be everything to every child. But again, the use of "authentic" is a marketing fail. The urban experience is no more "authentic" to black folks than the rural experience.

This idea of authenticity permeates the whole line - each of the dolls has an optional hair styling kit, which includes a curl spray, clip in extensions, and a curling iron.

(Pause here for a second. The dolls come with activator and a weave. Both! Even Régine on Living Single didn't go this deep and she was checking for a Chocolate Ken!)

The reactions to both the pieces raged back and forth - some people thought we should appreciate the effort, the steps taken, and the fact that a black designer created and conceived the S.I.S. project. Others thought that anything that reinforces eurocentric beauty standards is still damaging, even if it is created by another women of color.

But the strength of the reactions - both for and against the dolls - showed what's really at stake here. While some people might say that all of this attention toward Barbie is silly and misplaced, the fact is Barbie still occupies a certain, exalted place in the cultural consciousness. Even as the Barbie brand is falling out of favor, she remains a symbol of (white) femininity and desirably, and unreachable ideal that far too many girls still find imprinted on their psyches.

The truth is, we don't want to change Barbie, or Trichelle, Kara, and Grace. We want to change the culture that says we must look a certain way in order to be beautiful.

But changing a culture is difficult. And even as we grow up, and leave our Barbies behind (or decided we never liked them in the first place), the painful truth remains: we all want our beauty to be validated.

And in our own, individual way, we're trying to influence the world to do just that.

New Black Barbies Get Mixed Reviews [CNN]
Mattel Falls Short With S.I.S (So In Style) Line Black Barbies [Happy Nappy Head]
I'm Saving My Cheers For New, "Authentic" Black Barbie [Love Isn't Enough]
Barbie So In Style Stylin Hair Grace Doll [Amazon]

[Barcelona, October 15. Image via Getty]

A girl has her face painted in the first Barbie store in Europe after its opening in Barcelona on October 15, 2009. AFP PHOTO / LLUIS GENE (Photo credit should read LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images)

"The entire political scene was a little rosier at the time [we started working on the doll, about six months ago]. But what was really apparent was the country, and really the world at large, were very enamored of this lady."

The Michelle Obama doll joins the Barack Obama doll made available last year, though she is sold separately. Bare-armed and available in three different outfits, the description of the M.O. doll reads:

Just like in real life, the Michelle Obama Action Figure isn't simply a female counterpart to Barack. She's her own lady with her own style and energy and, of course, her own fashion sense. 

The copy adds:

*This product is not formally endorsed by or affiliated with Michelle Obama. (But we really hope she likes it.)

While we can't be sure if Michelle Obama approves of the doll, she can rest assured she's in good company: The other dolls produced by the company include Ludwig van Beethoven, Mahatma Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf and Marie Curie. We expect that she'll sell better than the tragic numbers the Michelle Bachmann action figure is ringing up. And surely Ms. O can borrow a bicep-covering cardigan from Barbie if she gets chilly?

White House Doesn't Diss New Michelle Doll [Newser]
White House Mum On Michelle Obama Doll [CNN]
Michele Bachmann Action Figure— She's No Sarah Palin [Star-Tribune]
Related: Jailbreak Toys [Official Site]

Mannequins have been around since the 18th century, mainly in the form of the dress-maker's dummy, but it was not until the 20th century that fashion houses began showing their wares on the "static salespeople." In recent years, there has been a growing demand within the U.S. for mannequins that better reflect the customer base. "Black and Asian models have been doing fine for a long time in the US, and we have customers in Britain. But in France, Germany and Austria, forget it!" said Lacroix, who manages the Paris-based mannequin manufacturer Cofrad. Cofrad also owns Patina-V in Los Angeles, a firm that specializes in ethnically diverse dummies (the image at left was taken at their L.A. warehouse). While different types of mannequins grace American store windows, European clients do not want their brand represented by darker—or larger—dolls.

Surprisingly, Asian companies also tend to buy mostly white mannequins. Lacroix claims they "prefer European-looking mannequins as they have a more universal appeal" to global labels and consumers alike. However, most couture clients want mannequins without heads or any identifying signifiers. More upscale companies do not want life-like mannequins, but rather skinny, faceless clothes hangers.

Lacroix does not seem to believe that anyone, in Europe or America, wants to buy mannequins that reflect actual sizing. The standard mannequin is about the same size as most models, and falls between a two and a four. In 2007, Spain initiated a push toward featuring mannequins that better represented the average woman. In order to do this, they scanned the bodies of woman from around the country in laser-equipped booths. But Lacroix believes that this movement never truly caught on. "As for body shapes, every time we try different sizes, it fails. It's not relevant," he adds, "a mannequin has to have personality and has to sell the clothes." Apparently, fat mannequins - and we must assume, larger women - lack personality by the sheer virtue of their size. It almost sounds like someone has been reading too much Tucker Max.

Mannequins Hit By Discrimination—And Loss Of Face [BreitBart]

Earlier: Mannequins For The Masses

Gwen Thompson, the newest addition to the American Girl family, is homeless. She's actually a secondary character, a companion to modern Girl of the Year, Chrissa Maxwell. According to Gwen's official American Girl wiki,

Gwen and her mother Janine fell on hard times when her father lost his job; they later lost the house as they were unable to keep up payments. Soon after, Gwen's father left them and they became homeless the fall before the start of the book's events. Initially, Gwen's mother has them live in their car until the winter comes; she then takes them to Sunrise House, a place for homeless women and children. Sunrise House helps them get on their feet and eventually get a new apartment.

While Peyser seems to have a bizarre and inherent animosity towards what she terms "these pricey little monsters," I can't help but agree that there's a pretty obvious irony in charging a hundred bucks for a toy that ostensibly teaches about the misfortunes of others - the whole thing feels very Liberal Victorian. American Girl has become a bit of a juggernaut for my tastes, I'm mad that they got rid of Samantha, but the dolls are wholesome and at their best they do teach a little something about history. And there are worse things than a fortunate child being aware of realities that could well be befalling children they know - or kids they never would otherwise. While Peyser decries the AG empire, I actually think it's important to remember that the books exist, too. When I was little, I couldn't affiord a Molly, but my library had all the books and I loved them. I don't think there's anything wrong with a senstive portrayal of a girl who happens to be in this situation - especially given that she's apparently smart, accomplished and a terrific musician.

That said, it's hard to know how a real-life girl in Gwen's position would feel about a rich classmate bringing such a doll to school. I'm guessing, less than thrilled! And, let's get real: only the wealthiest or most spoiled girls, those determined to have the entire cast, is going to want this one: seriously, if you can only get one American Girl, it's probably not going to be the second-banana with the sob story, but the wealthy star with the good wardrobe.

Gwen Thompson [AG Wiki]
'Homeless' Doll Costs $95 (Hairstyling Extra) [NY Post]

You may recall that Mattel, the makers of Barbie, once sued Aqua over the song, claiming that it associated "sexual and other unsavory themes with Mattel's Barbie products." Apparently that's no longer the case, as the company is using the song to promote it's new "Barbie Fashionista" line. The lyrics have been changed, obviously, as "you can brush my hair, undress me everywhere" is perhaps not the best message to send 8 year olds, but the video remains creepy, as Barbie, dressed in a short shirt and leggings, dances around signing about being a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world, and so on and so forth, claiming that you can "be an inspiration, make a decoration," whatever the hell that means:



The video pisses me off on several levels: one, it's filled with stupid words like "doll'icious!", two, Barbie the "fashionista" doesn't seem concerned about fashion as much as—wait for it—boys and famous, and three, there are adults dancing around with Barbie, instead of kids. I think they're supposed to be "real life" Barbie dolls, but they look like Pussycat Dolls, gyrating their hips in short skirts and singing about "doing anything," which, in this instance, apparently means becoming a celebrity with a fashion line. Ken also makes an appearance, dressed in rejects from Justin Timberlake's 2005 wardrobe. He can't do The Barbie, but he still gets to sound like he's in charge, as Barbie, like the singer in the original Aqua tune, squeals baby-voiced things like, "Oh, I'm having so much fun!"

If anything, the "Barbie Fashionista" line shows that Barbie is just picking up where her slutty cousins, the Bratz, left off. The Barbie I grew up with had many flaws, but she also had other talents besides being a dumb girlfriend to Ken who thought about nothing but clothes and being a star. If we're going to have a line of dolls dedicated to fashion, could we at least incorporate actual design? The Barbie Sewing Studio, perhaps? There's nothing wrong with being a "fashionista," if there's a bit of substance behind it, but can we please, for the love of Jem, just leave this stupid era of "Hey girls, check it out! You can be famous!" behind? Barbie's slogan when I was growing up was "we girls can do anything, right, Barbie?" It would be nice if the dolls could answer with something besides a stupid dance ripped from a song based on being dominated by a man. Come on, Barbie, indeed.

Barbie Fashionista Dolls Star In Do The Barbie Music Video Premiere [Examiner]
Mattel Sues Aqua Over Barbie [Rolling Stone]
Ken Is A Hipster [Buzzfeed]

Horvath first sketched the cute, simple monsters as a way of signing letters to his girlfriend, Sun-Min Kim. Kim and Horvath met twelve years ago, while they were both students at Parsons School of Design. After graduation, Kim moved back to South Korea, and Horvath returned to LA. He ended each letter to Kim with a little monster named Wage, which was his way of telling her he would continue to work hard to bring her back to the US.

The monster first made it into doll-form when Kim sent Horvath a handmade toy, stitched to resemble his doodle. Horvath was so excited - this is the only weird part - that "he carried the doll around with him to show his friends." Eric Nakamura, who had just opened a store specializing in Asian pop culture items, saw the doll, and instead of assuming his friend was off his rocker, he asked Horvath for an order of the Uglydolls.

From there, the weird critters blew up, making their way from small, independent toy-stores into the hands of celebrities. Horvath says that although he could probably sell the Uglydolls at a huge store like Walmart, he would rather see his creation grace the shelves of smaller retailers. But, he adds, "I have nothing against big companies. I just like to shop in mom-and-pop stores. I remember when I was 8 years old, I went to Forbidden Planet, an independent comic book store in New York. I stared into that store window as a boy, amazed by everything in there. For me, it was a huge thrill to be able to see my dolls, years later, sitting in that same window." Kim and Horvath are now married, and live in Manhattan Beach with their two-year-old daughter.

Ugly Dolls Are A Labor Of Love [LA Times]