CREATABLE WORLD� Deluxe Character Kit - DC-619

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Even though there is no scientific evidence to prove that this is the case, there will be customers who say that even exposing their children to a gender-nonbinary doll through commercials or in a play group would threaten to change their child’s identity. This debate will spin out into sociopolitical questions about whether the types of toys children play with affect their sense of identity and gender. I was pleasantly surprised. There were gasps of excitement as the dolls were unveiled and a fight soon broke out over who would play with which doll. During my last year of high school, I embraced that a creative career was my calling, so I seriously and actively pursued a way to go to art & design school. I am forever grateful to Lee Akamichi, my studio art teacher who helped me put together my portfolio so I could apply to an art & design school. Through creating art for my portfolio, I realized I enjoyed creating things with purpose. They eventually supported me going to art school when they saw how passionate and serious I was about becoming a designer. Other than my mom, I was not surrounded by many artists during my upbringing. A majority of my peers and their parents were involved with science, engineering, mathematics, or physics. My dad is an engineer, so this is where I get my practical & analytical side from. My mom is very creative and very clever, she always had ingenious solutions to enhancing a product to better suit her needs. She forever inspires me and encourages me to think critically and creatively.

When Let Toys Be Toys first started out in 2012 we targeted toy retailers to great success; UK retailers no longer explicitly signpost toys to boys or girls in-store and there has been a 70% drop in web navigation by gender. The sculpt is the foundation of a doll. It is what the face designers, hair designers, and sewers use as a foundation on which to create. The doll’s proportions and size should make it easy for kids to hold and to dress. I worked closely with my sculptor, Kittaya Wongchinda, to study the human body. We looked at many different faces to create a harmonious blend of features. A child opens a box. He starts jumping and screaming with joy—not an unusual sound in the halls of Mattel’s headquarters where researchers test new toys. But this particular toy is a doll, and it’s rare for parents to bring boys into these research groups to play with dolls. It’s rarer still for a boy to immediately attach himself to one the way Shi’a just did. Dolls play an important role in child development; they foster empathy, develop communication skills, and allow children to role-play the world around them. At Let Toys Be Toys we believe that all toys are for all children and it’s the marketing that tells them if they are included or not: Mattel’s Creatable World dolls represent a really big step forward here. Creatable World was praised by Jess Day, a campaigner for Let Toys Be Toys, who hoped that more toy manufacturers would follow suit in the future and avoid gender stereotypes. Day stated that "Toy companies have been quite slow to take on board that the world has changed. Most parents don't really want to see their children's interests limited." [8] Madeline Schulz, writing for the Washington Examiner, criticized the doll line. Schulz argued that the doll line went beyond Mattel "trying to break down stereotypes" and was " woke capitalism", since the dolls were "more than three times the price of the average Barbie doll." Schulz also argued that Mattel was alienating a substantial portion of their target customers. [9]Since expressing myself through words wasn't something I was comfortable doing, I loved dressing up to express myself. Even as a kid, I would always put on something that made me feel good about myself or matched my mood. Whether it was wearing dresses, a matching sweat suit, or jeans with patches - I wouldn’t leave the house unless I was wearing something that expressed myself. It’s something I still do, to this day! Expressing myself through fashion was my first gateway into wanting to pursue a creative path in life. I’ve always loved design. Through toys, I can design something with purpose and meaning.

Creatable World is a customizable doll line that serves as a blank canvas for kids to create their own characters with endless combinations, all in one box. Every piece in a Creatable World deluxe kit allows a child open play, and could represent anyone. One child’s doll could look completely different than somebody else’s, while still representing themselves or someone the child could have in their everyday life. Representation – The dolls themselves aren’t identified as boys or girls and come in a range of skin tones and hair types. There are no images of children on the boxes. (We hope that other marketing material will feature both boys and girls.)Across all cultures, to play is fundamental to a child’s growth and development. We make emotional connections to our favorite toys from our childhood. Through play, we learn to make decisions, to be social, and exercise creativity. We act out stories and imagine the world from different perspectives. We practice communication, problem solving, and empathy. Toys allow kids to build emotional skills, and toys shape their ability to interpret the increasingly diverse world around them. It’s important for me, as a doll designer, to provide options in the mainstream market for children to easily identify with, in terms of race or gender. Personally, I don't think they look that bad next to a Barbie. They're definitely not quite in scale, but Lena's head looks to be a bit on the smaller side, so they might look better with a larger-headed Barbie, or one of the Disney dolls perhaps. Plus, as a kid, I had a variety of dolls this size that definitely didn't all match stylistically, and it never bothered me. There's something really endearing about that picture of Riley and Lena. I can see a definite family resemblance, and that combined with their natural, affectionate pose really makes them look like siblings. And yet creating a doll to appeal to all kids, regardless of gender, remains risky. “There are children who are willing to cross those gender boundaries that society places on toys, but there’s often a cost that comes with crossing those boundaries,” Dinella says. “That cost seems to be bigger for boys than it is for girls.” Some of those social repercussions no doubt can be traced to parental attitudes. In Los Angeles, the majority of the seven parents in an early testing group for Creatable World complained the doll “feels political,” as one mom put it. Picchi, Aimee. "Mattel's gender-neutral dolls are ready for the holidays, but shoppers may not be so sure". USA Today.

Toy giant Mattel is launching a new range of dolls designed and marketed to appeal to boys and girls alike. Let Toys Be Toys campaigner Megan Perryman and her children take a look – has a major manufacturer really dared to rewrite the toy marketing script? Rodriguez, Adrianna. "The company that created Barbie is introducing a line of gender-neutral dolls". USA Today . Retrieved 4 October 2019. Schulz, Madeline. "Why on earth is Mattel making gender-neutral dolls?". Washington Examiner . Retrieved 13 May 2022. I do wonder whether these dolls would make okay siblings for the Ever After High line...? After seeing your comparison photo for the eye paint, I definitely think their facial screening would work for that, but I wonder if Creatable World's more realistic proportions would be prohibitive... Mattel has taken risks before. Most recently, in 2016, it added three new body types to the Barbie doll: tall, petite and, most radically, curvy. It was the first time the company had made a major change to one of the most recognizable brands—and bodies—in the world in the doll’s almost-60-year history. The change helped propel Barbie from a retrograde doll lambasted by feminists for her impossible shape to a modern toy. She is now on the rise. Her sales have been up for the past eight quarters, and she saw a 14% sales bump in the past year alone, according to Mattel.

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The dolls are sold in kits, and 6 different kits are currently part of the doll line. The kits offer several customization options, including different hairstyles, clothes and accessories that are intended to offer a variety of both feminine- and masculine-presenting play options. [5] The dolls are designed to be versatile: with wigs to change hairstyles, and a variety of clothing options. [2] According to Kim Culmone, the senior-vice president of Mattel Doll Design, Creatable World is "an opportunity for us to open up that dialogue around what dolls are for and who dolls are for". [5] Michelle Condoni, a spokeswoman for Mattel, has stated that "we see this is as something that's all about play and not about politics". [3] Reception [ edit ] Meyers, Alex. "The Alarming Message of Mattel's "Gender-Neutral" Dolls". Slate . Retrieved 13 May 2022. The 11-inch dolls present themselves in short hair and simple outfits. This blank canvas is the perfect starting point to let children's imaginations run wild and create whoever they wish. Create Unlimited Scenes

As a parent that ambivalence continued. My daughter received a cluster of Barbies for her fourth birthday which she adored with all her heart. I felt torn. I didn’t want to be the parent to deny my child a toy they clearly got so much enjoyment from, but equally the highly made-up, scantily clad, anatomically-impossible dolls could not have been further from my scruffy four year-old in grubby playclothes.On a basic level, the doll falls far short of actually embodying or even representing a nonbinary identity. “Gender-neutral,” the term Mattel uses in its marketing of the doll, is not, in fact, a term that many—any?—people use to describe themselves. They use “gender-fluid,” or genderqueer, or nonbinary, or nonconforming. These dolls reinforce the idea that gender is “playful” and easy to switch around, accusations often leveled at trans youths. [10] See also [ edit ]