The Drastic Debacle of Our Plastic Pals

Examining the rise and fall of the American Girl Empire in the wake of its infamous Grove location closing its doors for the final time. 

There I was, walking alongside the tram tracks at The Grove when I turned the corner and was confronted by the most unexpected reality: the American Girl doll store was closed. The American Girl doll store at The Grove––the one with endless displays of doll-sized trinkets, a cafe where I attended many birthday parties, and a familiar bright pink exterior––was closed.

I couldn’t believe it. The memories of my elementary school friends clutching their customized American Girl dolls like they were an extension of them seemed fresh in my mind. I still remember how my friend admitted that she kept her doll locked in her closet after watching Annabelle. But there was The Grove’s infamous American Girl store, doors locked and windows covered with pink wallpaper: closed.

How did we get here? Twenty-seven years before American Girl began showing up on store shelves, Ruth Handler created Barbie, a radical concept in a world where the majority of toys marketed toward young girls were baby dolls. The idea confounded Mattel, the parent toy company, at first, but Barbie quickly experienced frantic demand. In 1963, The New York Times credited Mattel for “the revolutionary idea that little girls today are viewing their girl dolls increasingly as themselves and not as their babies.” 

But it wasn’t all success for Barbie. Following the 1968 Miss America Pageant protest where 400 women picketed against the event’s obsession with women’s appearances, Barbie faced backlash from second-wave feminists. They criticized her impossible proportions, thinness, and whiteness. Barbie was unrelatable.

In 1986, Pleasant Rowland, an American writer and educator, saw a gap in the toy market. She wanted to create dolls with stories and aspirations that could inspire and educate young girls, thus, American Girl was born. The first three dolls combined American history and educational products to create The American Girls Collection and more dolls followed as the brand gained popularity.

In a Barbie-dominated toy scene, the appeal of American Girl dolls was their relatability. They were characters who looked like the girls who were buying them. And when American Girl released their customizable “Today” collection in 1995, the dolls were able to look exactly like the young kids buying them.

(Photo reprinted from americandollnews.com)

Where Barbie failed, American Girl succeeded. Not only did American Girl please children, but it also pleased parents who were dissatisfied with what they saw in Barbie. In a 2012 Time article, Andrew J. Rotherham aired his grievances and writes that, “[Barbie is] still driving parents like me up the wall with her vapid sexuality…These aspirational Barbies have fallen flat, largely because there’s no there there. They’re just another hypersexualized Barbie in a slightly different outfit. After a day at the vet or on the space shuttle, Barbie is still off to her hot tub and other age-inappropriate activities. Parents like me are not appeased.” 

Additionally, in 2009, a Democratic West Virginia state legislator, Jeff Eldridge, proposed House Bill 2918 to ban Barbie dolls, saying that the dolls “promote or influence girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of their intellectual and emotional development.”

In the eyes of concerned parents, American Girl gave them what they were looking for: appropriate role models for their children.

And American Girl was more than just a doll company, it was an empire. The first American Girl store opened in Chicago in 1998 and, since then, locations have popped up across the country — offering a complete American Girl experience. All-pink cafes, interactive displays, doll salons and hospitals, party packages: all available at an American Girl store near you. At some point between watching your doll get her hair styled in a mini salon chair and buying a matching outfit, your doll begins to feel like a person, like a friend. Elementary school kids carry their dolls wherever they go because they’ve cultivated a real relationship with them. American Girl offered a completely personalized experience that led children to grow attached to their toys like they would a person.

It was in 1998 that major toy companies began to take notice of American Girl’s increasing success, which led Mattel, the same company behind Barbie, to buy the brand for $700 million. By all accounts, American Girl seemed to be on track for a wildly popular empire that would keep its sales on a positive slope for years and years to come. But then––the fall. 

American Girl sales have been reportedly declining for years now, with sales dropping 28% from 2017 to 2018 and 32% in the first quarter of 2019 compared to first quarter of 2018. In 2022, despite Mattel’s overall sales rising 20%, their American Girl sales dropped 19%. 

Since 2018, 11 American Girl stores across the nation have either closed or announced their future closure, in locations such as Scottsdale, Lone Tree, and the Mall of America in Bloomington. 

American Girl’s success is on the decline, despite their promising earlier years. What happened? 

One theory is based on a certain criticism that continued to pop up in all of the articles commending American Girl. In the thick of all the praise, one exasperated remark was made: the price. Despite all of Barbie’s shortcomings, they had their affordable cost going for them. In 1986, American Girl dolls retailed for a minimum of $68 and, today, they go for $98 each. This was simply out of the budget for many families who wanted to buy their children a nice toy. And these prices were excluding all of the add-on accessories and services that children adore and beg their parents for. In total, American Girl was and is a very expensive experience. At the end of the day, no matter how educational and exemplary American Girl dolls are, if parents can’t afford them, they won’t be buying them. And just like that, Barbie begins to look like a much more satisfactory alternative. 

Another theory, posed by multiple articles investigating the matter, is, as a piece from The Atlantic suggests, that the original charm of American Girl was lost when Mattel bought the company and “shied away from the controversial subjects that once made [American Girl] distinctive,” instead catering to consumer demand. A 2013 Washington Post article touches on this theory as well, saying that the new American Girl’s selling point focuses more on being “Dolls Just Like Us,” rather than the historically-rich characters that used to make them unique. In an episode of an American-Girl-centered podcast, Dolls of Our Lives, run by two historians, Allison Horrocks says, “American Girl used to be something distinctive because of its historical roots. Parents felt like they could justify the expense because it was educational.”

(Photo courtesy of Andre Carbonari)

A new American Girl pop-up location has recently opened its doors at Westfield Century City. 

Whether or not it’s the fault of Mattel, new American Girl dolls are missing their usual adventurous and high-stake backstories as they turn their attention to being as relatable to the consumer as possible and abandon their educational beginnings.

However, this is all speculation. Neither American Girl nor Mattel has yet to comment on their declining success, likely because the dip in their sales hasn’t been drastic enough to garner mass attention. American Girl is far from bankruptcy. As for the beloved store in The Grove, the reason behind its closure is still unknown. Whether it was due to a decrease in sales or popularity, we have yet to see the last of American Girl’s presence in Los Angeles as a new pop-up location has recently opened its doors at Westfield Century City.

The numbers don’t spell disaster for the American Girl brand in the near future. But consumers’ opinions towards the direction Mattel is taking have taken a shift, and the brand continues to lose its charm as its prices increase and its products grow shallow. Only time will tell where Americans’ favorite childhood toy is headed.