The newest American Girl Doll Death Star has taken up geosynchronous orbit near the Port-Swiller residence, and yes, the Family Robbo got caught in its tractor beam.
Thousands of starry-eyed girls clutching $100 18-inch dolls wandered through aisle upon aisle of pint-size outfits and shiny accessories in search of the perfect purchase Saturday. Moms and dads followed along behind them.
Well, not one dad. I point-blank refuse to go anywhere near the place. But the Dark Side of the Force was seducing them in their thousands:
Families started camping outside the store as early as 2:30 p.m. Friday, a store spokeswoman said. By the time the doors opened at 9 a.m. Saturday, more than 700 people were in line, waiting for a look at the 23,000-square-foot store. One family from Thailand planned a vacation in the Washington area around the opening, store officials said.
Actually, I believe Mrs. R and the gels wandered over later in the afternoon. They had no trouble getting in, but they report that the place was packed. And why not? Behold the awesome firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!
The 10th American Girl store features a hair salon (dolls only), a 110-seat bistro (dolls and people), and a station for making T-shirts (dolls and people). Opland said he expects the store at Tysons to draw families from 300 miles away. The next-closest store is in New York City.
To quote Aniken Skywalker, “NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
Seriously, though, there is, to me, something especially irritating infuriating about the whole American Girl franchise.
American Girl has 10 historical dolls, whose lives span pre-European settlement America (meet Kaya, who comes with a porcupine quill necklace) to San Francisco in the 1970s (hello, Julie Albright).
There are also the Girl of the Year dolls and 52 My American Girl dolls, which come in different combinations of skin tone, eye color, face mold and hair color.
I haven’t decided if it’s the faux historickal identity marketing shtick that irks me so much or the fact that it is seemingly impossible to purchase chunks of said faux history/identity in increments any smaller than a hundred bucks. Well, who am I kidding? It’s both.
Of course, I’m just the Dad around here, so my grumbling is seen as nothing more than curmudgeonly bloviation, easily ignored by the rest of the family.
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June 20, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Diane
Heh. American Girl is the brainchild of a woman here in Madison. I worked for an educational toy and teacher supply chain about the time the company just started taking off, before the original owner sold it off. Even then the cost of the things rivaled the Madame Alexander dolls (which we also carried).
But the allure for the granola-crunching, Birkenstock-wearing, liberal-educated hippy crowd was irresistible, and we sold quite a few.
June 20, 2011 at 11:22 pm
GroovyVic
Reading this makes me glad I got m kids out to see some of the stuff their mom-n-dad enjoy. They both liked the AF museum, and really got into learning how to fence and shoot guns.
June 20, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Sister
We have a very simple policy here regarding American Girl Dolls. “No.”
June 21, 2011 at 12:07 am
beth
Perhaps I’m the minority here, but honestly, I kind of take the stance many took pro Harry Potter when others were up in arms about the eeeevilllls of same: If it gets kids into history (or reading in the case of HP) then, well, why not?
The books that accompany the dolls are actually pretty well researched and also well written (though I have only read 2 of the series – Felicity, the Colonial, and Kirsten, the Swede in Minnesota, though I forget her time period, so maybe that one wasn’t quite as good.)
Then again, I grew up with Mme Alexander dolls. So perhaps I’m just a grown up version of their demographic.