CREATABLE WORLD� Deluxe Character Kit - DC-073

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The journey in the research, design, development, and launch of Creatable World took about two years. My biggest hurdle working on Creatable World was trying to open existing perceptions of feminine and masculine styles. Deep-ingrained societal gender signifiers such as color and hairstyle were particularly challenging. For too long a time, the color pink has been associated with girls, and blue for boys. Society has dictated that long hair signifies “feminine.” Even clothing isn’t sold by categories such as “pants” or “shirts,” but by gender. As a society, we are still at the early stages of breaking gender social constructs. My name is Linda Jiang and I am a toy designer living in Los Angeles, California. I design fashion dolls at Mattel, and I am the lead designer of Creatable World, a gender-inclusive doll line. When designing Creatable World, I designed with inclusion and diversity in mind at every step of the process. Every decision was made with care, thoughtfulness, and empathy. We’re surrounded by beauty every day and it comes in many different faces and forms. I want Creatable World to celebrate that beauty.

It takes our development cycle about a year - we can go a little bit faster, we can accelerate - but with Creatable World, for example, we debated about for two years. The thing with toys is that we are a reflection of what's happening in the world, and it's important for us to get that timing right. And I think Creatable World is being launched at just the right time when the world is beginning to shift in our consciousness around these subjects. So what’s next? The set comes with a doll, clothing, accessories and a wig. These can be combined to create over 100 different character styles. Start with a Blank Canvas Hi Spiral! I know what you mean about the theme. Lammily got slammed for that, especially with the first release. I'm in the process of reviewing another little doll whose charm is *greatly* enhanced by the available themes, so I've been thinking a lot about this issue. I LOVE your princess/knight/dragon idea! It's brilliantly creative and would also allow a child to be free from pre-assigned gender roles. I think even dragon characters are often portrayed as male--especially if they're evil. That doesn't seem fair! Your idea would mix everything up! You should write to Mattel. ;)We weretold not to be so specific in the items that we were putting into the doll set. So put in clothes that are masculine as well as feminine, and not stuff that looks like something their parents would wear. Kids are extraordinarily savvy, and so there usually isn't too much of a mystery into what they like or don’t like. Thedollsare androgynous like kids are before they turn to adults. Why is this aspirational for kids? Through research, we heard that kids don’t want their toys dictated by gender norms," Kim Culmone, Mattel's Senior Vice President of Mattel Fashion Doll Design, said in a statement. "This line allows all kids to express themselves freely, which is why it resonates so strongly with them. We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll play.” 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 ] My path into art school was not easy. Like many Asian Americans, pursuing a career in the creative field is uncommon. My parents sacrificed nearly everything they had to immigrate to America for the future of their children, and becoming a designer wasn’t what they had envisioned for me. I constantly fought with my parents, pleading to let me go to art school. They eventually supported me going to art school when they saw how passionate and serious I was about becoming a designer.

A long brunette wig with wavy curls is easy to take on and off. Kids can switch it up and create a new character in an instant! It added: “We’re hopeful Creatable World will encourage people to think more broadly about how all kids can benefit from doll play.” 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? Studies examining gender identification among young children are hard to come by, but a recent report by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles found that 27% of California teens surveyed identified as gender-nonconforming to varying extents.

Thanks for doing this review. I had suspicions that the wigs were gong to have issues, and you confirmed them; that said, I really like their gentle faces and expressions. The more that I look at them, the more i see, well, as an adult, that the wigs are kind of superfluous. I get the sales end and the “kids like to play with hair” angle, but right now, at least In some circles*, gender is so non-specific, that anyone can wear any type of hairstyle or length, and Almost any kind of clothes. The clothing is not really gender specific, nor are the hairstyles. I think they are a very nice product that is open for all manner of play. Well done to the design team...well, let’s work a bit on the articulation! Schulz, Madeline. "Why on earth is Mattel making gender-neutral dolls?". Washington Examiner . Retrieved 13 May 2022. Never heard of this line before, but I really appreciate its existence as a nonbinary and genderfluid person myself. Toys can be so obsessively gendered, and this has always bothered me even as a kid. I would have loved to grow up with several dolls like this. Not to mention, the fashions that come with the dolls are fun and colorful, which is great to see when a lot of clothes today that are branded as "gender-neutral" are just plain brown or beige. I also think the potential for play is really great here, because kids can make many characters out of one doll to fit a variety of stories, regardless of gender. It's such a shame that the wigs do not fit right and are just plain bad in some cases, because I really like the idea of having dolls with rooted hair under wigs so that you can choose whether to give the dolls bangs or not, and you don't have bald dolls lying around like you mentioned about the Liv dolls. Still, these dolls will now have a special place in my heart, as I wish I could have grown up with a toy that treated gender-neutrality with such normalcy as these dolls do, if only the wigs were better lol. 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.

Rodriguez, Adrianna. "The company that created Barbie is introducing a line of gender-neutral dolls". USA Today . Retrieved 4 October 2019. Fortunately for us, it's pretty obvious when you're in a room with a kid what they're interested in what they're not interested in. The kids that we were talking with were a little bit older, so they were actually able to express to us: ‘I really like this’ or ‘It's not something I've seen before’ or ‘These are dolls that look like they're closer to my age or ‘They look like me and my friends.’ I would have sworn that I'd donated my Creatable World sets to the Goodwill when we moved last year. In the blurred flurry of clearing out the house, I let go of a lot of things that I never thought I would be able to part with. But when I was sorting through some moving boxes a few months ago, I found both of the sets! I guess they made the cut. It was extra-fun to find these dolls because I couldn't remember exactly which ones I'd chosen, and I love a good surprise!

I’ve always loved design. Through toys, I can design something with purpose and meaning.

Toy companies are vigorously retooling their products to align with advancements in representation, inclusion and diversity that Gen-Z children – not their millennial parents – are largely responsible for. If I could sum up the vision of Creatable World in one statement, it would be these words from Chella Man: “If I exist in this world, then I deserve to be represented.” a b Asmelash, Leah. "Mattel just launched a gender-inclusive doll line". CNN . Retrieved 4 October 2019. A the values ofdiversity and inclusivity gain traction, this was a space thatopened to us. So, it started with kids, then us observing and playing with the kids, and then splitting into groups with prototypes to see if our hypothesis around the gender-neutral/inclusive offering works. Inspire all kids 6 years and older with a Creatable World™ Deluxe Character Kit and let them play freely so kids can be kids and toys can be toys!

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. Elks, Sonia. "Barbie toymaker Mattel creates gender-neutral dolls". Reuters . Retrieved 16 May 2022. I love the neutrality of these dolls, too. They are truly fluid, which is the natural state of young kiddos. Puberty has a magical way of redirecting that fluidity, and thankfully it seems like each generation affixes those changes with more of a reposition-able adhesive rather than permanent, if not within the self then definitely as it relates to the preference of others. You do you. Mattel is at the forefront of evolution. In the past five years, Mattel has committed to a journey of racial, gender, and non-ableist inclusion. There are Mattel dolls with different body types, heights, skin tones, and dolls with wheelchairs and prosthetics.Growing up as a first generation Asian American, my first language was Mandarin. I learned to speak English when I started attending elementary school, and it was difficult connecting to other kids in my grade due to language and cultural barriers. My parents didn’t raise my sisters and me to conform to gender stereotypes and beauty standards - this is something we didn’t realize until we were adults and I deeply appreciate my parents for that. Every year, we try toexplore uncharted territory. So it’s difficult to isolate the exact starting point for this because we are in continuous exploration with our consumers. In fact, we spend time with kids. At the very least, twice a week my teamin conversation and play with children. It’s in these sessions where we get indications of what they're looking for and what the gaps are in the market. One of the main things for kids is being able to do what they want to do with the toys, which is one of the reasonswhy this idea works. 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.