Reunited With A Childhood Joy

I grew up in a red state during the Bush years, surrounded by a culture that celebrated all things masculine. At the same time, I was raised by a mother who had come of age during the second wave of American feminism, one that saw women marching in protest of laws and social norms that enforced a repressive, restrictive definition of femininity.

This complex confluence of social pressures wasn’t easy for my young self to understand, but one thing was very clear: there were no Barbie dolls, no Disney princess, and no frilly dresses in my childhood. The trappings of stereotypical girlhood, from boy bands to makeup, were anathema in my household, subject to dismissive mockery from both of my parents.

But I had a dark secret - or, perhaps, a sparkly pink one. I loved dolls.

Specifically, I loved American Girl dolls. I had every single American Girl book, since my mom supported my voracious reading habit and encouraged me to read stories of young women who were the independent heroines of their own stories. Over and over, I read about Kirsten’s journey to America and Addy’s brave escape from slavery into freedom. My favorite historical character, though, was Molly - who was nerdy, like me, and trying to find her place in wartime America.

My parents may have encouraged my collection of American Girl novels, but they drew the line at the dolls. Eighteen inches tall, with cloth bodies and vinyl limbs, they were at once a beloved plaything and a coveted status symbol among my elementary school peers. At the time, they cost just under $100, which to my parents was an absurd sum to spend on a toy, let alone one that stank of prissy girliness.

I was undeterred. I had a secret weapon in my arsenal of desire: the Americans Girl catalog. My parents had subscribed me to the amazing American Girl magazine, which was packed with stories of girl power and advice for young women figuring out how to navigate a changing world. This put me on the list for the American Girl catalog as well, which featured page after page of glossy photographs of dolls with sleek, shiny hair and a dazzling variety of clothing and accessories.

Every month, I pored over the catalog, dreaming of the day that I would own my very own doll. I envied the girls featured in their photoshoots, laughing and playing with dolls with matching outfits and sweet smiles.

I wanted one more than anything. I begged for an American Girl doll at every birthday and Christmas, but Santa - apparently in cahoots with my parents - never delivered. So, inspired by the tales of lemonade stands and charity fundraisers in my favorite magazine, I set out to save up for one all by myself.

It took me over a year, but finally, I had enough money. I remember sitting at our dining room table, nearly buzzing with excitement as my mom helped me fill out the catalog’s order form with a ballpoint pen. I chose a doll from their “Truly Me” collection, which provided a wide selection of dolls that came in modern day clothing. She would have blonde hair and blue-green eyes, and she would be perfect.

My doll arrived seventeen days later (I counted), and our adventures together began. I named her Arianna, and built a tiny bedroom for her under my homework desk. I played with her often, but the extended amount of time it had taken me to save up for her had one serious downside: by the time she made it to me, I was nearly ‘too old’ to play with dolls.

Years went by, and when I went off to college, Arianna and her mismatched collection of clothes and furniture got packed up and stuck in a tall closet shelf. Our time together was over.

Or so I thought.

Over two decades later, I found myself at loose ends. I had just wrapped up a long and very intense personal project, and decided to take a break before embarking on my next one. All of a sudden, I had both the time, and the disposable income, for new hobbies.

While casting about for something fun and relaxing to fill my days, I met another woman through a pen pal program. She mentioned her large collection of My Little Pony figurines, and sent me pictures of the cute vinyl creatures all lined up on white shelves in her home.

At once, everything came back to me. The pure, childish joy I felt while flipping through the American Girl catalogs, splayed out on the floor of my bedroom. All the hours I spent playing with Arianna, dressing and posing her, filling my imagination with tales of friendship and triumph.

Now, I had the money, and the space, for all the dolls I could ever want. Plus, there was no one around to judge or scold me for such a feminine interest.

The second chapter of my love affair with American Girl was about to begin.

I soon discovered, however, that as the years had gone by, the price of an individual doll had risen, and now they were more than $100 for a brand new doll. I may have been an adult with my own income stream, but embarking on a collection of such pricey items still didn’t feel like a financially responsible choice.

This led me to the secondhand market, which turned out to be brimming with adorable dolls and friendly sellers. I realized that I could purchase a previously owned doll for less than thirty dollars, which was a significant enough discount that I could justify buying as many as I liked.

Of course, as with anything that comes “gently used,” many of these dolls had cosmetic problems. Rather than being a deterrent, however, this only sparked my interest more deeply. I had, after all, been looking for a new hobby to pursue. Restoring damaged dolls was the ideal way for me to indulge in my love of American Girl while still finding meaningful, interesting projects.

Immediately, I ordered a few dolls and started reading and watching tutorials for how to restore them to their original glory. I learned how to repair or replace their wigs, made of a synthetic hair that requires unique shampoo and special care, but which is cheap enough that I felt comfortable freely trying out new hairstyles on my dolls. Taking my scissors to something that had once been precious and unattainable to my younger self took some courage at first, but through the online community of adult American Girl collectors, I met someone who worked at an official hair salon in one of the company’s flagship stores and quickly learned my way around a doll wig.

I stocked up on magic erasers and acne cream, both of which can be used to remove stains or scuff marks from the vinyl that stands in for a doll’s skin. With the help of a hot water kettle and a wooden spoon, I removed doll eyes that had been damaged and replaced them with unique, gorgeously colorful ones from Etsy sellers. Using acrylic paints, I updated the doll’s face paint, adding pink blush to faded cheeks and updating their lip colors. My favorite thing to do was to use a minuscule brush to apply freckles.

As a writer, I began to flesh out names and backstories for these dolls, following the style of the original American Girl books and giving them each a personal story full of love and learning. I decided to give each doll a name beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, hoping that this would artificially limit my collection to 26 dolls, and wrote about their personalities, dreams, and triumphs.

I called them “the ABC girls,” and soon created a website and an Instagram to share their stories with other American Girl aficionados. Documenting their restorations was fun, and so was elaborating on who they were as characters within the world I created for them. I made my first pilgrimage to a brick and mortar American Girl store, a place I only ever dreamed of visiting as a child, and came home with new clothes and toys for all of them.

After learning how to repair used dolls, and then embarking on a massive writing project, I found myself drawn into yet another corner of the hobby: doll photography. I wanted to be able to show everyone what I was doing, and to use the incredibly detailed miniature clothing and accessories to stage interesting scenes, but I hit a frustrating wall when trying to use my smartphone camera.

Dolls, I discovered, are very difficult to photograph well. Their faces are smoother than a human’s face, changing the way that light interacts with their angles and expressions. Even the most lovable doll can quickly acquire an “uncanny valley” creepiness in two dimensional photographs. Plus, since the dolls are all at a much smaller scale than most things in our world, making their world come to life in a photograph takes an expert manipulation of focal length and perspective.

So I set about figuring out how to do that. I asked a friend who does portrait photography to give me some tips, and learned how to use a DSLR camera with far more features than a standard iPhone. Within the online community, I followed dozens of doll photographers and learned as much as I could from their work. It took a lot of frustrating trial and error, but I was eventually able to start taking doll photos that I felt proud of!

Finally, I had everything I needed to create fun, playful scenes and images with my dolls. Tiny accessories like doll-sized scissors and craft materials let them create valentines in February, and they used miniature blankets and stuffed animals to host sleepovers together!

I was even able to create doll sized bedrooms in various nooks and corners of my house, complete with posters on the wall that I cut out from images in magazine.

There was one remaining hurdle, however. None of my dolls had a name that began with an “A,” and I was holding a very special spot in my collection for my first and favorite American Girl. Arianna was somewhere in my parent’s house, and I very much wanted her back. But to do so, I would have to call up my mother and confess that I’d fallen down the frilly pink rabbit hole of doll collecting despite her best efforts.

Getting Arianna back was worth it, I decided. After a few awkwardly defensive emails, she was en route to me in a plain cardboard box, along with most of her clothing - most of it now discontinued, rendering it “vintage” in terms of the American Girl release timeline. Arianna was in bad shape - the elastic of her limbs had deteriorated during her long purgatory in a hot Phoenix garage, and her neglected hair had gone dry and stiff.

But I knew exactly what to do. Using all my new tools and skills, I set about bringing Arianna back. Now, as an adult, I finally had the agency and the ability to craft a world where I fit in, with all my hobbies and interests. I knew how to be brave like Addy, clever like Molly, and resourceful like Kirsten. Free to pursue this passion, inspired by the stories of my youth, I could be exactly who I wanted to be. And in this new world, there was no one better to have by my side than my best friend Arianna.