For 25 years, American Girls have been defining youths’ personalities

There is a large swath of 20-something women who all appear to be afflicted with the same syndrome.

It shall be called Mollyphilia.

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 Girls and their families hit the mall in Tysons Corner to check out American Girl’s collection of dolls, books, clothes and more.

More on this Story

• What your American Girl Doll says about you
• Girls flock to American Girl store at Tysons
• Photos: American Girl store opens

The Cult of Molly.

“I always wanted her glasses,” says Kristine Untalan, 23, a student at American University. “I faked poor eyesight. I was drawn to her nerdiness.”

“I always wanted her tap dance outfit,” Jessica Stewart says, wistfully. “I never got it.”

“When you choose Molly, you’re sort of putting a stake in a path,” says Stewart, 24, an art director for an ad agency. “It makes it more steadfast, who you think you are.”

In Korea, there is a custom called “doljabi,” by which parents predict their child’s future based on what object he reached for on his first birthday.

In the 1980s America of young girls — at least for a sizable portion — personalities could be determined by the selection of an 18-inch plastic doll, made by the Pleasant Company and marketed under the optimistic brand name American Girl.

Choose your doll, and show who you will become.

A quarter-century of history

American Girl dolls turned 25 this year.

An “experiential” store opened last weekend in Tysons Corner : 23,000 square feet of dolls. Dolls having their hair done in the doll hair salon downstairs. Dolls having their tea in the bright cafe upstairs. Dolls posed in historical tableaux: an American Indian doll with a tepee, a 1970s doll with a bicycle, a World War II-era doll with her pale, English-refu­gee friend.

Each of these dolls represents a different historical era.

Every historical doll comes with a set of six books recounting her adventures as a 10-year-old: what school is like, what birthday celebrations are like. This is the hook of the American Girl doll and why 20 million have been purchased. Girls are not buying dolls. They are buying whole personalities.

“I don’t know if there has ever — ever — been such an addictive marketing campaign, and I was way too young for the dolls, and I remember poring over the catalogue and coveting what I didn’t even understand. I remember the school desks. I couldn’t even imagine having such an amazing desk, and if there was a new accessory in the catalogue you would find it immediately, and you wanted one and you wanted one and you wanted one, and my mom said, ‘I am not paying $100 for a doll,’ ” Chiara Atik says.

Atik is 25, now a writer, now living in New York. A long time ago, she wanted, and eventually received, an American Girl doll. Felicity. “I can still remember,” Atik says, “what she smelled like.”

When the original line was released in 1986, it consisted of just three dolls: Samantha, Kirsten — a Swedish immigrant in the 1850s — and World War II Molly. Shortly after that, Felicity came, then Addy (an escaped slave), then post-Mexican independence Josefina, then Depression-era Kit, American Indian Kaya, Title IX Julie and Rebecca, a first-generation Jewish Russian American.

The story lines dealt with racism, women’s rights, workers’ rights and death, but virtuous lessons came with a price: Buying a doll and all of her accessories could cost $1,000. Some female culture critics have argued that one of American Girl’s primary contributions was teaching women how to catalogue shop.