Part store, part theater, New York's American Girl Place makes for an itty bitty day in the city.
By Steve Hendrix
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
It's okay, because we're not buying anything.
We're just going to dash in, see the show, have some tea, fondle-but-not-purchase the goods and get out.
This is not a shopping trip.
After all, this isn't really a store. It's a happening, an event, a trip. It's a place. American Girl Place, the toy line that has become a destination. Sure, it looks like a store, a tony Fifth Avenue shop, just blocks from the Plaza even, with fancy animatronic holiday window displays and spinning doors that suck shoppers off the sidewalks like retail-industrial turbines.
But in a way that Old Man Macy and Mr. Gimbel could only dream of, American Girl Place has become, since opening in late 2003, a New York must-see for tens of thousands of families. They spend long hours -- and big money -- eating brunch or dinner in the cafe, watching the Broadway-style "American Girls Revue" in the theater, pampering their little plastic wards in a veritable spa for dolls and trying on look-alike clothes for both toy girls and real girls at eight in-store boutiques.
"It was literally at the top of our list," says Teri Tabb, a tall blond mom from Los Angeles who last week was herding her two girls around a second-floor showroom. This is where American Girl's core line of nine period-specific dolls are posed in Smithsonian-worthy dioramas filled with outfits and accessories. Tabb pulls out a notebook to show a spreadsheet of her family's New York itinerary. Sure enough, American Girl Place tops the chart, outranking such Gotham to-do's as seeing "Wicked" and visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "We've been here for hours," she says.
I've been here for hours, too. I brought my daughter Tyrie, 5, and she brought Kit, the Depression-era American Girl she unwrapped two Decembers ago. Previously purchased dolls are welcome, so there are lots of Kits being clutched by wide-eyed pre-adolescent girls. There are also plenty of Josafinas (from 1824 New Mexico), Addys (the escaped slave community of Civil War Philadelphia), Felicitys (1774 Williamsburg) and the others.
"Somebody's Molly is on the floor over here," a clerk shouts, never breaking her brisk stride through the milling crowd. She's not the only one on a mission. With Christmas just days away, the place is buzzing like a bazaar. A banker type scuttles around like a truffle pig in a cashmere overcoat, bent over and rummaging through the shelves and taking cell-phone directions from some domestic HQ. "Here it is. Kit's table and chairs. Jesus, it's $70. Okay, okay. I'm just telling you."
It is a heavily Fifth Avenue scene -- there's probably half a million dollars' worth of handbags on the escalators at any given moment. But there are plenty of sub-platinum-card tourists as well, and everyone seems to share an enthusiasm for the dolls and books that make up this world of spunky girl power and friendship across races, classes and centuries. Sure, there is a woman sailing out of the cafe in flowing black furs and with facial features so sharp she looks like an origami version of Cruella DeVil. Her daughter is more of the same, except she cuddles a Kaya, an 18-inch Nez Perce doll in leather fringe that makes her owner seem less like a 12-year-old Bianca Jagger and more like a little girl.
The nicest-looking dolls being dragged around are the ones that have already been to the wee eight-chair Doll Hair Salon on the first floor. We wait our turn and soon Tyrie's Kit takes a chair next to two other Kits and a Kirsten (1854 Minnesota frontier).
The beautician spritzes Kit's hair with water and begins brushing out the tangled polyester mop. The braid is the most popular treatment ($20), but Kit's hair is too short for that so she's just having a good brushing and a nice new ribbon ($10). Tyrie rests her chin on the counter and ogles.
If a doll comes in with truly hopeless hair -- too tangled, too patchy, too full of Doublemint -- it goes to the doll hospital upstairs.
"They replace the hair?" I ask.
The stylist, Nashira Rice, turns away from Tyrie and whispers, "The whole head."
After Kit's day of beauty, we rush for the hot-ticket "American Girls Revue" in the 130-seat theater. Having heard the CD a few thousand times at home, I already know the show is more-than-passable Broadway fare: not quite Cole Porter but far better than any recent Disney soundtrack. The conceit is a meeting of a neighborhood American Girl club -- the musical numbers explain each doll's backstory to a newcomer.
There is an extra frisson in the audience when it's "Samantha's" turn to sing -- lots of mothers leaning over with big smiles and whispering "Samantha!" to their daughters in that way parents have of making sure their kids appreciate the obvious. The Samantha doll is a first among equals now that she's had a movie made about her. A TV movie, yes, and only on the WB network. But still, a movie.
By the time Kit takes the stage to sing about looking on the bright side of life during the Depression -- "Kit!" I whisper at Tyrie -- I am besotted myself. Even at $89 a doll and $30 a ticket, I'll take these can-do archetypes anytime over Barbie's body image or the junior slut mien of Bratz.
In the bright, fanciful restaurant after the show, moms, daughters and dolls fill most of the tables, but there are a few dads (many sipping champagne mimosas, the closest thing to a cocktail on the menu). We sit down to a platter of artichoke dip, breads and cheeses, the first course in the surprisingly good $20 prix fixe menu.
Dolls sit in booster seats before tiny cups and saucers. Many are in various states of undress, as eager little owners change them into just-bought togs. "Usually, the first thing people do is strip down their dolls," says our waitress, Jennifer Rosen.
I hate to admit it, but there's some quick changing going on at our table, too. In spite of my iron resolve, we had bought not one but two new American Girl ensembles: Kit's Christmas dress for Tyrie and Josefina's "weaving" outfit for her sister back home. We came to buy nothing -- and leave, inevitably, with $44 in tiny ready-to-wear.
But others leave with many, many more of the big red shopping bags. Tracy Craemer of Point of Rocks, Md., is impressively laden after a full day of shopping, shows and -- the highlight for her three girls -- high tea.
"The tea was amazing," Craemer says. The girls liked the little net bag of charms and bracelet-making goodies and they liked the vanilla pudding served in chocolate cups you could really eat. But they loved seeing the actors from the revue come into the cafe to sing carols. "Last year we went to the tea at the Plaza because our girls love Eloise, but they liked this much better."
Watch your back, Eloise. There are some new girls on the block.
Escape Keys