Ted Streuli, The Daily Record Newswire
My first Christmas present arrived this week. It's a doll.
I ordered it months ago, my first foray into crowdfunding. It was an idea I really liked, and the buy-in was only $25. Plus, I'd get a doll out of it, which, if you have children and frequent Toys R Us this time of year, you know isn't a bad price.
The doll is the anti-Barbie brainchild of a 20-something digital illustrator named Nickolay Lamm. Lamm, who combined Lamm with family to name his company Lammily, set out to raise $95,000. His idea was a female doll about the size and style of Mattel's Barbie, but with an average young woman's body based on statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The company's motto: Average is Beautiful.
Lamm, like many, suffered with low self-esteem and felt self-conscious over his appearance through high school.
"I've grown up alongside of my younger cousin," Lamm wrote on his blog. "Now she is a 19-year-old competitive collegiate athlete and top student, a beautiful young woman and an inspirational person. All muscles, she used to call herself 'fat.' She could only look 'fat' if compared to exceptionally thin beauty standards.
"When I look at current fashion dolls, I'm reminded of my experience in high school and that of my cousin," Lamm wrote. "I'm reminded that there are some things that are just a mirage and not worth emulating. Moreover, I'm reminded that there is beauty in embracing all the aspects of who you are, and in staying true to you."
"Wait!" the critics shouted. "We're teaching youngsters to aspire to mediocrity! We should not encourage people to be average."
No, what we should avoid is encouraging young girls to beat themselves up for failing to meet impossible standards. Barbie, you might recall, would have measurements of 36-18-33. An 18-inch waist? Seriously? Never mind her ridiculously tiny neck, large head and No. 2 pencil thighs.
Spend all day at the gym and live on raw carrots if you'd like, but you still can't end up at 5-feet, 9-inches tall with a 16-inch waist. And just trying to get close could drive a person straight to anorexia land.
Lamm's doll looks like a healthy, active, normal 19-year-old at about 36-34-40. Lamm's doll would be about 5 inches shorter than Barbie, too, if both were life-size.
Realistic, healthy aspirations seemed like a much better idea to me, so I became one of more than 13,600 backers who put in a few bucks. Together, we ordered 19,000 first-edition dolls. In the end, Lamm raised $501,000, five times more than his original, normal, healthy goal.
Barbie's silly body shape is just an icon; it's not really about Barbie, who has managed to change occupations with the times but still looks like some middle-aged, male, toy company executive's 1959 idea of what women should look like. (In fact, Barbie was designed mostly by Ruth Handler, the wife of a middle-aged male toy company executive, but the men at Mattel loved her.) It's about someone's idea of what women should look like, and that pervades every gym, clothing store, cosmetic surgeon's office and Weight Watchers meeting.
My Lammily doll is still in the shipping box. I haven't gone online to name her and print out her passport yet, but I'm pretty sure her name won't be Barbie.
Then again, it's Christmastime, and my two little boys aren't very interested in dolls. I bet the Salvation Army or YWCA cold help me find a little girl who wants a doll this year, and she'll pick out a perfect name.
Published: Thu, Dec 11, 2014
