American Girl Place: A Mecca for Doll Lovers

By Jonathan Berohn

I'll admit it-I was wrong...completely dead wrong.  I thought P.T. Barnum had mastered the pinnacle of shamelessly separating people from their money.  Having seen American Girl Place in Chicago, however, I have been disabused of my illusions.  I never imagined such a blatant attempts at extorting money from parents would be possible-let alone successful and wildly popular.  Once again I have to conclude I'm in the wrong business.

The Shopping

The first thing you notice at Chicago's American Girls Place is that you can buy everything you could possibly want for your American Girl doll there-and do they have things for dolls.  Each of their dolls-and they have plenty to choose from-seems to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 accessories that you can buy-starting at around $15 and quickly headed well upwards of $100 for carved wooden furniture (no-that's not a misprint).  Once you get tired of dolls-ahem-you can also buy books and clothes to let your daughter dress just like her doll! Oh-and just in case your daughter's pre-existing wish list wasn't enough, they have plenty of American Girls Place souvenirs you can't buy anywhere else.

This Way to the Egress

One lesson they seemingly did learn from Mr. Barnum is never let a sucker leave with any money left.  Tired of buying stuff?  How about brunch, lunch, tea, or dinner-all with your doll, of course.  And what impressionable young thing wouldn't want a birthday party at the American Girls Place Café?  Still need more?  How about a $10-$20 doll hair styling session?  Or maybe a photo session with you and your doll for $21.95 and up is more your style.

OK-perhaps, I'm being a little unfair, but setting up a glorified toy store as some sort of mythical utopia that girls should plan whole days-even trips-around strikes me as more than a little crass.  In any case, if you decide to go (there's one in Los Angeles and New York, too), you can get directions and all the low down from the web site.