The Lalaloopsy doll brand, from MGA Entertainment, will make its first foray into fashion dolls with Lalaloopsy Girls. The brand’s storyline centers on 10 characters who attend a special magic academy for girls, Lalaloopsy Academy for Learning Arts, aka L.A.L.A. Prep. There they take magic classes on topics such as cloud-sculpting, and share dorm rooms, secrets, and humorous life moments.
Lalaloopsy Girls will feature vibrantly-colored, 11-inch dolls with different fashions, and each doll will have lanyard hair that magically colors when streaked with cold water. In addition, each doll will come packaged with an extra outfit consisting of a personal, two-piece pajama fashion set, as well as two hair clips and a pet.
The original Lalaloopsy brand debuted four years ago with a suggested age range of 4 and up. According to Rachel Moshe, brand manager at MGA Entertainment, the new line is intended for the oldest girls in that age group.
“If you fell in love with the brand in 2010 and were four years old, that would now make you 8, so you’d probably be going into fashion dolls,” says Moshe. “So we thought it would be appropriate to launch a fashion doll line-up that keeps girls into the brand a little bit longer. This is really to add a doll line-up for the older girl–still not much older than the current Lalaloopsy consumer, but a little bit older than what we’d been targeting before.”
Six of the 10 Lalaloopsy Girls were among the brand’s original characters. Along with being aged up to tweens, they will be more colorful and quirkier.
The first showings of Lalaloopsy Girls will be at Licensing Expo in Las Vegas from June 17 to 19, and at the Sweet Suite event on July 17 in New York. When the line launches in August, it will be accompanied by an array of entertainment, such as a live-action music video, character webisodes, and social media outreach intended to bring the fun of Lalaloopsy land into the real world: For example, girls will be encouraged to have real-life Tutu Tuesdays, and other activities that encourage imagination and creativity.
The original Lalaloopsy dolls were rag dolls that magically came to life, taking on the personalities of the materials used to make them. It has since evolved into a major toy brand with its own animated series on Nick Jr. MGA Entertainment will launch a Lalaloopsy Girls DVD with Lionsgate later this year.
Moshe credits keeping Lalaloopsy consistently cute and wholesome, as well as making sure each new character is more collectible than the last, for its success.
“We’re constantly making sure that every character is very special on their own, and that there’s a reason for each new character to exist,” says Moshe. “We also put a lot of time and energy into making sure the characters and storylines are rich, and we live and breathe it every day. We’re very passionate about it.”
