The variety of dolls children have to choose from these days is amazing. When I was a child all remember is Barbie. So this is very exciting for me being a former Barbie collector and now having daughters to share my love of dolls with. After having a conversation with a friend I helped her gain a better understanding of the importance of black dolls. I told my friend that I don’t buy my daughters white dolls. Of course her first question was why. My response was, how many black dolls does your daughter have? There was a long silence. I forgot to mention that my friend is white.

Representation is so very important.

Little girls fall in love with and become best friends with their dolls. Their dolls define their image of beauty.

So if all of their dolls have blonde hair and blue eyes that will soon become their standard of beauty. I always buy black dolls for my girls and now I can buy them black dolls with curls and coils in a multitude of different shades. This will help them appreciate who they are naturally. Thanks to international model Mala Bryan we more African and Caribbean inspired dolls to choose from. Mala is also a doll collector and she was inspired to start her collection because of the lack of diversity she found. When she did find black dolls with curls and coils they were expensive. So not only does she want to diversify dolls but making them affordable was important too.

She launched the first Malaville doll collection with four beautiful dolls named Maisha, Mala B., Malina, and Mhina. These dolls are different shades of brown and have different hair textures, celebrating the diversity of the African and Caribbean culture. Their outfits are African and Caribbean inspired as well.

Mala will be adding more dolls to her collection with even more skin tones and different color hair. She will also be starting a Malaville clothing line for the dolls.