Inclusive doll line changes what beauty means by putting representation on the toy shelves
Dr. Lisa Williams is the CEO and founder of the World of Entertainment, Publishing and Inspiration (EPI) and has created dolls to showcase girls, boys and adults of color to appreciate their beauty. (GennComm)
There is almost a universal experience for Black girls when they grew up playing with dolls. Whenever they pulled their parents to the toy section of a store, there were a lot of options to choose from, especially dolls. Unfortunately, most of the time, those dolls that Black girls played with didn’t look like them.
Playing with toys that don’t look like you can be damaging to a Black girl’s self-esteem and warp what they believe to be beautiful.
In one study, called “Gender and racial favouritism in Black and White preschool girls,” a majority of the Black girls showed favoritism towards to white female doll despite being shown a Black female one as well.
The importance of representation has been a growing topic in the past few years and fortunately for the current generation of kids, one entrepreneur is taking the right step in the right direction.
When it comes to representation, Dr. Lisa Williams has made it her life goal for little girls and boys of color to see their true authentic selves through her doll company, the World of Entertainment, Publishing and Inspiration (EPI). She received the Rising Star Manufacturer at the Women in Toys Wonder Women Awards for advocating authenticity in her dolls on March 1, 2022.
“I really never felt like I was a toy industry person, I am a person that's an advocate for girls and boys of color,” Williams explained.
According to GennComm, a global marketing communication agency working with World of EPI, the company has worked with Disney, Walmart and Paramount to represent their brands.
“It’s not every day that we have a chance to represent a founder who is as genuine, mission-driven and an impactful Changemaker like Dr. Lisa is,” said Genna Rosenberg, UMD (’95) alumna and CEO of GennComm. “It is truly remarkable to see Dr. Lisa in action.”
Williams said that she was inspired by a Black girl in a study that featured dolls and representation. The Black girl said that the white doll was prettier than the Black doll and pointed to her own skin and said that it was “nasty.”
Williams said seeing that made her heart break. She knew that she had to make sure that Black girls and boys see themselves as beautiful.
But Williams didn’t always have this goal in mind.
Before diving into the doll industry, she had a lot of academic achievements under her belt. She was the first African American to receive a doctorate from the Ohio State University in marketing and logistics, received two endowed chairs and taught graduate students and executives as a professor.
Despite not knowing anything about the doll industry, Williams said that her academic background in logistics helped her understand how a product is produced and what the shipping process is like for retailers. She also said that doing so much research helped her research the doll industry.
“As a Ph.D. student, you are the originator, the creator of information so you are constantly doing research — cutting edge research — to contribute to knowledge that can ideally be taught to others,” said Williams.
Williams didn’t have a mentor nor did she know anyone in the industry so doing background research helped her develop strategies for her company, such as custom blending skin colors and creating hair fibers for the dolls.
Because she was already successful in her academic career, her family and friends didn’t encourage the idea of leaving that security behind. She was encouraged by the Black girl in the study and her late best friend Angela. Williams said that Angela told her that “being a professor is not your total definition of who you are, you are bigger than that and you can do more than that.”
The World of EPI released its first line of dolls in 2009 with the goal of affordability. When asked about what conversations around representation have changed since then, Williams said that she sees a difference on a smaller scale compared to the bigger picture.
The Fresh Dolls is one of the doll collections by World of EPI that have a wide variety of dolls to choose from. (World of EPI)
This includes seeing children run up to the dolls in excitement because it looks like them and she gets to see parents get emotional over the sight.
She recalled a time when a woman at Essence festival came up to her in tears and said that she wished that she had the dolls when she was younger and is happy that her daughter has them so she won’t possibly have to go through the same self-esteem issues she did as a kid.
The strong reactions to the dolls from adults surprised Williams.
“I had no idea that adults were going to be touched by these dolls and in such a way that they collect them, they play with them, they create dioramas, they create soap operas,” Williams listed off.
On the other hand, Williams said that although she sees more brown dolls on the shelves, she doesn’t think they show authenticity.
“It’s one thing to just have a doll with Caucasian features that we paint tan or brown and say hey this is an African American doll versus what we do,” said Williams.
Williams described a very careful and intentional process of how the company comes up with new doll lines. First, she starts off with a vision and how it's going to be impactful. Then she starts off with a mold of the face, then the body type, hair texture, naming the doll and then fashion, accessories, and the packaging.
Each collection of hers serves a different purpose. For example, the Positively Perfect Line is labeled as the “baby’s best friend” because its designed to nurture, especially with its huggable body. The Fresh Dolls were designed to grow up with the child by designing them with fuller lips and hips and feeding into their imagination by creating different dolls with different styles and careers.
The most recent line, the Fresh Squad, pushes the company in a new direction and combats societal norms. There has been a stigma against boys playing with dolls with people saying that it makes them “girly.” When Williams was telling one man about it at the airport, he immediately said that boys shouldn’t be playing with dolls.
The Fresh Dolls are the World of EPI’s new collection with more coming in the upcoming fall of 2022. (The World of EPI)
Williams knew that there might be pushback because of this but never understood why people were so against it. When her son was young, he carried around a stuffed Power Puff figure. Although others had a problem with it, she said that it had positive messaging and helped him foster his creativity.
“It’s sometimes the adults that attach all of these innuendos and meanings and negative things to it —it’s just a toy to a kid — let him be a kid, let him enjoy,” said Williams.
During the interview, Williams showed one doll named Malik that had a goatee, braids and an action figure-looking physique with articulation in their arms for them to move.
The Fresh Squad dolls are described by Williams as action figures with fashion since you can change their clothes.
She has received a lot of positive responses from both women and men who buy the dolls for their son. Her favorite things to hear are when a boy excitedly says “Daddy, it looks like me!” or when he says “He looks just like my dad!”
“Either one of those is such a gift to my soul because that means we got it right,” Williams said.
The World of EPI has also expanded past its own collection of dolls. The company recently became a Disney licensee with a multi-license deal for Disney Consumer Products and Marvel products. The company just created a Penny Proud doll for the new Disney Plus remake “The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.”
“My kids grew up watching it, so therefore, I grew up watching it too with them. I love the Proud Family because its not just one character, it’s a complete community of characters so it gives us so many fun characters to develop in our relationship with Disney,” said Williams.
In the future, the World of EPI plans to develop dolls for Disney’s upcoming animated series “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” and other future projects. Williams said that she also wants to expand beyond dolls to create sacred spaces for children with a positive reflection of what they see around them.