Norvell very kindly took me to the American Girl Doll shop in Tyson's Corner shopping Mall in Washington DC during my trip to the city for a work conference during November. I had a shopping list of items but also wanted to see the way the dolls and their accessories are displayed.
The shop is on two levels and was dressed for Christmas more than a week before Thanksgiving. It was a Sunday which meant, as Norvell had explained in her emails, that the shop would be busy and filled with little girls making big decisions! I couldn't resist that spectacle. In fact it wasn't overwhelmingly crowded though it was busy, which was a relief, as it was possible to take photographs of the displays without having to avoid capturing other people's children in the photos.
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| Isabelle, Girl of the Year with the window display |
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| The upstairs entrance to the store |
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| AG horse and carriage |
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| AG girls on skis |
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| AG horse and rider |
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| AG horse and foal |
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| AG bicycle and rider (with pet dog who looks like he delivers the newspapers) |
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| AG girls in their fancy dress outfits |
The busiest area of the shop was the beauty parlour for dolls, where the shop assistants would do the hair, gently wash dolls who were a little grubby from play, fit earrings etc for the dolls, all the time demonstrating to their owners how to take care of the dolls.
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| AG doll beauty parlour, this was busy |
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| AG doll gymnast and her friend who perhaps had an accident while doing gymnastics? |
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| AG dolls and American sports (baseball, volleyball and softball) |
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| AG doll party dresses and matching dresses for their owners |
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| Isabelle, girl of the year 2014 (a ballerina) |
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| The wonderful grand piano for AG dolls |
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| AG dolls baking for Christmas |
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AG doll Kit, the young reporter
(I wish I had photographed the display with all her wonderful accessories) |
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| Kaya and her tepee (much bigger than the tepee's I made for the Sasha dolls) |
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| Kaya in one of her other outfits, with her foal |
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| Julie and a car to wash |
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| Caroline and her sailing skiff |
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| Addy |
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| Samantha |
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| Julie |
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| Addy in her different outfits |
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| The Christmas tree in the AG shop |
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| in the shopping mall we spotted these two AG dolls at a restaurant |
I will not reveal what I bought in the shop (yet) and I had to be careful about size and weight because of my luggage allowance. Norvell bought Kit's reporter set for her dolls as she said that of all the accessories, Kit's are her favourite. Kit's typewriter was amazingly detailed (this was not part of the reporter kit). I don't know why I didn't take a photo of the wonderful display of Kit and her accessories, they were good. Norvell made sure I had a catalogue from the shop, which my younger daughter loved when I got home.
We must have spent at least an hour in the shop just looking and choosing and exclaiming. I'm not fond of the full size AG dolls, as their body shape doesn't appeal to me (yes, they are cuddly but they have very broad shoulders and chunky torsos), however some of their accessories are amazing and I do like the mini dolls (my younger daughter has 2 already). However, having seen the AG horses up close, I definitely prefer the Canadian made Our Generation (Battat) horses instead (which is what we have got) and have discovered that a small selection of the
Our Generation dolls and some accessories including the horses are now available in Smyths Toy Superstores in the UK. I'm not that keen on the Our Generation dolls, they are nice quality (and much cheaper than the AG dolls) however I definitely prefer the Gotz 19.5 doll faces. Some of the Our Generation accessories are good.
I would like to thank Norvell for a wonderful day - I felt truly welcomed to Washington DC and hope to meet her again at a future Sasha doll festival (yes, our family are saving and planning for 2016...).
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