Go West, American Girl
by Shannon Maughan -- Publishers Weekly, 7/18/2005
American Girl Inc., the division of Mattel Inc. that's home to the megaselling dolls and books, will open a third American Girl Place retail store, in Los Angeles in spring 2006. The new 40,000-sq.-ft. store will be located in an outdoor lifestyle mall called the Grove, and will be on site once occupied by an F.A.O. Schwarz store.
Ellen Brothers, president of American Girl, said there is no time table for opening new stores. "We figured East Coast, West Coast and in between made sense," said Brothers. "We opened the New York store in '03, five years after our Chicago store. Now New York has been open long enough for us to have had time to talk to girls and see what they really liked about the store and what we could do better."
The newest American Girl Place will not boast offerings vastly different from its predecessors—it will house a café, a doll hair salon, a venue for live theater and various boutiques of merchandise. "The girls who come to our stores really want the brand experience," Brothers explained. However, the L.A. store will take full advantage of southern California's climate. "This is our first opportunity to offer things like outdoor seating or other fixtures that are conducive to the weather," she said.
