Ilona Szwarc's “American Girls”
© Ilona Szwarc
Asking two friends of mine their feelings on American Girl dolls brings about an onslaught of memories. One describes the excitement of building her Look-ALike doll. Straight blonde hair and blue eyes. The other reminisces about the dolls with historical narratives: Kit, Josefina, and Samantha, to name a few. Josefina struggles with her mother’s death in the 1820s in Santa Fe. Kit comes of age during the Great Depression. Samantha is growing up in New York in 1904, during a time of great change, her character synopsis notes. These dolls, and their stories, defined girlhood for many.
© Ilona Szwarc
American Girl dolls were companions, friends, and guides — to growing up, responding to adversity and having fun. They were canvases upon which we could project ourselves. We could match our dolls — American Girl conveniently sells nearly all outfits in doll-size and human-size. We anointed them with our interests and hobbies. If you liked horseback riding — like a girl featured in Ilona Szwarc’s series “American Girls” does — so too could your doll. If you had a hearing aid or wore glasses, your doll could be fixed with a matching set. In a world where young women are the subject of near constant expectations and pressures, American Girl dolls, especially the ones crafted to look like their owners, seemed to be a venue of choice, projection and expression. That is, if you could afford their hefty base fees and the additional fees for accessories and accoutrements. It is this complex relationship — between doll, owner and spending ability — that is navigated by photographer Ilona Szwarc in her 2012 series, American Girls.
© Ilona Szwarc
Ilona Szwarc grew up in Warsaw, Poland before moving to New York City as a young adult. Upon arrival, she describes how she was immediately taken with the phenomenon of American Girl dolls in the United States. She writes, “Photographically it was a beautiful image – girls with their sculptural representations, their twins, their avatars … They were conceived to be anti-Barbie toys modeled after a body of a nine year old. Each doll can be customized to look exactly like its owner, yet all of them really look the same.” She was struck by the illusion of individuality crafted by the American Girl company. American Girl suggests that truly any American girl can have her own doll, identical in every way, down to a matching personality and background. However, as Szwarc writes, in actuality, all the dolls look primarily the same. And, though the dolls appear as a sort of “everyman” character — with soft frames and modest bangs — their prices are inhibiting.
© Ilona Szwarc
Szwarc captures the multivalent disparities of American Girl in her photographs. One photograph features a girl named Jenna, who is probably around eight or nine, on horseback. She wears a suit of equestrian garb. In the lower right corner of the image in immaculate reflection is Jenna’s American Girl doll. She wears a matching uniform, down to the black boots and white undershirt. Her horse has the same white snout of her owner’s horse. In another photograph, a blonde-haired girl, Kayla, cradles a blonde-haired doll in her arms. The girl wears a doily-like wedding dress, while her doll wears a plaid dress and black Mary Janes. Behind the girl is a photograph of a bride and groom. There is an eerie quality to the image. The white dress hangs on the girl. She seems trapped between her doll — whose soft smile is obstructed by the girl’s long fingers — and the wedding photograph.
© Ilona Szwarc
“They are perhaps among the most luxurious toys ever invented,” writes Szwarc. Still, she concedes, American Girl has defined generations of real American women. However, rather than the girl defining the doll (as the company sycophantically suggests), Szwarc’s series highlights how the doll — and its company — has defined the girl: her expression of gender, sexuality, and capability.
© Ilona Szwarc
You can see more of Ilona Szwarc’s work here.
