A post by Peter Jordens From Repeating Islands

Tishanna Williams of LargeUp interviews St. Lucia-born, Cape Town-based model Mala Bryan about her Caribbean-inspired line of dolls, covered by our previous post St Lucian Model Creates Afro-Caribbean Doll Line to Fill Void.

TW: Let’s start with a little background info. Cape Town is a long way from home.

MB: I was born and raised in Vieuxfort which is [in the] South of [Saint Lucia]. After high school, I moved to St. Maarten to join my mother and work in the hotel industry, where I was discovered and flown to Paris for a competition. There I won my modelling contract. I lived in Israel and Belgium before settling in between Cape Town and Miami.

TW: Sweet, so how does a model and business woman find her way to doll making?

MB: My mom would make those dolls with the crochet skirts that many Caribbean children would probably know of. When I was 18, I started to do it as well using artificial flowers. I would sell them to hotel guests. When I started my modelling career, I stopped, but six years ago I just got the craving for dolls again.

LU: And that’s when Mala Bryan, the dollmaker, began?

MB: Not quite. I started as a collector. I got friends involved and would hunt online for special editions and the like. That’s when I realized I could never easily find dolls of color. What I found mostly were normal-looking dolls with woolly hair.

LU: OK . . . why move from collector to entrepreneur?

MB: During my career, I would constantly hear from agents, “Oh, you know how hard it is for black girls.” They are right. Being a black woman in this industry is hard. When I see the dolls that are being sold in stores, they are often not pretty. I put myself in the position of a little black girl, and I would not want to say that looks like me. I would visit sites and parents would be commenting on how difficult it was to find dolls of color that weren’t overly expensive. So, I said to myself, “You know what, I’m going to make some pretty black dolls.”

LU: And you did! So tell us about them.

MB: My dolls come in four shades of brown. They are named Maisha, Mala B., Malina and Mhina. Their style is Afro-Caribbean inspired. It’s very important to me that they look pretty, have no makeup on, have brown eyes and nappy hair.

LU: With blogs like BlackGirlLongHair and NapturallyCurly, and the rise of the Afrocentric naturalista, why do you think visual representations like dolls have been neglected?

MB: I am trying to figure that out. I refuse to believe it is only just happening. Barbie has a line of black dolls called the “Sis Line,” which was headed by a black woman. I have quite a few of them, actually, but others I refuse to buy. They have the baby hair painted on, side-eye looks and orange eyes. They’re pretty, but I see them differently. I’m a grownup who knows myself. I’m not a child still trying to find their place in the world.

LU: Right! We get you. What about negative reviews?

MB: People try to say they don’t have black features.

LU: Wow, that’s a blow, considering. How do you deal with that?

MB: I simply ask, “What are black features?” The only thing I can imagine they are referring to is the doll’s straight nose. But my grandmother had a straight nose and is very much a black woman, as do my own mother and my cousins. I focus on the integrity of the hair, eye color and the skin tone. When a child looks at a doll they will not see themselves exactly, but something they can relate to.

Next on Mala’s list is her first adult collector doll line which may ultimately be even more Caribbean-inspired than this one from the looks of things. The lady is keeping things publicly hush hush for now, but LU got a sneak peek and we can tell you she is coming hard with her next collection which may even get its launch on one of the Caribbean’s major islands.

The complete, original interview is at http://www.largeup.com/2016/04/06/meet-mala-bryan-saint-lucian-model-making-dolls-afro-caribbean-twist.

More information about the Malaville dolls and Mala Bryan is available at http://www.malavilletoys.com, https://www.facebook.com/MalavilleMB, and http://malabryan.com.

Additional recent interviews with Mala Bryan about her Malaville dolls include the following:

http://www.nylon.com/articles/mala-bryan-interview

http://www.elle.co.za/5-mins-with-mala-bryan-malaville-dolls

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-afro-caribbean-inspired-dolls-that-shouldve-existed-a-long-time-ago_us_568fc95ae4b0a2b6fb6fa7ac

For more on this story go to: https://repeatingislands.com/2016/04/20/interview-with-mala-bryan-about-her-caribbean-inspired-dolls/