Toy Fair
Toy Fair
The Mattel delegation—Ruth, Elliot, Jack, Charlotte, Sid and half a dozen sales reps, all of them men except for Gina—are at the gate about to board the plane for New York City. They’re all energized, all of them anticipating Toy Fair. There’s a triumphant feeling in the air. They’ve all been through so much together and are taking turns recalling all the ups and downs of creating Barbie.
“I will never forget the way you sawed those nipples off,” says Charlotte, squeezing Jack’s wrist as she laughs.
“Oh lord, and remember all the other prototypes,” says Ruth, smiling, shaking her head. “I thought they’d never get it right.”
“And what about those telephone calls with KBK,” adds Elliot. “They’re speaking to us in Japanese, while we’re talking to them in English. It was a comedy of errors.”
In the midst of all this laughter and whooping it up, Gina graces them with her daily allergy attack: “Awww-chew! Awww-chew! Awww-chew!” And just like in the office, they all shout “Gazoontite” and start laughing even harder.
Everyone’s so upbeat, so ready to take this next step. Each year at Toy Fair there’s always one or two hot new releases. And when a toy is hot, there’s an energy field that swirls around it. A hot toy is all the buyers and manufacturers—envious as all get-out—can talk about. They all have the feeling that this year Barbie is destined to be that toy. She’s going to steal the show.
When they land in New York, they head straight to the International Toy Center at 200 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District to begin setting up. For the next two days, all of them work side by side, preparing their booths, hanging signs and banners, all while keeping Barbie under wraps and away from Louis Marx and other spies. In the evenings Ruth and Elliot take the important toy buyers out for drinks and dinner. The night before the fair officially opens, Jack buys tickets for everyone to see A Majority of One on Broadway.
The next day, everyone is wound up and ready to go. It’s March 9, 1959, and here they are, just hours away from unveiling Barbie. That morning, they all meet for an early breakfast at the hotel. There’s a certain kind of magic buzzing about the table, each of them shimmering inside, filled with anticipation.
Ruth can’t wait to start writing up orders. She’s a natural-born saleswoman who thrives on the challenge of making someone believe they need what she’s got. It’s a game for her, like she’s fencing with the customer, lunging and parrying; they want her to ship the order for free, she wants them to increase their buy and put up a big display in their store, they want their store mentioned in her advertising, she wants Mattel mentioned in theirs.
It’s a hot, sticky morning in New York; the temperature is unusually warm for this time of year. Ruth’s hair is frizzing from the humidity, and the short cab ride from the hotel to the show already has her flushed and overheated. Still, she can feel the adrenaline pumping through her.
They enter the exhibit hall and Mattel’s presence is impossible to miss. They’ve rented out a good deal of real estate in the showroom for their standard toys: the Uke-A-Doodle, the Burp Gun and various other guns, music boxes and the H?0 Missile. But Barbie, their star, has her own room with a round table in the center, spotlighting three different dolls—one blonde and two brunettes. Blonde Barbie is dressed in her zebra-striped bathing suit, which hugs her breasts and hips. She sports gold hoop earrings and black high-heeled mules and holds a pair of white-framed sunglasses in her hand. One of the brunette Barbies wears the Gay Parisienne , a blue pin-dot taffeta bubble dress with a white rabbit fur stole. The other brunette Barbie is the centerpiece, the bride in the Wedding Day Set . There are additional outfits on display from the 900 series, including Plantation Belle , Roman Holiday , Suburban Shopper , Sweater Girl and Enchanted Evening.
One more cigarette, one more cup of coffee and the doors open. A flood of buyers and wholesalers from across the country enter the showroom, their dark suits and briefcases rushing in like a flock of crows. Elliot and Jack are already demonstrating the latest edition of the Thunder Burp Gun to customers from FAO Schwarz, while Ruth and Charlotte are in the other room with Barbie. Charlotte fusses with the outfits and Ruth is all smiles, her sales face in place, ready to greet her first buyer of the day.
“Jimmy!” She lights up, holding out her hand to him.
Jimmy Lowe owns a small chain of toy stores in the Midwest. He has a big round face, pitted with acne scars that make him look like a human sponge. After asking about his wife and daughters, it’s time to present Barbie.
“Here she is,” she says, pointing to the table of dolls. “This is our latest creation—the Barbie doll.”
Jimmy’s eyebrows rise and pull together. He looks at Barbie and back to Ruth. He chews on his lip. “This doesn’t look like a doll to me.” He releases his lip and starts scratching the side of his head. “It looks like a regular woman.”
“Exactly!” Ruth smiles. “That’s the point. That’s the beauty of her.”
When he doesn’t say anything, she moves deeper into her sales pitch. “She’ll retail for $3, and look—we have all these outfits for her.” She shows him Golden Girl and Cruise Stripes. “These will be sold separately. Anywhere from $1 to $5 each.”
She follows the shift in his vacant eyes. What the hell is wrong with him? There’s no spark, not even a glimmer of excitement or intrigue. She pushes harder still. “These are real clothes, too. Not just regular doll clothes. The zippers work, the buttons button.” She hears the desperation leaking into her voice. “Each piece was created by a real fashion designer. And see? Each outfit has a tiny Barbie label inside. Isn’t that something? I tell you, Jimmy, Barbie’s better dressed than I am,” she says with a sickeningly sweet chuckle that makes her want to cringe. “We’ll be rolling out twenty-two outfits for her by the end of this year. It’ll be like razor blades,” she says now, thinking this is the angle she should have started with. “That’s where the money is.”
He’s back to chewing his lip.
“Jimmy, there’s never been a doll like this before. She’s going to allow little girls to fantasize and make believe they’re grown-up.”
“But I thought the whole point of toys was to let children be children. Let’s not rush them into being grown-ups.”
She sees where he’s heading and so she tries a different tack. “But Barbie can teach young girls how to groom themselves.” She hates how that sounds, like they’re a litter of kittens. “Jimmy,” she says, nearly exasperated, “don’t you think your daughters would want to play with a Barbie doll?”
“You kidding me?” His spongy face goes all a-pucker. “My wife would pitch a fit if I brought that doll into our house.”
After Jimmy leaves, Ruth tells herself it’s just him. He’s too old-fashioned and doesn’t understand Barbie. She’ll get him on board later. But Jimmy’s argument is the basic sentiment she hears from the next several buyers. An hour into the show, she feels the ground beneath her about to give way. Usually one sale leads to another, the momentum builds and each deal gets easier, like she has a tailwind. But now everything is sinking, and it takes more and more effort to keep her smile from going under, too.
By two o’clock that afternoon she has written up a few meager orders. There’s a burning pit in her stomach until at last, she sees Lowthar Kieso entering the Barbie room. Lowthar is the head toy buyer of Sears, Roebuck and Company.
“Well, look who’s here,” Ruth says playfully, giving him a hug. “It’s about time you made your way in here.” He’s going to be Barbie’s savior. The other buyers always watch him and follow his lead. “Well,” she says, after making her Barbie presentation, “isn’t she something?”
“Ah, yeah. You can say that again.” He adjusts his eyeglasses. “When I heard you had a new doll, this is not what I was expecting.”
“That’s because there’s never been a doll like Barbie before. Sure, there’s been paper dolls, but you can’t compare them to a Barbie doll.”
“I’m sorry, Ruth,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t see this on our shelves. It’s not for little girls. That doll has a woman’s figure. If you don’t mind me saying, it strikes me as indecent.”
“Oh, come on,” she says, “I never took you for a prude.”
“Not a prude, Ruth. Just telling you, that’s not appropriate for children.”
“We’ve done a ton of market research,” she counters, “and I assure you little girls adore her, and their mothers—”
He holds up his hand to silence her. “I’m sorry, Ruth. I gotta trust my gut on this. And my gut tells me this is not a doll for Sears.”
She can’t hear the rest of what he’s saying, though she sees his lips moving. No toy stands a chance without Sears, Roebuck and Company. A full-blown panic begins welling up inside her. She’s clammy, feeling suddenly woozy. How can it possibly be that Barbie is bombing?
After Lowthar makes his apologies and leaves, Ruth huddles with Elliot and the rest of the Mattel team. All the energy from breakfast has fizzled. Shoulders slumping, heads shaking, lips pursed, they are all stunned by the lackluster reception to Barbie.
“What the hell is going on? Look at this,” says Ruth, fanning out the scant handful of orders. “What is happening here? Where are the orders? What are you all hearing on the floor?”
Jack sighs. “All I keep hearing is that Mattel has a doll that looks like a hooker.”
“That’s what I heard, too,” says Sid, nervously adjusting his toupee.
“I’m sorry, Ruthie,” Elliot says. “She’s just not connecting with the buyers.”
No one else says anything. They’ve been working on this project for three long, hard, maddening, exhilarating years. None of them know what they’ll do next if this doesn’t work. Especially Charlotte. She was hired specifically to work on Barbie. If there’s no Barbie, there’s no need for her. Or Stevie. Or Mia.
Elliot gets called away by a customer, and after the others return to the main floor, Jack stays behind with Ruth. He’s angry and in shock. He can’t comprehend this reaction to Barbie.
“You should hear them out there.” He gestures toward the main room. “?‘Hey, did you see the doll with the tits?’ I feel like someone just told me my kid’s ugly.”
“That’s exactly how I feel.”
She slumps into a chair. He takes the seat next to her. At the same time, they look at each other and say, “Shit…”
—
When she can’t take it anymore, Ruth leaves the trade show early. Back at the hotel, the Do Not Disturb sign gets caught in the door, and she yanks it so hard, the cardboard handle rips off. She barely gets inside her room before the tears let loose. Stepping out of her heels, she stares out the window at the bustling city below. She hates New York. Even from twelve stories up she hears the horns honking, sees the endless chain of taxicabs and people on the sidewalks rushing to and fro. How can life just go on as if nothing happened? How could she have been so wrong? This is a financial disaster in the making. She thinks of the ramifications and of all the money they’ve wasted. She’s watching three years of hard work unravel before her eyes.
She knows she’s going to have to tap some reserve of strength to keep fighting, but she’s not sure how to access it. She’s gone back to that well to bolster herself so many times now, she fears she may have depleted the supply.
Elliot finds her an hour later, cried out and despondent. “I’m sorry,” he says, stroking her back.
She rolls over and looks up at him, mascara smudged beneath her eyes. “I still can’t believe they didn’t like her.”
“It happens,” he says. “But you gave it your all. No one can deny that. Maybe it’s the timing.” He shrugs. “It’s out of our hands now.” Another shrug. “We’ll cut our losses and move on.”
This makes her wince. “At least the Burp Gun and the water rocket are selling.”
“Yeah, but not enough to cover the losses on Barbie.” He scrubs a hand over his face, thinking aloud. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to lay off some people…”
A wave of nausea hits her.
“I’ll get word out to KBK,” he says, “and tell them to stop production. Halt the shipments, too. And we’ll call the ad agency, tell them we’re canceling the Barbie TV.”
“No! We can’t—”
“But we need to let them know we’re not running the TV now. That alone will save us $125,000 on the media buy.”
The thought of killing the TV campaign is what unlocks that reserve of strength she feared was all used up. She saw what advertising on television did for the Burp Gun. That was a gamble and they triumphed—it’s what put Mattel on the map. She props herself up against the headboard. “I’m not canceling the TV.”
“What? Aw, no, Ruthie, no. Now you’re just throwing good money after bad.”
It’s at times like these—the crisis points in their lives—when she notices the greatest differences between the two of them. He gives in too easily. He doesn’t fight, and she can’t not fight. “We have to run that TV. We’ve come this far. We can’t quit now. I can’t give up on Barbie. I just can’t.”
Elliot drags both hands through his thinning hair and sighs. He knows his wife. She’s not ready to surrender yet. “If we run that TV and it doesn’t work, you need to promise me—and I mean this, Ruthie—no more. We’re done with Barbie after that.”
“That TV campaign is our last shot, Elliot. It has to work. It just has to.”