Hello, dollars

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX

Move over, Barbie. The new divas on the international dolly market are coming to a store near you - all the way from Dunedin.

They may not be a household name now, but from next month little girls all over New Zealand are likely to be craving one.

They are the Lollipop Girls, a collection of big-eyed, leggy fashion models with alliterated names and sassy clothes.

Alani from Auckland, Susie-K from Seattle, Kimmi from Katmandu and friends - named after granddaughters, daughters and staff of their creator - were unveiled on Wednesday in Christchurch.

Next month they will be on sale at 20 New Zealand shops, from the upmarket Ballantynes to The Warehouse.

But the New Zealand market is merely a stepping stone towards world domination.

Creator Jan McLean goes to Hong Kong this week to sign a contract with one of America's biggest children's stationery companies. It plans to use the Lollipop Girls' image on back-to-school paraphernalia from August next year.

McLean won't name the company, but says it will spend $3.5 million in its first television advertising campaign to get its stationery products "registered in the minds of all the kids who will be needing them".

That adds up to a lot of exposure and potential growth for a Dunedin company that developed from two chance conversations 13 years ago.

McLean, a 54-year-old mother of four, was a nurse in the accident and emergency department of Dunedin Hospital.

After retiring from the "blood, guts and drunks", she concentrated on her serious hobby of creating large collectable porcelain dolls.

One day she happened to have two conversations with two unrelated people about the dolls.

Both told her she should take her work to the American International Toy Fair, one of the world's largest toy trade shows, held every year in New York.

Without a job, McLean didn't have the cash to get her to the fair until her mother stepped in and paid for the trip on the condition that McLean's two sisters would go and help.

It was the launching pad for McLean's success - and an experience that would never be forgotten.

"I didn't know where I was going, I was so green. I thought I was going to a local dolls' show, really."

The three sisters arrived in New York, but their sample dolls did not.

They had been pulled apart and sent in separate packages so as not to incur hefty sales taxes and duty.

"So there we were before the fair at a long table with a white tablecloth on it, and that was all."

Around them, 3000 other exhibitors were setting up their stalls with all the "frill and fluff that Americans like" - spotlights, laser shows, and intricate displays.

"We were totally unprepared. So I thought, well, we're doomed anyway, so we might as well sit here for four days and learn from all the other people."

The dolls arrived at the last minute and the sisters spent two days and two nights putting the pieces together before the 25,000 expected trade buyers walked in the doors.

McLean need not have worried.

"People were 10 deep around our table for most of the four days. As fast as we were making them they were buying them. I didn't even know what price to charge for them.

"The Irish guy who organised the show was watching us, and at the end he said he thought we were 'potatoes that fell off the potato truck'.

"Well, if we did, at least we jumped right back on."

McLean came home with $1 million in orders and $40,000 in working capital.

For the next year she worked from home with one of her sisters and a small team of friends. But she had never exported or shipped anything before and the learning curve was steep.

"In the end, I had to learn by trial and error. There was nobody else in Australasia doing anything like that until then."

The $1 million worth of orders were filled. The dolls were collectibles sold in limited editions of 100, selling in the US at $2500 each.

The business - Jan McLean Designs - went from strength to strength, and McLean now has warehouses in Dunedin, Australia and the US.

Turnover last year was $3.5 million. A core team of 13 is based in Dunedin.

But competition is a bitch in the dolly world.

"People have seen me making such high prices for the dolls they all thought they could do that too.

"So more and more companies have been coming in and taking the idea from the big dolls and developing the smaller dolls, the children's toys rather than the dolls for adult collectors.

"You have to constantly redesign and be innovative. You find you are only as good as next year's design."

So for the past two years McLean has had the Lollipop Girls on the drawing board.

The concept was developed from the work of McLean's mother, artist Heather Tisbury, who in the 60s and 70s created the Poppets - oil-on-black velvet paintings of "bug-eyed girls" with pursed lips that could be found hanging in hundreds of New Zealand and Australian homes.

Income from the Poppet paintings kept McLean's family afloat after her parents divorced.

"So I thought I would do a doll in recognition of what my mother had done all those years ago."

Contrary to the romantic blurb in the Lollipops Girls' glossy brochure, the product name came from a busker McLean saw in Dunedin who "had the look".

"She said she was called Lollipop at school because of her big head and little body - I just thought it was just perfect," McLean said.

Taking on the Barbie market has one negative - being dragged into the 'Barbie body' argument. McLean is well aware of perceptions that modern teenagers' obsession with their weight is due partly to the image conveyeed by models and toys such as Barbie.

But she brushes away the idea of any link.

"Look, it's a toy. It's surreal, it's fantasy. In fact, it's my fantasy, my alter ego, it's me. I say, if you don't like it don't buy it.

"Kids aren't going to dye their skin blue if they want to be a Smurf, are they? They're dolls, they're toys. That's all they are."

But in an international market full of dress-up dolls - complete with hundreds of outfits and accessories - will they sell?

Mattel claims to have sold a billion Barbies since the long-legged doll stepped into the world in 1959.

Bratz, created by MGA Entertainment in June 2001, are the next biggest fashion toys on the market. These "girls' are shorter than Barbie and have slightly bigger heads.

About five million Bratz dolls are sold each month worldwide - a figure McLean plans to beat.

Bratz were the dolls McLean's US stationery company was using to push its wares.

But that contract has come to an end, prompting the company's interest in the Lollipop Girls and giving the perfect exposure to the US market.

McLean has also submitted her proposal to McDonald's for the Lollipop Girls to feature in the fast-food giant's Happy Meal series.

That would send around 80 million miniature Lollipop Girls home with the children who venture through the golden arches.

Although Happy Meals do not equate to millions in royalties - an up-front fee is paid instead - McLean believes the deal will provide free advertising worth about $10 million for the month.

McDonald's has the Lollipop Girls scheduled for some time in 2005.

It will not stop there. As the Lollipop Girls become the company's core business, McLean has plans for boy Lollipops, a CD and a game - all to be designed and developed in Dunedin.

"Part of the success is because of living in Dunedin. I have a great team of supportive people. You know everyone, you can build great relationships.

"And there is nothing better than coming home, getting off the plane in Dunedin after weeks in the US or Asia, walking on to the tarmac and smelling the cows. Sounds mad, but it makes you remember where you are and how it all began."