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When the world of toys and fashion collide, one might find Barbie sporting Balmain! The New York Times reports that French high fashion house Balmain and the world’s favorite plastic doll Barbie will team up for its very own non-fungible token (NFT) collection. This marks new territory in the digital space, designed with toys in mind, but there isn’t a doll involved.
As Black girls, the color of our skin and hair is where we learn to find our liberation in a world that has attempted to ostracize its beauty. This harsh reality was true for baby boss, Esi Orijin. As AfroTech previously reported, during her time at private school she felt like a needle in a haystack as the only Black girl in her class. The lack of representation led her to fall into a season where she lacked confidence — subsequently leading her to dislike her features such as her skin tone and hair texture. Her mother, Melissa Orijin — aiming to combat self-confidence issues Black women encounter — launched Orijin Bees (“Our Representation Is Just Inclusion Normalized Beautifully Empowering Every Soul”) alongside her daughter. The doll line aims to validate the beauty of Black girls’ culture and identity while celebrating the variations in skin tones, hair textures and sizes. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Orijin Bees ™️ – Black Dolls (@orijinbees) “A]s a purpose...
During times like these, we all need a pick-me-up to keep us going and this Black-owned puzzle company is the perfect solution for families across the country. Puzzle Huddle — founded in January of 2018 — began with two Howard University alums who had an idea to create the representation their kids were lacking in their toys. “As all parents do, we were looking for educational toys for our kids,” co-founder, Matthew Goins said. “As we bought a couple dozen puzzles home, I looked at the variety and noticed none of them had Black characters.” Starting Puzzle Huddle As products of an HBCU, Matthew and his wife Marnel were understandably frustrated with the lack of diversity in the toys they were buying for their kids. “That’s not what we were taught, we don’t deal with the world that way,” Matthew said. Upon experimenting with their available resources, Matthew and his wife started making homemade puzzles from scratch. Upon making these puzzles, it struck them that other parents...