Nigerian ‘Barbie’ and her Afri

A bead necklace is seen on a doll dressed in local attire, in a workshop in Surulere district, in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos January 8, 2014. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

Nigerian ‘Barbie’ and her African dresses a big hit with kids

Naija Princesses, in their fresh African fashions are the shape of things to come, as Barbie loses her cachet in a world in which the rich are proportionally less white every year. Is this the doll of the African century?

Nigerian ‘Barbie’ and her Afri

A bead necklace is seen on a doll dressed in local attire, in a workshop in Surulere district, in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos January 8, 2014. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

A bead necklace is seen on a doll dressed in local attire, in a workshop in Surulere district, in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos

Within the next hundred years, Africa will have 50 per cent of all the children on Earth – or so go the United Nations’ latest population projections, in which an aging Asia steps aside to make the late 2050s the start of an African half-century.

Most of those children will be in Nigeria, where the population is expected to eclipse that of China a few decades hence – yes, China. And, like all children, they will need toys – and plenty of them.

And all of that brings us to the Naija Princesses. These beautiful dolls in their fresh African fashions are the shape of things to come, as Barbie loses her cachet in a world in which the rich are proportionally less and less white every year.

Taofick Okoya is the entrepreneur behind the dolls, which are assembled in China but manufactured and, crucially, clothed in Nigeria. This means that African girls can now expect to play house with swirling geometric prints, weaves and headdresses.

Okoya admits that he ships only about 6-9000 of the dolls at the moment, but growth has been brisk, and the Naija Princesses, along with Okoya’s other doll line, ‘Queens of Africa’, have already captured about a tenth of the local market.

Okoya’s success is a small part of the answer to a large question: how will Africa ensure that its own people benefit from its profound transformation into a middle-income continent? African middle classes are burgeoning, but most of the cash that drives this growth is derived from the export of commodities and agricultural produce. Africa’s wealthy still import most of what they buy. Okoya’s idea is one step in that direction, and more will follow: one day, it will be strange that South African girls of all hues currently clamour to play with a miniaturised white Californian and her plain vanilla husband.

Meanwhile, Okoya already offers Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa designs for his dolls, which start at around ZAR 35.

Queens of Africa Dolls - Copy

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