Bratz

Bratz is an American fashion doll and media franchise created by former Mattel employee Carter Bryant for MGA Entertainment, which first introduced in Spring 2001. Bratz dolls were popular during the early 2000s. The four original 10-inch (25 cm) dolls were released on May 21, 2001 — Yasmin (Latina), Cloe (English blond/white), Jade (East Asian), and Sasha (Black) — with Meygan (Scottish Redhead) being added to the group in 2002 as a fifth member. They featured almond-shaped eyes adorned with eyeshadow adding lush and big glossy lips. Bratz reached great success with the expansion to spin-offs, including Bratz Kidz, Bratz Boyz, Bratz Babyz, Bratzillaz, and a media franchise consisting of discography and adaptations into a TV series, a web series, a live-action film and video games. Global sales of the entire franchise grossed $2 billion in 2005 and by the following year, the brand had about 40 percent of the fashion-doll market. The Bratz doll lines have provoked controversy in several areas from their stylized proportions to fashion-forward clothing, capitalizing closely on pop culture trends. Since the brand's launch in 2001, franchise distributor MGA Entertainment got embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute with its rival Mattel over the rights to its design, which ended in 2011 with MGA as the victors. Related litigation is ongoing in a lawsuit by MGA alleging Mattel's theft of trade secrets. MGA has paused the Bratz brand since the onset of the litigation and rebranded it several times throughout its lifespan, with the first of those coming in 2010 after Mattel's first lawsuit, only to return later that year to commemorate the brand's 10th anniversary. In 2013, Bratz changed to have taller bodies, an all-new logo, and branding, and continued through 2014, in an effort to return the brand to its roots. As a result,...