• October 08, 2001
• Vol. 56
• No. 15

Doll Power

Ken? Who's Ken? Julz Chavez's Get Real Girls Have Lives of Their Own

When Julz Chavez got a blonde Barbie for her fourth birthday, her face did not brighten. "I remember saying, 'I don't want this,' " she says. " 'It doesn't look like me or my family.' " Now, 35 years later, toy designer Chavez, a distant cousin of Cesar Chavez, the civil rights activist who died in 1993, has launched Get Real Girl, a line of multiracial action-adventure figures—complete with Web site and elaborate biographies—that look nothing like Barbie. "Skylar" is Japanese-American, "Nakia" is African-American and "Gabi" is biracial. All are buff and dressed for kick-butt sports. "These dolls," says soccer star Brandi Chastain, a member of Get Real Girl's advisory board, "are not your typical 5'10" model."

One of 11 kids, Chavez, daughter of migrant farmworker Frank Jr. and his first wife, homemaker Jackie—attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland on a scholarship. (She became "Julz" because she felt her birth name, Julia, was too girlish and would hinder her career.) Even as she worked for Barbie maker Mattel Inc. from 1991 to 1994, she says, "I always felt... there has to be something other than pink ponies and ballerina dresses." In 1991, at the funeral of Cesar Chavez's mother, she told her famous relative she was thinking of changing careers. "He said, 'No, no, no. Stay. It's where you were meant to be,'" she recalls. "That conversation kept me in the toy industry." And eventually led to Get Real Girl, which has projected 2001 sales of $5 million. Says Chavez, who is single and lives in San Francisco: "We need to let girls know who they are—how special and beautiful they are."