A designer’s concept, an importer’s doll line.

Bratz is a fashion-doll line made by MGA Entertainment, a privately held toy company based in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles. English Wikipedia describes Bratz as an American fashion doll and media franchise created by Carter Bryant, a former Mattel employee, for MGA, and dates the release of the first four dolls to 21 May 2001. The Los Angeles Times, reporting on the case in August 2011, described Bryant as a former Barbie designer and the creator of Bratz.

The company behind the dolls began in a different trade. Wikipedia says Isaac Larian, a civil-engineering student from Iran, started an importing business called ABC Electronics with his brother Fred in 1979, and that toys had become its focus by 1997. Wikipedia says the name MGA is short for Micro-Games America, and Larian remains its chief executive. Wikipedia lists its other lines as including Lalaloopsy and Rainbow High, and it also owns Little Tikes and the German doll maker Zapf Creation, alongside the animation studio MGA Studios.

The first Bratz were a group rather than a single heroine. Wikipedia says the four original 10-inch dolls were Yasmin, Cloe, Jade and Sasha, that a fifth friend, Meygan, joined in 2002, and that the dolls were drawn with almond-shaped eyes, heavy eyeshadow and large glossy lips. The infobox gives the line’s slogan as “The girls with a passion for fashion”. Wikipedia adds that the dolls fared poorly at their May debut and that their popularity grew over the following Christmas season.

Spin-offs, a long dispute and several relaunches.

The line soon branched out. Wikipedia lists spin-offs including Bratz Kidz, Bratz Boyz, Bratz Babyz and Bratzillaz, and a media franchise of music, an animated television series, a web series, a live-action film and video games.

The rights to the dolls were also fought over in court. Ownership of the Bratz concept was contested by Mattel in federal court, and the Los Angeles Times reported on 5 August 2011 that, after a jury in Riverside had found for Mattel in 2008, a federal jury in Santa Ana had sided with MGA in April 2011.

Through these years the brand was paused and reworked more than once. Wikipedia says MGA released new Bratz dolls in 2010 to mark the line’s tenth anniversary, and that in 2013 the dolls were given a new logo, a new slogan and taller bodies with articulated arms. In January 2014, Wikipedia says, MGA announced a year-long pause for Bratz in the United States, and none of the 2014 line was sold in North America. It says the line was relaunched again in July 2015 with new body and head moulds and a new character called Raya, and that those dolls were discontinued in 2016.

MGA also ran a sister line during these years. Wikipedia’s MGA Entertainment article says Moxie Girlz, a doll range similar to Bratz but legally distinct and with more modest fashions, was introduced in 2009, was at first meant to replace Bratz, continued as a separate line after Bratz returned, and was discontinued in 2014.

A collector-led revival followed. Wikipedia says MGA announced a further relaunch in 2017 and that, from 2018, a Bratz Collector line designed by the fashion illustrator Hayden Williams was sold through Amazon, closely resembling the 2001 dolls. For the line’s twentieth anniversary in 2021, it says, MGA released near-replicas of the debut dolls and of the 2005 Rock Angelz collection, and has since reissued other collections from the 2000s alongside new doll lines.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make dolls, plush animals or character toys: playthings built around a named figure, a family of characters or a ritual of choosing and dressing a companion. Doll and character-toy brands sit at many different points in the trade, from names that began with a single designer or a single shop to labels that now belong to much larger toy, greeting-card or entertainment groups, and a single character can be licensed to several different makers over the years.

A character-toy brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a name, a face and a familiar set of colours on the box, because the company behind the character may have changed hands, licensed it out or moved its production far from where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who created it, who owns it now, and where its toys are actually designed and made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its toys are made and how its marks have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Anniversaries and collaborations.

In recent years the brand has leaned on collaborations and anniversaries. Wikipedia says Bratz announced a partnership with Kylie Jenner in July 2023 and released a limited Mini Bratz collection of her looks on 1 August that year. In October 2024, it says, Paramount and MGA marked the twentieth anniversary of the film Mean Girls with limited-edition Bratz versions of Cady and the Plastics, released on separate dates through the month.

The launch date itself has become part of the brand’s calendar. Wikipedia says that on 21 May 2025, the anniversary of the 2001 debut, Bratz released a collector’s edition Jade doll under the name “Bratzaversary”, first on the Bratz website and then through Amazon and Target. For International Women’s Day in 2024, it adds, several celebrities, among them Chappell Roan, Normani and Miley Cyrus, had their likenesses turned into Bratz dolls.

Across the relaunches, the elements that return are the four original characters, the group-of-friends format and a fashion-first register of make-up, hair and clothes. MGA Entertainment still owns the line, and Isaac Larian is still chief executive of the company that launched it in 2001.

For a design guide, Bratz shows how a doll line can be rebuilt around its own first edition: after new logos, new bodies and new characters, the anniversary reproductions brought back the 2001 faces and fashions. Compare two other doll brands in our American Girl brand guidelines and our Polly Pocket brand guidelines. For this guide we use lip-gloss pink, glitter violet and chrome silver with a bold display sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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