Multicultural Dolls Help Founder Fulfill Lifelong Dream

Widline Pyrame is the founder of Fusion Dolls, a toy company that creates multicultural dolls to spread diversity awareness and encourage kids to love themselves inside and out.

Growing up in Haiti, Widline felt first-hand how it felt to play with dolls that did not look like her.  Then she watched “The Doll Test,” a program about a racial perceptions experiment made famous in the 1940s by Dr. Kenneth and Mamie Clark in which overwhelmingly black children chose the white doll instead of the black doll as “more beautiful.”  

That video stuck in Widline’s mind, and she wanted to do something about it. After receiving her Masters in Social Work from Wheelock College, she said, “the idea kept coming to me over and over.” She started doing research and began selling dolls in 2018. “Our mission is to empower our kids to have dolls that represent them,” says Widline.

After learning about EforAll Roxbury, Widline applied for the Summer 2020 Roxbury Business Accelerator program immediately. According to Widline, she had just been laid off, and while “…my business was doing well online, I knew I needed help. I didn’t go to school for business, and I wanted to take my business to the next level.” 

Widline appreciates that the EforAll program allowed her to focus. “I was super involved, always meeting with my mentors. I love how it’s a big community. I love that you have long-term and short-term calls. I loved the specialists.” 

Since she graduated, Fusion Dolls has been doing really well with over 2,000 dolls already sold and a recent grand opening of the first Fusion Dolls store in the Westgate Mall in Brockton, MA. She has also gotten great press coverage, including features in the Boston Globe, WCVB 5 ABC, NBC 10 Boston, and Channel 7 Boston, to name a few.  

Instagram: @fusiondolls                 Facebook: /Fusiondoll