Meghan Markle approved doll that gives toddlers a taste of fines

The Netflix series starring and produced by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, “Love with Love, Meghan,” immerses viewers in the world of luxury at home. However, most of the time, they eagerly avoid mentioning certain brands.

In certain episodes, you can get a glimpse of branded items in Meghan's universe. One, while explaining the clothes she wears, Meghan names three labels (Loro Piana, Zara, and Jenni Kayne) and telegraphs her preferences for high and low mixing. In later episodes, she identifies another product (a doll belonging to her 3-year-old daughter, Lillivet), and, by Meghan's account, comes across as straight and luxurious.

“We have a little baguette and a little cheese,” Meghan says. “And the doll's name is Stella Al Fresco.” (In fact, her full name is Baby Stella Peach Al Fresco.)

These gorgeous dolls for sale for toddlers are from a line called Love, Stella. It has the quality of cabbage patches thanks to its features like a round face and chubby arms. Stella Dolls is extremely popular among customers at Acorn Store, a toy store in Santa Monica, California. This is about 80 miles below the coast where Meghan and Prince Harry live in Montecito.

So do other toys, including bread and cheese.

“Bagguette toys are flowing like crazy,” said Heather Hamilton, 53, who owns the store. “It's ramping in Southern California: baguettes, zark terry, cheese boards. Kids really love to mimic life.

The Stella Dolls, which start at around $20, take a variety of forms. Some look like infants, some look like newborns, all have pacifiers that magnetically attach to their mouths. The line also includes a variety of clothing and accessory sets, including a luxurious picnic collection that costs $35 and comes with checkered blankets and snacks such as a gorgeous sandwich and watermelon wedge.

Rachel Sawatsky, 29, has a 3-year-old son and a 7-month-old daughter, owns a Stella doll and several accessories sets. Sawatsky, a social media manager who lives outside of Toronto, was drawn to toys because he “doesn't look too uncomfortable.”

“They're cuter than classic baby dolls,” she said. “Oh, of course Meghan likes it,” recalls thinking. “It's just a doll of height.”

Lindsay White, 34, who lives outside of Chicago, said the toy's appearance is part of what she began to buy for her son around her second birthday. “It looked cool and cool with the waist, but it was still a baby doll,” said White, who works part-time in marketing for a local restaurant.

She added that her son, six now, had been “always obsessed with babies,” Stella Doll made him pretend to play the caretaker.

Gloria Pruett, the mother of two- and five-month-old sons in Lawrence County, Tennessee, said Stella products were often cited as a toy that promotes nurturing when he was raising them online for his eldest son as a baby. “I did a lot of research,” said Pruett, 25. “Many of the videos that came out were about Stella Doll.”

Love, Stella Line is made from Manhattan toys in Minneapolis, founded in 1978 by Francis Goldwyn, the grandson of Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn. It no longer manufactures Al Fresco dolls, but some are still available for purchase. (For $49, it was one of the most expensive ones.)

Amanda Molstad, product marketing and brand manager for Manhattan toys, said Al Fresco Doll and other Stella products were intentionally designed to reflect behaviors the child may have observed in his parents.

“Playing is learning,” said Morstad, 36. “And this is a place where children can learn and develop their skills by actually playing what they see in reality, as they see their parents.”

She added that accessories such as gorgeous pacifiers, cheese and fruits are aimed at copycat play. Toddlers can feed the dolls just as their parents feed them. (In her Netflix series, Meghan says many times that feeding people is her “love language.”

Morstad characterized the outdoor doll as being compatible with the type of ambitious lifestyle evangelized by Meghan on her show.

“She's in her own bubble and territory, but even so, she has this ability related to today's mom,” Morstad said. “She created this perfect medium that is relevance and completely unachievable.”

The Stella Accessory set, one of Love's $20 kits from “Travel Adventures” comes with flower-shaped sunglasses, a small passport and soft stamps. But instead of the names of far-reaching countries, the stamps on the passport have ordinary places like my home, the market, the grandma and grandpa's house. By casting everyday excursions as an adventure, Stamp recalls that he supports another spirit in her show: elevating every day.