Bratz is a popular line of fashion dolls and related merchandise manufactured by southern California toy company MGA Entertainment. The four original 10" dolls - Cloe, Sasha, Yasmin, and Jade - are teenagers distinguished by large heads and skinny bodies, almond-shaped eyes adorned with eyeshadow, and lush, glossy lips.
Though Bratz dolls fared poorly at their June 2001 debut, their popularity increased the following Christmas. In their first five years, a hundred and twenty-five million were sold worldwide, and, in 2005, global sales of Bratz and Bratz products reached two billion dollars. In 2006, a toy-industry analyst indicated Bratz had captured about forty per cent of the fashion-doll market, compared with Barbie's sixty per cent.
Bratz has provoked controversy. Criticism has been leveled at the labor conditions under which the dolls are manufactured in China, and the American Psychological Association has expressed concern about the sexualization of the dolls' clothing and its effect on children. In 2006, Mattel sued MGA Entertainment alleging Bratz designer Carter Bryant was working for Mattel when the dolls were created, and, in 2008, a federal jury ruled in Mattel's favor on allegations that the Bratz concept was the intellectual property of Mattel. MGA has been banned from producing the dolls, and Mattel was awarded $100 million by the jury; $10 million for MGA's copyright infringement and $90 million for their breach of contract. The original dolls generated a number of spin-offs such as Lil' Bratz, Bratz Boyz, Bratz kidz, and Bratz Petz as well as films, music albums, and interactive DVDs.