pfa.net.au caught up with Lauren Wootton and her husband, Wellington Phoenix’s Scott Wootton, to discuss their family business – Mirror Me World – which was established to help all children see themselves represented in their dolls.
A vital, yet often overlooked, aspect of a professional footballer’s life is the support of their family.
For Wellington Phoenix’s Scott Wootton, his wife Lauren and their children made the life-changing decision to relocate from England to New Zealand, embarking on a nearly 20,000km journey to continue to support Scott’s football career.
While the move has been positive for Scott on the pitch, with the former Manchester United and Leeds United defender making over 80 appearances for Phoenix since 2022 and being named in the 2023-24 PFA A-League Men Team of the Season, the move has been equally successful for Lauren.
In Wellington, Lauren was finally able to launch Mirror Me World – a company dedicated to providing young boys and girls with dolls that better reflect their own families and the diverse world around them.
Frustrated by the lack of diversity in the dolls available for her own daughters in shops in England, Lauren saw an opportunity to create a business that would give parents and children access to dolls that offered greater representation than those from mainstream manufacturers.
“I come from a biracial family, and now I’ve got biracial kids of my own,” Lauren told pfa.net.au.
“When it came to trying to find my eldest daughter a doll, I still couldn’t believe that the variety in the shops was so scarce. What was more problematic was black dolls were also more expensive than Caucasian ones.
“Even today, you can’t walk into a shop and find a doll that represents what you look like. So, I thought, ‘I’m going to make my own!’
“I wanted to create dolls that look like our family so my daughter can play with a doll house and dolls that look like mum, dad and herself.
“I wanted Mirror Me World to show my kids that the way they are is perfect. I want them to look at themselves in the mirror, or look at their dolls, and what they see back is all they need.”
But getting the company off the ground posed plenty of challenges.
“I launched in 2023, and it was crazy,” Lauren said. “I went back to England to launch the business, then came back to Wellington.
“We’ve got the dolls over here in New Zealand. We’ve got them into quite a few kindergartens, which has been unbelievable just to have feedback from kids and carers to say: ‘These are so good for the little ones to actually play with’.”
Mirror Me World has eight dolls on sale in their first collection and plans to expand into sleeping bags and blankets in the near future, which will include many other ethnicities as this journey has opened their eyes as to how many are under-represented.
The names of the dolls, and their respective families take on extra significance for the Woottons as well.
“When we were speaking to people, they were saying to keep it personal,” Scott explains.
“The names of the families are all named after the roads we have lived in over the years and they mirror that. For example, Lauren’s family is the family called the Carlton family. My family is the Beryl family and then our family is the Croft family.
“I actually have a doll that is called Shaun and we’ve the names of the dolls that are all like a play on our own names. So we’ve got a daughter called Pia, her doll is called Nia, and our other daughter Naiyah has one called Maya. It’s got a personal touch to it!”
In fact, the significance doesn’t just stop with the names of the dolls, but the deeper message of the company name, which is perfectly summarised by Lauren.
“It’s so you can look at yourself and be proud of who you are,” she said.
“That’s what Mirror Me is all about. We’re creating a world where children see themselves represented, which will help build their confidence and self worth through play.”
For more information about Mirror Me World and their products, head to: https://www.mirrormeworld.com/.
