Why This Rubber Giraffe Costs $25
Photo by Vulli
When I got pregnant, I knew I needed three things: a crib, a car seat, and Sophie the Giraffe.
The squeaky rubber teether might look like a dog’s chew toy, but I’d seen enough babies gripping that long neck, or chewing off an ear, to know it must have magical powers. And then I saw the price tag: $24.99.
I immediately texted my friend Ashley: “You know that rubber Sophie the Giraffe thing that babies love so much?” I asked. “Why does it cost $25?”
“I guess because it’s trendy and Suri has one?” she wrote. Suri Cruise was 7 years old at the time — a little beyond teething — but I got her point.
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Ashley’s assumptions weren’t far from the truth. Sophie the Giraffe — or Sophie la girafe, to use her given name — was born in France in 1961. For 40 years, she was Parisian parents’ best-kept secret. Then, in 2000, French transplant Hélène Dumoulin-Montgomery gave birth to her daughter Mathilde. “Growing up, I had a Sophie of my own, and when my daughter was born, I was looking for Sophie and she wasn’t anywhere,” Dumoulin-Montgomery, who lives in Orange County, California, tells Yahoo Parenting. “I had to go to France for her. I’d always wanted to start a business, so I decided to bring Sophie over myself.”
But when Dumoulin-Montgomery first presented her $20 toy to retailers in 2001 (the price has since risen), they had the same initial reaction that I did. “The retailers thought it was too expensive — they were selling teethers for $5,” Dumoulin-Montgomery recalls. So she focused on everything that made Sophie different from those drugstore teethers: She’s made in France rather than China, and she’s made of natural rubber, not plastic. Then, Dumoulin-Montgomery got Sophie into the hands of two of the most influential kinds of moms: celebrities and bloggers.
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The celebrities came by way of Teri Weiss, owner of the high-end boutique The Elegant Child in Beverly Hills. “I’m all about aesthetic — I want to carry things that are beautiful and practical and high-quality,” Weiss tells Yahoo Parenting. “When Hélène came in and I saw Sophie, I had to have her.” In 2004, when Kate Hudson gave birth to son Ryder Robinson, one of Weiss’s customers asked her to send the actress a gift basket. “We did this huge $500 basket and I put a Sophie in it. A couple of weeks later, her assistant called and said she loved it.” Kate’s son was photographed holding Sophie, and suddenly Weiss couldn’t keep the teether on her shelves — on her best day, she said she’s sold 125 of the 7-inch-high giraffes.
Bloggers sang Sophie’s praises, too, and when, in 2007, Mattel recalled 20 million toys made in China due to lead-based paint, bloggers really had a field day. “Moms who had heard about the recall were saying ‘what should we give our child?’ and the bloggers said ‘Sophie,’” Dumoulin-Montgomery says.
By 2012, Sophie was a true globe-trotter. For the first time, the French company Vulli, who makes the giraffe, sold more outside of France than they did at home. And they sell a lot en France: In 2010, Vulli sold 816,00 Sophies. Since there were 828,000 births that same year, that means nearly every newborn was clutching a giraffe neck.
Today, Sophie is still in upscale toy boutiques, but you can also find her at Buy Buy Baby, Toys ‘R’ Us, or Target. In 2013, Dumoulin-Montgomery says there were 700,000 Sophies sold in the U.S., and more than 4 million worldwide. She is everywhere, and yet, her cost keeps rising. Dumoulin-Montgomery, still the only Sophie distributor in the U.S., says the steep price tag is due to the cost of importing from France, the increasing price of rubber, and the elegant cardboard packaging.
So what’s next for everyone’s favorite giraffe? Licensing. The first Sophie the Giraffe books were published in 2013, and Dumoulin-Montgomery says Sam’s Club will soon carry Sophie the Giraffe flashcards.
Despite my reservations about the price, my daughter ended up with two Sophies, both gifts. In fact, Sophie is currently the second most popular baby gift on Amazon — right after Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes, which features classical melodies from legendary composers. Mozart, Vivaldi, Chopin… and Sophie. She’s one classy giraffe.
