UPPER WEST SIDE — When 7-year-old Olivia Remhild misbehaves, the harshest punishment her mom can give her is to take away Rosie, her favorite doll.
Olivia and Rosie have a close relationship, so when Olivia decided she wanted to have a feather attached to a lock of her blonde hair, it was only natural that Rosie would get a matching version.
Luckily, Upper West Side boutique Stoopher & Boots offers the trendy hair accessory for little girls — and their American Girl dolls, too. Recently Olivia, a P.S. 87 student, stopped in with her mom to get two feathers — one purple and one pink — attached to both her and Rosie's hair.
"I like it because it doesn't fall out," declared Olivia, after Stoopher & Boots owner Stephanie Goldstein quickly attached the feathers by placing a small section of Olivia's hair into a jewelers' crimping bead, and then gently squeezing with pliers.
Olivia said wearing feathers in her hair makes her feel happy, and she picked pink and purple ones because they're her "two first favorite colors."
The feathers, which are synthetic, can last for months in girls' hair, and Goldstein makes free repairs and adjustments. She charges $8 to put feathers in a girl's hair, as well as her doll's. Meanwhile, children's salons like Cozy's charge $10 per feather, but the service is only for kids, not their dolls.
Hair-feather accessories have recently soared in popularity, and little girls have embraced the trend along with young celebs like Selena Gomez, star of the Disney Channel show "Wizards of Waverly Place."
Stoopher & Boots, on Amsterdam Avenue between West 78th and 79th streets, started offering the accessories in late summer, and Goldstein said demand has been steady. Almost an entire class of third-grade girls at nearby P.S. 87 seem to have adopted the look, she added.
"I've become the hair-feather whisperer," Goldstein joked.
Extending the service to her customers' American Girl dolls was a natural step, she said. The wildly popular doll line allows little girls to create dolls that look like miniature versions of themselves, down to their skin tone, hair style and eye color. American Girl operates salons where dolls can get spa-style facials and have their ears pierced, but the hair-feather extensions aren't available.
"It's a fun, easy trend," said mom Lisa Leibowitz, who brought her 7-year-old daughter Bayla to Stoopher & Boots recently to reposition the blue feather in Bayla's brown locks. Bayla has four American Girl dolls, and brought Rebecca, the line's Jewish doll from 1914 New York City, to have her blue feather adjusted, too.
"It's a cute way to add color," Lisa Leibowitz said. "And anything they can do with their doll, and be the same as their doll, it's fun for them."
