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KATSEYE is taking center stage — and so are their mini-mes thanks to a new partnership with Mattel.
The Los Angeles-based girl group, comprised of Sophia Laforteza, Manon Bannerman, Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj, Megan Skiendiel and Yoonchae Jeung, are sprinkling their gnarly pop star energy into the Monster High universe with an epic collaboration through the toy giant.
“Monster High is a brand we’ve all grown up with, idolized and just loved playing with so much as little girls,” says Lara, 19. “So now, being in a group that is so all about our individuality and celebrating our cultures and our differences, Monster High is the perfect, most organic collaboration that we could possibly have.”
“All I asked for were Monster High dolls when I was a kid,” shares Sophia, 22. “I had Draculaura, a special edition of Frankie, I had all these different dolls and I had to dig through my parents’ Facebook to find birthday posts of me just unwrapping all of my Monster High birthday gifts. So, when the team went up to us one day and were like, what do you guys think of Monster High? I was like, yes. That’s all. Yes.”
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As a part of the collaboration, each of the members were gifted their own custom Monster High dolls dressed in their signature styles.
“They look exactly like us, so it’s pretty insane,” reacts 21-year-old Daniela, whose doll is glammed up with her recognizable curls. Adds Lara, “Every monster is so individual in her own way. She’s so cool and she inspires young girls so much. That’s something we really want to do. We love the song and we love our dolls and we couldn’t be more excited about this.”
Mattel
KATSEYE also remixed Monster High’s 2010 anthem, “Fright Song,” and star in a music video that really gave them room to get their spooky on.
The girls spent three hours transforming into spine-chilling characters with special effects makeup, explains 22-year-old Manon, with Lara and Sophia chiming in about their extensions, fake scales, body paint and fang molds.
As for the choreography? Well, they were all “so gagged” over the routine says Megan, 19. “It’s super inspired by monsters and just being confident and being cool.”
Mattel
In the real world, KATSEYE is exactly that — confident and cool.
It was in 2023 when KATSEYE was formed through the reality competition show Debut: Dream Academy. Put on by Geffen Records and HYBE (the agency behind BTS, Tomorrow x Together and LE SSERAFIM), the program set out to create a first-of-its-kind global girl group centered on the rigorous training methods and ideologies of the K-Pop music industry. The six members of KATSEYE were selected out of the 20 contestants — who were chosen from an audition pool of 120,000 applicants. The members also starred in Popstar Academy: Katseye, which followed their journeys (training days and all) before stardom.
Since releasing their first song, “Debut,” in 2024, KATSEYE’s light has only grown brighter. Songs like “Touch,” “Gnarly” (which landed the group its first ranking on Billboard’s Hot 100 list) and their new release “Gabriela” (its music video costars Jessica Alba) put them on the map as the new It girls of pop music. But it’s not only their addictive tracks that add to their appeal. It’s their authenticity that speaks volumes too.
KATSEYE hails from all parts of the world, including the U.S. (Lara and Daniela being from Los Angeles and Megan from Hawaii), Switzerland (Manon), South Korea (Yoonchae) and the Philippines (Sophia was raised in Manila).
“It’s such an honor for us to be that representation,” says Lara of bringing their stories to a global stage. “A lot of us growing up felt unrepresented, especially in media, entertainment and music. And we always longed for someone that we could look up to that looks like us, someone that I could be like, oh, I want to dress like her because she looks like me. As a young girl, the women that you see growing up are so important and can have such a deep influence over you and how you turn out. So, we want to take being that representation seriously.”
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Mattel
Each of the members have resonated with their fans (also known as EYEKONs) in different ways. For example, Manon says she’s received supportive messages about embracing her curly hair. “A lot of girls have said, I saw you do that and now I wear my hair curly to school. I’ve opened up about being picked on for looking different, so the fact that girls can now see me and get inspired and just go for it is so cool. It’s super rewarding,” she says, adding that building this kind of community with their fandom “heals my inner child.”
Now that they’re reaching a new level of success with their upcoming performance at Lollapalooza and their Beautiful Chaos Tour, kicking off on Nov. 15 in Minneapolis, the girls of KATSEYE are leaning into their “journey” as artists, but also prioritizing self-care in any way they can, whether that’s karaoke, meditation or watching their favorite shows (the group confesses that Yoonchae, 17, is most likely to be caught binge-watching episodes wherever she can on her iPad).
“I think that’s one thing that we’re really trying to hold onto, is knowing how to stay creative, even in our space alone and at home when there are no cameras and there’s no work to do,” says Sophia of striking a balance between work and play. “Because we sort of turned our hobby into a career, and we’re so blessed for that, but we’ve learned that it’s so important to still continue to have that creativity, like me just doing karaoke at night and then getting to go to work and performing and singing on stage.”
