We just brought home our first two Friends sets (both Mia and puppies) and my two daughters and my son (and myself) had a great time building them and playing together. Usual Lego quality and clear instructions. The character and settings promoted much chat and role playing amongst all three children. Great pricing too. Definitely recommend them. Thank you, Lego.

I want this for my son's birthday in early March. Does anyone know when in March it will be released? Thanks. And yes my son who loves pink girly things

I have two boys and two girls from 4-10 yrs and all play Lego. It is never packed up in our house as they will play for 5 min before school or for hours on end. The girls will argue at times as we never have enough 'girl hair'. I have even bought Castle or Viking style sets to get long hair, or paid too much on auction websites to by individual female mini-figures for my girls. Children will intuitively model their play around their own interests and I watched this at a very early age. My eldest son and daughter played alongside each other with wooden blocks, my son building towers to crash down and my daughter as a toddler would find two big and two small blocks, feed them and then lie them down with a blanket on top at bedtime! I will be keeping an eye on stores in March, as much as I would prefer less pink plastic.

I am a female adult fan of Lego and have been from a young girl. I have grown into a very feminine adult - in fact i don't think i even own a pair of trousers. I am stereo-typically vain & more often than not accused of over dressing. On the flip side i love Lego, building, designing and creating (because as you know with Lego anything is possible)! I just turned 26 and i probably have around $5000 worth of Lego. I also love video games and computer games! I grew up loving Lego, my sister had a Paradisa set which i liked but i also liked my Castle set complete with fire breathing dragon. Pirates and Modular buildings are my favourite themes but i also adore some vintage sets like the Indian and Islander ones. I understand that retailers need to cater to the masses but i'm sick of people placing boys and girls into neat little boxes. There is always overlap. I like some of the new pieces in the friends sets, I dislike the move away from traditional Lego mini-figures and i have felt (particularly in relation to the fairytale range) that the colors and design have been far too juvenile and seizure inducing with little play-ability. They also seem inconsistent with Lego's image (even for children) - looking at them you'd wonder if they were Lego products at all. As for the whole gendering issue, I think that's one of the reasons why i refused to play with girls toys growing up, i didn't want to be put in a box so i tended toward the things that i was told were for boys. I have army soldiers, cap guns and a farm set while my sister had a camper van, my little ponies and polly pockets. Gender issues aside, if it gets more people buying Lego it can only be a good thing.

The simple fact is that boys and girls have different interests. I have a son and daughter and have a range of toys in our home. Both kids are fre to play with any they choose. Most often my daughter likes pink things, dolls, dressing up as a princess, Polly pockets etc. my son loves cars, trains and pirates. I didn't make them like this, they were born that way. Thanks Lego for creating an interesting line of Lego for daughter to play with!!! When is it avaialable in Australia, I can't wait to buy it.

@Emilia. I totally disagree that toy retailers have an ethical responsibility of any kind in relation to "gendering". Surely this is a parental discretionary. I think Mal Jago sums it up perfectly. Retail isn't and shouldn't be about political correctness or gender biasing - it should be about selling toys and ... what's fun for children.
It's very popular to bag Barbie toys today but they have held a place for over 60 years now and I have never met a little girl who did NOT love Barbies.
To not sell Barbies because of some misplaced ethical notion would be crazy for a toy retailer.

Yes, as toy retailers we decide as to what we will offer to our customers. But the customers are the ones who determine what they will buy.
If pink is not shown in a rattle or castanet, then I am asked for it.
Boys will not be given a tea set. (but they might be given a picnic set). And rarely are girls given trains or tractors (even if they have animals in the back of them)
Rarely are the older girls offered science experiments and the boys are only occasionally offered craft kits(and then onky if it involves dinosaurs, aliens or ferocious animals)
And heaven help us if it has a flower on it (cannot be given to a boy)
And these are children of adults that have been raised since the 1970's

My daughter is 7 and would love to do some lego. But there is nothing that captures her interest. The closest thing to girly or to her interst is Harry Potter and that is because there is a girl figurine.
So I cant wait for a wider range in lego, and that way my daughter can choose according to what she likes.
I dont think gendering should come into it. Otherwise I would wonder why Lego is only made to suit boys. Kids just choose what they like and not what they are told to like. Parents always have the ultimate say on what their kids end up with.
There is a clear divsion betwen boys and girls in many aspects. There is also a divsion between likes and dislikes. I think all options should be offered and it is up to the parent to help guide them in the correct direction.

Isn't the point that the new offering was based around ethnographic(observational/ in situ) which identified unmet needs based around behaviour.So it wasn't about being gender biased or politically correct, it was about meeting an unmet opportunity based on how different gender play with Lego.

Disclosure: I work for a Customer Centred Design firm Different

I agree that this is a retail forum, which makes it all the more interesting because there's actually a growing trend in toy retail for stores NOT to divide upon gender lines. Have you seen more recent news announced by M&S or Hamleys? Hardly names you'd only see appear on "a feminist forum".

Of course parents have the right not to buy their children gendered toys, but retailers and stores also have an ethical responsibility to their consumers - and that is not a marginal opinion! In regards to Lego, words like "more beauty" and "interior building and role-play opportunities" sound very much like the 2011 version of Barbie to me.

@Emilia Theres nothing stopping you giving your little girls (if you even have any) the original legos. But I'm sure you'll find they will prefer the new range specifically designed for girls. I think it's because boys and girls are actually quite different to each other. I may be wrong of course - terms like "gendering" do not form part of my normal converstaional vocablulary.
As a retailer, and this is a Retail forum, not a feminist forum, I think this is great news for toy retailers.

This is really interesting and I can understand why Lego would want to capture this market - but I can't help being critical about how it encourages gendering and division of girls and boys at such a young age.