My second ever fashion doll convention, the London Fashion Doll Festival 2019, was held on the weekend of 8-9 June in London, at the lovely V&A Museum Of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London. I had promised the organisers that I’d join them in this second time of the convention being held, so there I was! The event took place over two days in the Summerly Room Of The museum, plus an adjoining smaller room for the workshop.
The V&A Museum of Childhood in London
The Summerly Room
A banner at the convention area
Everyone registered upon entry, with an easy scan of our ticket. We were given our goody bags according to our registration level (with or without the exclusive Superdoll convention doll). As I found out, the bag had loads of lovely gifts! Check them out below.
The tables were set for eight persons and mine was named Carnaby Girl. I had the honour of being in the same table with Desmond Lingard (from Superdoll), Izzy Parker with her husband Ian, Christina Paul (who runs the Doll Club Of Great Britain website) and of course, from the organisers, Simon Farnworth, his husband Carl and Kim London. What an amazing company to be with! The tables had a folder with two lovely sketches inside by Navdeep Sikand, creator of the lovely Anouk dolls...
...who also offered ten of them for centerpieces on each table! They were raffled off to the attendees near the end of the day, Izzy won ours. The dress and bags are made by Ineke Hintz. The gorgeous base was given along with the doll. If enough requests are made, LFDF will be able to have some for sale.
Our centerpiece doll! There were blonde and raven versions of the doll.
Everyone else at the table got a small gift as well - i won the miniature chess you see below in the round box. I was lucky enough to receive some lovely gifts from my table mates too - Kim gave me the tea set (donated by her), Carl the amazing jewellery set (by Alla Dolgaleva Rapoport), Sofia the miniature Barbies and the wonderful Thomas Bartholomew Maffei, who came all the way from the USA, gave me the Sparkle Girl outfits!
Izzy had a gorgeous doll with her, the fantastic Glory resin Sybarite from the Los Angeles Convention earlier this year (above) , while Desmond had with him the 12” House Of Zenith Avenue, introduced earlier this year. She’s not wearing her original fashion and looked better IRL than in photos I had seen (below).
Soon enough, it was time for the workshops to begin. I had registered for both, so my schedule was full! First one was the Face Up workshop by Claudio Coronado, who was introduced by Simon Farnworth.
Claudio was very thorough in showing us the steps in how to begin painting a doll’s face. A slideshow helped him show the detailed work he does.
We got a great list of all the steps to follow when painting a doll face and helped us understand it is no easy task. Which is why you see the “before” photo of the doll head I had to paint, but not the “after”!
The artist at work. This magnifying glass type is perfect for detailed work, I must get one.
After the end of the workshop, I had the chance to photograph the dolls on display. The Carnaby themed set up was beautiful.
The items that were going to be raffled off the next day, to support a great cause, the Children With Cancer UK charity, we’re also on display. See the slideshow below. I should also mention that there is an ebay auction with exclusive OOAK creations (dolls or outfits) for LFDF 2019, to benefit the same charity, that ends on the 22nd of June 2019, so go to this link to check the offerings and bid!
If you love Sybarites, you know Desmond is an incredibly talented photographer as well. Some of his magnificent prints were on display and for sale.
There was a small exhibition of 60s dolls as well, check them out below in the slideshow.
Emperis Dolls had a beautiful display as well and I got to meet the lovely Marcus and William who make them. They had both their new 12” dolls and their 16” ones on display and for sale. Some amazing OOAK dolls were there too, check out Cher in the slideshow below. The guys told me they almost sold out during the day.
Then it was time for the second workshop of the day: Sofia Kalaitzidi from Microsonik London showed us how to make a flower wig. These were very popular during the 60s in editorials and covers of fashion magazines. Elizabeth Taylor and members of the British Royal family were sporting them often in events.
Here are the materials Sofia gave us for the wig plus a prepared base for us to work on.
I managed to go as far as you can see below during the workshop (I’m hopeless with a needle). Some just threaded the larger flowers through the base as they had long wire stems, so no sewing needed, but I wanted a more delicate effect. Will try and finish it home!
And here I am next to the lovely Francesco from Fred-Dolls at the workshop - we had so much fun!
After the workshop ended, it was time for afternoon tea! A proper British tea, with everything necessary - tea, scones, clotted cream, jam, milk, sandwiches, sugar, macaroons and other treats! It was delectable.
During tea time, members of the organising team (l to r: dear Ismail, Simon and Claudio) presented the people dressed in sixties or sixties inspired clothes.
The t-shirts worn by the organisers ate the official convention shirt and all attendees got one!
there were eight of them, all lovely and dapper in mod outfits…
…and the winner was Olga, who was the most popular - people voted for their favourite contestant by giving them their raffle ticket!
Near the end of the day, it was time for the most anticipated reveal: Desmond unveiled the exclusive convention Sybarite doll!
Her name is Dejah and she is the last Generation X Sybarite doll to be released! The edition is 30 dolls and there are two more available at the LFDF site - hurry up!
You can see my doll below, as I opened the box right after the presentation. The last photo is the official one from Superdoll. She’s like a Motown singer from a girl group the 60s or a Northern Soul singer on a tour in Britain in the late 60s..
And here I am with dear Desmond - this one is for you Shazam Paname! Charles was in China, supervising doll production in the factory.
This was the first day of the London Fashion Doll Festival, full of wonderful people sharing our doll passion, making beautiful memories and seeing so many gorgeous dolls. Next up, the Salesroom day.