Fashionable Dr. Seuss - by Tonner Dolls


Tonner Dolls announced a mini collection with three dressed dolls inspired by Dr. Seuss stories. All dolls have the Monica Merrill™ sculpt which is appropriately cartoon-y for Dr. Seuss but not for a fashion doll. Their body is the 16" Tyler™ BW body so the fashions can be easily worn by many other 16" dolls - but unfortunately they are not sold separately. They style reminds me a lot of Christian Lacroix and his whimsical couture collections. Also the embroidered "sketch" effect reminds me a lot of a certain John Galliano Christian Dior couture collection. The dolls are already available on-line at Tonner. albeit a bit pricey.


"This high-fashion take on the colorful, poetic whimsy of Dr. Seuss is a marriage of what we do best: High fashion and pop culture. What you see here is not a re-creation of the Seuss characters, per se, but instead, creations inspired by the colors and the shapes that are at the essence of what we all love about Dr. Seuss's art".


From The Cat In The Hat comes The Cat's Hat  LE 500 $189.99  Dressed doll. Face includes hand-painted details. Fine quality vinyl and hard plastic. Monica Merrill™ head sculpt. Tyler™ BW body. Cameo skin tone. Violet inset eyes. Blue rooted saran hair. Red and white striped flocked hat with yellow feather detail. Red faux fur vest with blue belt. Yellow shantung dress with black stitched accents. Red and White stripe tights. Yellow and black bead earrings. Blue faux leather boots. 


From Green Eggs and Ham comes Sam I Am LE 500 $189.99 Dressed doll. Face includes hand-painted details. Fine quality vinyl and hard plastic. Monica Merrill™ head sculpt. Tyler™ BW body. Cameo skin tone. Inset green brown eyes. Yellow rooted saran hair. Red elastic hair tie. Orange shantung top with black stitched accents and blue faux fur trim. Red stretch knit gloves. Orange, red and green ribbon skirt. Blue lace tights. Blue, black & red bead earrings. Yellow faux leather boots with blue faux fur trim. 


From Lorax comes Truffula LE 500 $189.99 Dressed doll. Face includes hand-painted details. Fine quality vinyl and hard plastic. Monica Merrill™ head sculpt. Tyler™ BW body. Cameo skin tone. Inset green eyes. Orange rooted saran hair. Yellow hair ribbon. Pink shantung top with black stitching and blue faux fur trim with orange shantung ribbon. Purple shantung skirt with black printed accents and yellow shantung trim. Pink and gold dot tights. Purple, pink & black bead earrings. Orange faux suede shoes.


Enjoy a day of Tonner on Saturday, December 8th when you attend their Factory Sale. Then, head over to the Tonner Company Store Dr. Seuss Launch Party, where the Dr. Seuss Collection will be available for purchase and you can get your dolls signed by Robert Tonner himself! There will be refreshments and Seussical adventures, so don't miss it! Tonner and Wilde Imagination Factory Sale Saturday, December 8, 2012 10am-1pm Holiday Inn 503 Washington Avenue Kingston, NY 12401 The Dr. Seuss Launch Party The Tonner Company Store 14 Hurley Avenue Kingston, NY 12p-2pm.

Doll images courtesy Tonner Doll Company, Inc. Photography ©ernestopadrocampos. ©Tonner Doll Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Can Barbie ever have too many bags?

Doing my daily round of dolly blogs, I came across this post by Rebecca at Inside The Fashion Doll Studio about an article in the Dec/Jan 2012 issue of Interview magazine featuring Barbies as models in a clutch bag photo shoot. I knew I had to post them here as well. I am really wondering how on earth did I miss that when it first came out.


One of the most impressive is this Bob Mackie Circus Barbie® Doll with a Bulgari clutch.












Elvis® Barbie® Doll models a gorgeous Lanvin bag.




The celebrity of the bunch: 80's Cher Bob Mackie Doll (I own this one!) with Emilio Pucci bag.


This is the magazne layout.


And this is the cover of the issue, featurinf Scarlett Johansson.

Photographs courtesy of Interview magazine. Photographer of dolls: Robbie Fimmano
Stylist: Miguel Enamorado
Interview cover photography by Sølve Sundsbø 

Trust Your Instincts Jordan

This is one of the most beautiful dolls of this year's Spring collection by Integrity Toys (a tour de force of collections indeed). It's my second Jordan (you can see the previous one here) and having seen her in real life, a firm favourite now.


She comes dressed in a two-piece ensemble: a short sleeved chartreuse top that buttons up her back, with peplum and a slim matching belt, over a sugar white pencil skirt. It is a 40s look re-done for out era and her hairdo channels exactly that.


The outfit is completed with brilliant accessories: a coral "crocodile" leather bag with beige strap and a pair of bi-colored strap pumps.



Her jewellery is beautiful too: a pair of multi-colored enamel earrings with a matching cuff bracelet. I wish she had a green ring to complete this, it would be perfect.


Her make up is not as bold as I feared - in real life it looks even more subtle. The nails are painted pink. The skin tone is lighter than previous Jordan versions. Her hairdo is perfect, fits the outfit,, giving it a 40s vibe and compliments her face beautifully. Her profile is almost Nefertiti like.


This has become one of my all-time favourite Fashion Royalty dolls and would very much like to try more outfits on her. She has set the bar very high for Adele, who will be coming home probably by the end of this year.


Christmas came early in Paris: Dior dolls for Printemps department store



Each Christmas season, the Printemps department store in Paris sets up a magnificent display on its windows. In an atypical contest between the major Parisian department stores, locals are lucky to experience the best that artist collaborating with these stores have to offer, often setting up elaborate displays that attract crowds every day to them. This year, they did something special for us doll collectors: the windows are full of dolls dressed in Dior historical outfits (72 dolls and replicas of 12 iconic outfits), even down to the miniature accessories (oh those Di bags!) that are actually moving like marionettes. Let's read the article about this display from the Dior magazine:



Jean-Claude Dehix, the most famous of puppet masters, has been creating window displays for Paris department stores for over thirty years. He tells DiorMag about his work, and what it was like to collaborate with the house of Dior.



"In a setting of silk and tulle, sequins and ribbons, they're getting ready, making themselves up, impatient to go waltzing or ice-skating in a decor drawn straight from a fairytale. These distinctly Dior dolls are the stars of the Printemps department store's windows. 


Under the Eiffel Tower's steel arches, they twirl and glide, beyond elegant in Bar jacket and full, flaring skirt. On the ice rink, they slice through the air, gracious skaters graced with the most Parisian of silhouettes. A little further on, under a band stand, they waltz and dance to the strains of a gramophone, bedecked in vaporous ball gowns. Look closely, for isn't that also them clutching to a huge bunch of balloons floating over the Opéra Garnier, Printemps and the Eiffel Tower, and again at the fairground, dancing between the carrousel and the big wheel? Yes, it's definitely them, no one else - the dolls!"


"In the Printemps windows, brought to life by the puppeteer Jean-Claude Dehix and dressed by Dior, they play the starring roles in a story of magic and enchantment, elegance and couture. For the holidays, the Paris department store places Dior center-stage with its codes and its many stories, from Avenue Montaigne and the gardens, to the banquet and the opera and the grand voyage. Over nine windows, Printemps tells a fairytale in the heart of the French capital. It's a story of joy and of celebration: the very tale of the house of Dior itself."


French film actress and Dior icon Marion Cotillard was the star of the opening event for Printemps Christmas windows.



More photos of the dolls:








The Twiggy clone: She's Not There Poppy Parker

When, back in spring 2012, Integrity Toys announced their line up for the year, one of the most talked about dolls was She's Not There Poppy Parker. The dominant theme of the Poppy collection was swinging 60's and London back in the days of Mary Quant and Vidal Sassoon but this one stood out as she channelled uncannily the model that defined the image of an era: Twiggy. Her short, boyishly cropped hair, her mod outfit and accessories, her bold make up, all reminded us of her. Anticipation ran high, until collectors started receiving the doll. Many complaints were written on boards and blogs about how different she was from the prototype, how washed out she looked and many people felt disappointed. I was one of the people who got the doll so let's see how she measures up to expectations.



First impressions: she is a very beautiful doll. Even inside the box she looks lovely and cute and does remind me of Twiggy a lot. People complaining she looks nothing like the promotional photos should remember that photos can be retouched/overexposed etc.  to make them look a certain way. Even Twiggy did not look like her photos did. The trick would be to see how she looked in photos taken of her and how close she would come to the prototype (which for me was not that different to begin with). 


A major problem was immediately apparent: the hood of her coat could not be fastened under her chin. Not only was the strap a bit smaller than it should have been, the hood itself could have been cut a tiny bit bigger. And the design of the hood is completely different than the one shown in the promo photos. This was indeed disappointing.


On a previous post I had written about the inspiration for this outfit and how it came from an identical (minus hood and boots) one that Diana Rigg as Emma Peel was wearing in the Avengers series. The same dress and coat were also photographed for British Vogue on Jean Shrimpton (who is another Poppy Parker look alike) and was designed by Jean Varon for the Avengers Collection.  I love the outfit. If you can forget the hood mishap, it is pure mod sixties in it's best. It consists of the white coat over the black dress with contrasting stripes, red fishnet stockings (which stain terribly, remove them immediately from your doll), boots, handbag, ball striped earrings (Twiggy was wearing many pairs in this style in editorials) and red Jackie O sunglasses like the white ones that Sweet Confection Poppy is wearing.


The bag is one of the prettiest I have seen on this line so far. And she comes with a second set of white painted glove hands to maximize the mod effect. The boots are nice but I would have preferred them without the open toe. The original outfit had shoes that looked more like a negative version of the ones Bus Stop Darla is wearing.



Her make up is, to my eyes. just like the promos - neither washed out nor pronounced. I forgot to set her eyelashes properly for most of the photo-shoot but she still looks great. Her hair is nicely cropped and I have seen many people who washed and re-set them with even better results but I still have not tried this.


When I got Bus Stop Darla, I had to re-dress Poppy with that outfit: it is one that the real Twiggy was wearing in many photos and is very iconic. The results are breathtaking.



She looks even better with this outfit than with the mod one (which looks great on Darla, but that's another photo shoot). It inspired me to have a series of photos tampered with to make them look vintage, like they were lifted off magazines of the 60's. I hope you like them.










The set was made by using Karim Rashid's chess - the colours and design matched mod-Poppy very well!