Chelsea's Collector Cottage exclusive Avantguard doll "Attention!" arrived yesterday. She looks exactly like the promotional pictures. The dress is cute.
Her facial screening is immaculate and I love the colors.
The shoes are cute.
The feather hat sheds on everything. (She reminds me of the Statue of Liberty in this picture.)
The wig is not made properly and the stockings had defects in them from where she was tied to the box.
I don't feel the WOW factor with this doll. Something is missing. I think this dress should have been an individually available fashion, not something for a $250. exclusive doll. It's not enough. The earrings are such a waste of time I didn't even bother. Every pair of earrings one inserts into an Avantguard head has to be snipped shorter and after I struggled to get the wig on (sort of) I wasn't about to knock it off to put two little studs into her ears.
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Every now and then I'll be playing with a doll or photographing one and I begin to wonder why I am collecting dolls. It happened today. It wasn't just about one doll, it was the cumulative effect of poor engineering and/or design of certain aspects of three of my new dolls. Why do I continue to spend hundreds of dollars on dolls whose stands don't support? In two cases, the stand didn't even fit between the doll's legs because the dress was slim-fitting. You can't tell me that this fact is not known by the designers. What do they do, shrug it off? While it's true that I don't use stands when I am photographing my dolls, I do use them to display my dolls.Tonner's saddle stand and Integrity's Avantguard stand add a good amount of thickness to that area of the doll supported by the stand, namely the crotch and the butt. It used to be that one could hide the ugly plastic of a stand when the doll was wearing a gown or a skirt. Now that many of the styles have become short and tight that doesn't work anymore.
Robert Tonner may have been on the right track with the stand that inserted into the crotch area - at least for some dolls.
I feel the same way about Mattel. The stands they made for Model of the Moment are terrible! Do they even test them? The doll's feet don't reach the base, even with shoes on and the poor girls are always leaning.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be nice if we could all be hired as testers? *slipping into daydream*
Love the honest, reflective review Terri.
ReplyDeleteI have been there myself. (As you probably already guessed)
I have a question: Is the new body any less wobbly, or light weight than the originals?
Did they finally weigh them down in the legs or somewhere? (I was hoping something would be done to make me feel like I was buying something other than air)
Always a pleasure to read youre blog, my friend.
J.
the stand pic loaded slowly... wasn't sure just what was coming...lol... they shrug, we buy...
ReplyDeleteI have problems with my Attention! AG. Mine came with glue smear on her face, half her left eyelash dropping off (it has since dropped off completely) and torn stockings.
ReplyDeleteI paid close to $300 for it and now I have to wait till Oct 7 for the patient care team to get back to me. Sigh.
Zac:
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain!
TG
Thank you very much for the reviews, terri. I think that I maybe understand how you feel.
ReplyDeleteI , personally, think about selling my FR dolls and Pullips and starting to collect Sybarites every now and then. They are supposed to have an excellent quality as well as attention to detail and an outstanding customer service.
But, I couldn't quite get myself to part with my dolls so far.
I am glad I could not afford these dolls right now, it seems that they are wasted money.
ReplyDeleteHi Terri! I am very tempted to get the Jamieshow replacement body for Attention after seeing Chewin's Androgyny on that body. Do you have an idea if both Attention and Andro have the same skin tone?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: I wish I could help you but I don't have Androgyny to compare with Attention right now. Perhaps you can ask on Prego. I'm sure there are people there who have every AG.
ReplyDeleteGood luck.
Terri