I've posted many photos of my 16" BJDs dressed in fashions by Aquatalis and now, there is a doll from them.
Lam is a 16-1/2" resin BJD gift set in a limited edition of 15. In her first iteration, introduced in October 2020, she is on holiday in Vietnam at a place called Dalat. The gift set consists of three distinct fashions and accessories as you can see below.
Photo by Aquatalis
This is her back story:
Dalat is one of the most beautiful destinations of Vietnam, which is located 4,900ft above sea level, known as a gift of nature since it has four seasons in a day, yes in a day! You can have the spring in the morning, summer in the noon, autumn in the afternoon and winter at night. Doesn't it sound wonderful? Dalat is also where Lam was born, so she decided to go back to her hometown with fashions and excited to transfer her feelings to you all. The first place that Lam visited is the King Palace of Dalat, she chose the classic brocade suit set to reappear the image of Nam Phuong - the last and the most beautiful, fashionable Empress Consort of Nguyen Dynasty - Vietnam back in the 40s. This set was made by our very talented best friend, Hoà ng Anh Khôi, who is also well known for making classic style garments for fashion dolls, he used the blue shade brocade with golden thread flower to create the royal feeling for Lam, comes together with golden tone accessories to complete the look, that also matches perfectly to the context of King Palace and the cold weather of Dalat. Lam is deeply in love with that place and she's played the Queen role very well with power in the eyes but still remains the elegance.
Pham Anh Quan's photographs show her visiting three places dressed in one of the fashions each time.
The cost of the gift set was $1230 ($1080 + $150.) including EMS shipping from Viet Nam to the United States. It arrived several days after sending the payment which was really nice. I don't like having to pay for doll weeks (or longer) in advance. IMO, sellers should not get the total payment until the doll is actually ready to ship.
I have dressed her in each outfit and wig (and several other wigs) and photographed her in everything and here is my opinion.
Lam has a very pretty face. Her makeup is perfect. Her applied lashes are even. I loved the fact that her earring holes were large enough for most of my doll earrings.
The clothes fit very well. There was no struggle to close any item and there were no awkward hems or clumps of fabric. Her shoes stayed on when I moved her.
Her necklace closes by tying ribbons. I do prefer a hook closure but this was fine.
The wigs were carefully made, hard-cap type. I had trouble with the long wig as far as placing it on her head properly. I have to work on that. It's the reason that I don't have a photo of her wearing it.
The wigs shown below were made for Kingdom Dolls (except the last one.) Not all KD wigs fit properly. It depends on the wig itself. Lam's head is a bit smaller. I have an IT AvantGuard wig that fits her.
Her lingerie:
Her suit:
Lam comes with two sets of hands and changing paddles. Hooks were not attached to the hands and should have beeen. I took the hooks off the paddles and put them on one pair of hands and used the extra pair of hooks for the other set of hands. Unfortunately, they fall off when the hands are not on the doll. It's kind of a balancing act to change the hands. I'm sure that is something that will be fixed in future dolls.
Her hand-on-hip pose is easy to do and her holding hand works as you can see above. I pinned her hat on as I wanted it to tilt and the wig had a lot of height itself so the hat could not sit the way I wanted it to sit.
Comparison to two other resin BJDs in my collection:
Size:
Lam is taller by a full half inch than Kingdom Doll. She is the same 16-1/2" tall as the Superdoll Sybarite.
For this photo, I made sure that each doll's foot surface was even with the others.
Note the differences in shoulder height, length from knee to hip, length of neck and the shape of the calf and the ankle.
Kingdom Doll's body is beautifully refined and proportional. They have improved and made changes often. The finish is matte. The blushing is appropriate. Their joints work well. Occasionally, the arms are snappy and do not hold position. Nothing is perfect.
The Sybarite body is a joke. It is possibly the most unattractive resin body currently on the market. The blushing is ridiculous - look at the knee joints and around the breasts. Seriously? However, they have sold tons of dolls probably because of the fabulous clothes, makeup and hair.
Lam's body needs some refinement and I'm sure they will be working on the body as time goes by. One change I'd like to see is to make the calf and ankle more shapely.
The joints work very well except for one area - the knees. When bending the knees, I had to manipulate the center joint by hand. It will probably loosen up with a bit of time.
The rest of her body is very shapely and slim. It's an excellent doll for the first.
Her feet are wider than KD's but the soft, as opposed to the resin hi-arch KD shoes, will fit her. I haven't tried the Superdoll shoes but there may be some that fit. All three of my comparison dolls have a very high arch.
I think there's a great market for Lam amongst those who tend to prefer a more conservative-looking resin doll. Think of the first 10 years of Tyler Wentworth and friends...toned-down make-up, classic clothing, no see-through fabrics - a girl you'd take home to Mother.
I recommend trying to purchase one of Aquatalis' dolls if you can. The reception for Lam was excellent. She was sold out very quickly. The second iteration is already sold out. Keep an eye out for their announcements on Facebook.
Phạm Anh Quân
