Integrity Toys' Norma Desmond as Hollywood Royalty

Giselle as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard? The fashion is drop dead gorgeous. The face? Where is Norma? I doubt that many would buy a doll that looked like this:

 IMO Gloria Swanson wasn't exactly the best looking actress of her day and you can't portray talent in a doll so picking Giselle was as good a decision as any. Just don't expect visitors to your collection to say "Wow, you have a Gloria Swanson doll!"

W Club members were offered the opportunity to pre-order this doll from dealers a few days ago and from many reports, she is nearly or completely sold out.

Item # 14034
Norma Desmond
Sunset Boulevard Commemorative Collectible Doll
Limited Edition of 500 Dolls
Suggested Retail Price: $119.00 USD
Estimated Date of Arrival: Week of November 19, 2012

For me, the beauty in this doll is the fashion. It represents one aspect of the era of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Gloria Swanson is known best for being a great star during the silent movie era. She continued to act into her later years and died at the age of 84 in 1983.

So now you know more than you wanted to about Norma Desmond.

 From Wikipedia:
Sunset Boulevard (also known as Sunset Blvd.) is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after the boulevard that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California.
The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenwriter, Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a faded silent movie star who draws him into her fantasy world where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen with Erich von Stroheim as Max Von Mayerling, her butler and ex-husband. Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough and Jack Webb play supporting roles. Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play themselves, and the film includes cameo appearances by leading silent film actors Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner and Anna Q. Nilsson.

Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three. It is widely accepted as a classic, often cited as one of the greatest films of American cinema. Deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, it was ranked number twelve on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century, and in 2007 it was 16th on their 10th Anniversary list.

Wasn't there a Sunset Blvd. backdrop produced for one of Integrity Toy's Gene Marshall conventions? 

Ficon's Miss G White and Black

Sales began for two new Ficon dolls, Miss G in White and Black. Both are LE20 and retail price is $630. They include the outfit with dress, shoes, bag, jewelry and Chewin wig.  It's not surprising that Black is already sold out but I think both are just gorgeous.

The following photographs are from Ficon's gallery and are by Alexandra Forbes.

See more at the Ficon website.

City Girls from the Tonner Doll Company

A very cute and affordable line of 15 3/4" dolls has been released by the TDC. They are the City Girls and are targeted toward younger doll collectors.
This debut contains one basic doll, three dressed dolls and three fashion packs. I would definitely purchase these for a child that was ready to move on from, for example, the American Girl dolls although they certainly could exist side by side in a child's collection.
Here they are.

Basic Houston

$39.99

Taxi! Billy

$49.99

Color Block Astor

$49.99

Golden Swirl Astor

$59.99

Here are the fashion packs which are $24.99 each.

Cape Town

Gray Haze

Networking

They remind me of the Mod British Birds by Somers and Field, not in their looks but in their affect—innocent, fresh faced and smartly but simply dressed.
The dolls look to be fully articulated although I could not find information on their material and construction.
Looking back in my blog, I found a picture from last February's Toy Fair of the City Girls. Apparently two of the three dolls shown there did not make it into the debut. Perhaps they will appear towards the end of the year.

New Photo Studio and Doll Room

Soon I will be back to taking pictures with a real camera. It's been so long. My studio is getting the finishing touches this week. It feels like forever. 
Here is a partial view of the room.

The big window is called an egress window. In PA all houses with basements built after a certain year have to be built with a way to exit other than using the staircase to go up.  I have another smaller window on the adjacent wall. Lots of light. My last studio was constructed as a darkroom - literally - and that's what it was. There was no light at all other than artificial. This will be interesting to see how and if I incorporate the light into my work.
Yes, the black and white floor was intentional as it is exactly how I did the flooring in my darkroom years ago.

Yesterday I finished redressing the last Fashion Royalty doll. They were the most time consuming of all dolls to redress and display. I did lots of body swapping as I'm tending to like the slimmer bodies of the Monogram dolls for some of my FR.

Here are some random display pics from last night.

My current crop of Eugenias.

Another gorgeous Vanessa.

She's been on display in our bedroom this past week.

Silkies are the best for displaying early Fashion Royalty fashions.

Poor thing is still naked. I'm not loving her.

Only a few Gene dolls left to dress.

The only Agnes (left) I have kept out of all of them.

In this and the next two photos are some of my older FR dolls. Several have been re-rooted and all have been re-bodied. Dress on the right is a Huckleberry Jackson.

The Kyori on the right is one of the very few dolls I own that has never been redressed. She was the last Atelier doll.

I love my Mini Avantguard dolls.

Somehow Liz doesn't belong.

What a serious waste of money this doll was. I hate her hair. Her outfit is cheap. Only the sculpt is nice.

She has been transferred to one of Angelic Dreamz demi-Jamieshow bodies. If I could, I'd put all my Silkstone dolls on these articulated, BJD bodies. They are fabulous.

Currently I have two Dynamite Dolls. That's more than I usually have. The girl dolls' clothes are from Clear Lan. Boots on left are Azone. Green handbag is Purse of the Month from a while back.

I purchased the outfit from the Kesenia "Your Kind of Model" doll after seeing IRL pictures. The doll's vampire mouth still doesn't appeal to me, but the outfit is wonderful.

The base dress is a pastel pink strappy cocktail sheath and will stand alone as a lovely garment. It's beautifully designed and constructed. The over dress is sheer black with silver and black embroidery.
The shoes are too small for FR2 feet but they are also nicely designed.

My model is a re-rooted True Royalty Vanessa who is sporting an FR2 body. I had to 'tie' the straps on the pink dress to make the bodice smaller for this body.

It comes with silver colored jewelry (earrings, bracelet and ring) an embroidered handbag with a magnetic closure and a faux fur jacket. That's a lot of fashion and well worth it. 

 And for a little comic relief:

Modern Reproduction Ginny dolls.

Huckleberry Jackson's 2012 Line

Huck announced the debut of his new line which goes on sale today at 9PM CET Central European Time. I believe that is a 6 hour difference from eastern time. They would be 6 hours ahead. So  9PM CET = 3 PM EST.
Here is a group shot showing some of the offerings.

Explaining that he is so happy to own these dolls now, he designed an outfit specifically for each doll as opposed to creating a thematic presentation.

http://www.huckleberryjackson.com/shop/

Sandy

Every time I see pictures of the destruction of Far Rockaway and Rockaway Beach I feel stunned.  My grandparents had a summer house on Beach 29th at Seagirt and I spent the best part of my childhood there. That house was razed years ago but is in my heart forever. Going to the beach during the day and the boardwalk at night. It never got any better.

The boardwalk is gone. 

As an adult I taught in a public school on Beach 5st St and I could see the ocean 2 blocks away through my classroom window. I wonder if the mosaic mural my art students created survived in the lobby of the building.

Another hurricane I remember...I was less than 10 years old. My mother drove to Rockaway from Brooklyn where we lived to 'rescue' my grandparents because the bay and the ocean had met. I remember all the earth worms on the sidewalks. There's no reason or rhyme as to what is important to a young child. That was very long ago. The water was thigh high in front of the house. I don't remember where my mother parked the car.

The Rockaways are situated between the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Jamaica Bay on the other.  


Please donate something to the American Red Cross.  Anything. This is the United States and we need each other. It happened here.