Announcing the Third 2014 W Club Exclusive Doll

When I saw the name of the character, Mademoiselle Jolie, I was happy for a brief moment. Then I read further to discover that it is not Elise Jolie, whose sculpt I adore, but Isha, whose sculpt I do not care for in this incarnation. Her lips are parted and her teeth are showing.
This is what Isha used to look like before they rehabbed her to look like everyone else. Pretty gorgeous, right?

Note: You can click on any picture to bring up a larger version.

Here is the new Isha. I think the teeth will be easy to cover.

She is called Ombres Poétique and will cost W Club members $150. plus postage.
I like platinum hair but hair bumps are so over. I think the first thing I saw after the teeth was the sweeping eye makeup. The jury is still out on that.

I like the lingerie.

She certainly looks dramatic but the more I look at the gown, the more the black lace trim looks over-scaled. It's not working. I hope the production doll uses a better trim.

We've seen this gown shape several times on FR dolls. Reinterpretations don't bother me. Three of the gowns pictured below are more or less successful designs. I will have to see the new one in person to be sure.

The only other Mme. Jolie that was produced was a OOAK auction doll at the HiFi convention several years ago. This is a picture by Rob Thompson found on his robsdolls.com website. I would have loved that hairstyle and gown! But then it would not be a OOAK for the person who bought it.

Maybe I can dye the gown.... it could be a quinceanera dress.


What do you think of this new Mme. Jolie?

Gene's Final Curtain Call

This is a post that I found which was never published. It's obviously from a few years ago.



On the eve of Gene's swan song I dressed two of my (very few) ladies in fashions I recently acquired. They are waiting to be photographed and I visualized them looking over their shoulders as they retreated from the front of the stage on the last night of their performance.

Five nights from tonight I will have begun to attend my first and last Gene Marshall convention. There, amongst the 400 or so attendees, I may be in the minority. I have not been a "real" Gene collector. I was aware of Gene, of course, during her Ashton-Drake years but never veered away from my Tonner collections until getting involved with Integrity Toys' product. I had purchased a basic Gene and a dressed Gene and that was it.

Simply Gene

Perfect Match Gene with Tiny Kitty

The first few fashions I purchased disappointed me because they did not always fit Tyler. Obviously I knew very little about that line. But I did buy the wonderful furniture and accessories like the gazebo and the the patio set. I purchased the dresser and the swan bed and the clothing rack with wooden hangers and room dividers. Fabulous items every one of them.

Tyler Wearing "A Shorts Story" Gene Outfit

The second or third time Integrity Toys held an event at FAO Schwarz in NYC was the first time I met Mel Odom. (It's all been a wild blur since then. ;-)) Gene had been picked up by IT and the line was on display at the store. I had not begun my second round with the 16" dolls yet. That Gene was "Suited To A T. " The doll reminded me so much of my mother when she was young. At the time, Mom was in the final stages of Alzheimer's Disease. That was February. I couldn't get the doll out of my mind and decided to ask my husband to get her for me as a holiday gift that December, which he did. My mother died that month. I photographed that doll endlessly and began buying Gene fashions which led to buying Gene dolls which led to more and more. I bought Ashton-Drake Gene and IT Gene dolls and fashions and had a ball. I discovered another huge group of collectors who were so very different from the Fashion Royalty crowd.

Play with those dolls!

This is a post I found which was never published. It is obviously from a few years ago.

I've been giving advice and not often following it myself. This week I'm being good. I've been redressing dolls and photographing them. It feels like I have some new dolls. I love it.
Most recently the Nu Face dolls got attention. I sold off most of these little beauties so there weren't that many to be redressed. Here are Eden and Nadia. Nadja was "The Illusionist." I unwrapped the braid around the headpiece and underneath was a heavily glued stalk of hair. I washed it several times but the glue would not even soften so I just cut off as much as I could. I may rewrap the tiny braided hair, retrieved from the thing atop her head, around the nub that's left. But for now, this is what she looks like. It made her into a much more useful doll.Here she is with Eden, my favorite of all the NuFace dolls. Yes, it is difficult to photograph such different skin tones next to eachother. I lit the scene as much as possible. I think because Nadja is wearing a bright red she comes forward in the mind's eye whereas if she wore a recessive color, the bright skin and hair on Eden would overpower the photo. The lighting could still be improved.
The biggest problem I have with this color vinyl is that he texture of the vinyl shows all the tiny pits unevenness every vinyl body has. I this photo I have softened the skin contrast with a tool in Photoshop.
I have just decided to sell Erin. I never even redressed her! I took these pictures today. She's just so perfect in the microsequin dress.