Sometimes it’s forced upon us, sometimes it’s our own choice, but whatever the circumstances, the upheaval of moving is rarely welcome. The Bold Doll helps you to pack up and move on out.
It happened in 2012, but I was thinking back to an enforced removal that made me re-evaluate my collection. It was a useful opportunity to catalog and refine – something I had long promised to do. One good thing that came out of all the upheaval. The dolls mentioned below were current at the time of writing. In the past few years, my collecting habits have changed a bit –for example resin fashion dolls have more of a presence now. Although it was interesting to note that there are some listed that remain among my favorites.
As I wrote at the time …
My move is not a household one but a change of office. Not completely out of the blue, I’d been expecting it for a while. The place I’m in lucky enough to be renting is in a great location, but the landlord has recently returned from working on the East Coast for a couple of years and wants to reclaim his space. He has been very fair and gave me a few months to get everything sorted out. But in the interim it means I need to work in a smaller space until I can find something as good as the unit I’m moving out of. Most of my collection was stored away in cupboards at the office – I was lucky enough to have tons of storage available there. So now I need to edit, cull and rationalize.
Of course a downside is that much of my collection has to go into storage for a while. But this really made me assess what is the core of my collection. Which dolls are the ones I need to have available for modeling and photography purposes? It became clear that my selection needed to encompass not only the ones I value the most but also the most versatile
I’m sure if most of us actually noted all of the dolls in our collections we’d be surprised (or shocked!) by the quantity and value of them. It’s likely we all own dolls that as a group have a value way in excess of what we imagine they might be worth. With this in mind, it was interesting to find out a little about insurance. There are various specialist insurance companies that will insure doll collections. It’s well worth checking this out as there’s a pretty good chance that your dolls – especially the most valuable ones will not be covered by the standard household contents insurance. But to get to this point you will need to carry out an full inventory.
I tend not to buy on a whim to any great extent so most of the accumulation will be staying with me although I did have a few “what were you thinking?” moments, and I also had some surprising duplicates. I don’t quite know how that happened but it shows another reason for keeping a decent record of what you’ve got.
Luckily it’s not a full home move, but moving your workspace does present its own challenges. Not least making sure that there’s no loss of computer data and that the new network works as seamlessly as before – I’m hoping for an easy transition from old to new. But then there’s the dolls
So I have edited down to the following “can’t live without” dolls, and this was my thought process. Apologies for the laundry list but these are the ones I had to keep out of the dark, climate-controlled lock-up room, which is handily nearby and secure but nevertheless not readily accessible. They have all been carefully stashed away in my closet at home and are pretty easy to get at. I’ve tried to keep to as wide a range of sizes and styles as possible, I need to get the biggest, most versatile, workload possible out of my house models!
Fashion Royalty Valia I love her vintage vibe combined with the usual FR high quality and attention to detail and she would be the one 12” doll I would keep if I could only have one at this size
Gene Daily Threads Gift Set Such a wonderfully versatile doll – and I’m a sucker for wigged dolls anyway – you can get so much more mileage out of them and this one is particular joy as her look transforms remarkably in different wigs
Tonner’s 22” American Model (Gothic version) Wigged again in both platinum and Bettie Paige brunette. This one almost by accident – although of course I’m keen to have one of the big girls at hand. But she made it to the core collection because she’s new and arrived after all else had gone into storage.
12” Amanda Lepore I have a penchant for unusual looking dolls and this one works really well with Valia. I just wish they hadn’t done that fragrance thing. The perfume presumably is within the doll’s vinyl head as the rest of her is of resin. In common with the whole range of Integrity Toys’ Amanda Lepore dolls the heads get darker every time I look at them. Is there a chemist out there who know how to stop this phenomenon? If anyone has a solution I’d love to hear
Elsa Lin Main Feature My particular favorite of the 16” Fashion Royalty range of fashion models, so she had to stay
Madra Pool Pose The best of the best of all of the many versions of [vinyl] Madra, in my opinion. The wild hot-pink Esther Williams swimsuit maybe not so much. But the doll herself is wonderful. So chic from chignon to tips of toes and she looks great in absolutely everything you put her in – one real clothes horse of a doll
Paul Pham’s Devon I had to hold back at least one high-fashion resin doll… and this one is a real beauty. Her original outfit is gorgeous but she’s a delight in virtually any other outfit too.
Bambola Hee Park’s quirky little doll doesn’t really fit in with any other part of my collection or sizes but there’s something strangely appealing about her.
Monica Merrill Sweet Somethings Another wigged doll. I needed to keep a doll that channeled the 60s and Monica really does it beautifully.
Milou Vent Doux She’s probably my favorite doll of all time. More of a true mannequin, Milou transcends any fashion and any era. I’d say she’s easily the most versatile doll I own.
Deva Dolls Thewa It’s a challenge to find a male doll that will stand up to some of the fiercest of the 16” divas – especially those Sybarites. But this guy is ready for the challenge – and he does it beautifully. You can even put him in a dress and he still looks pretty darn hunky (see Drag Show).
So that’s it for the rescue dolls, a small but vital collection. I should mention for the sake of full disclosure that I did already have a few other dolls previously stashed away at home – so these escaped the storage experience. Among these are a handful of Fashion Doll Agency dolls, a few Sasha dolls as a memory from my childhood, a smattering of vintage Barbie, a box of carefully chosen Gene outfits, and a small collection of French fashion dolls, including Caprice.
This feature was first published in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine in 2012.
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