Getting through this with a little help from our dolls. The Bold Doll rediscovers a therapeutic and relaxing hobby that requires a bit of focus.
As we all continue to get used to a new way of living, it becomes more important than ever to focus on our inner resources. For some of us, trying to stay sane can mean striving to get as much play value as possible from our doll collections.
One of the things I have rediscovered is the therapeutic value of making doll clothes. It takes a good deal of concentration to work at a tiny size. Wrangling all those pattern pieces successfully into a three-dimensional object is not only satisfying, but it forces you to use different parts of the brain. It is also a useful distraction for a short while from what’s going on in the world. At the moment there’s nothing better than completely losing yourself in a task. When I had previously made mid-century styled dresses and outfits for contemporary dolls, I would machine stitch for the most part. But this time I wanted to have a go at making a gown more or less by hand, as time is less of an issue these days.
My local doll group’s monthly meetings have been online since March 2020 – now we meet by Zoom. It’s not the same, of course, but still good to get together virtually and exchange ideas. To coincide with a meeting themed ‘Workwear’, I decided to show not so much workwear as something I had been working one. Although the doll is not my usual thing at all, I was keen to try making a garment based on an antique pattern. In this case, a French Fashion ensemble from the late 19th Century.
I was interested to see what it would be like to make the whole thing by hand – so the gown is virtually all hand-stitched. I say virtually because the outfit called for many, many, many yards of ruched embellishment and French bias binding. I realized it would be more than the human spirit could bear to sew that lot by hand, so the edges of these very long strips did go through the machine.
The fabric is wool challis, which is actually from Donna Karan, that well-known Victorian dress-maker! It is in a deep sage color, although it might look closer to black on screen, but is a lovely dark, rich green shade. We like to pronounce challis ‘shally’, as if the fabric is of French origin. However, it was first made in Norwich – the city of my home county in England – in about 1832. This cloth became wildly popular with Victorian society. Thin, soft, and closely-woven, it is a very forgiving fabric, ideally suited for doll dressmaking. As it originated in England it’s likely that the original pronunciation was actually ‘challis’ as spelled. No doubt Queen Victoria had day dresses in this fabric – perhaps the first instance of challis from the palace, but I have no idea if she had a vessel with a pestle, or a flagon with a dragon!
The doll is a Portrait Jumeau as reimagined by the talented, and award-winning dollmaker, Darlene Lane. This particular doll has a porcelain head and shoulder-plate, handmade glass paperweight eyes, and a mohair wig. She is on a Dollsparts articulated resin body based on a wooden original and, as a finishing touch, has a leather collarette marked Jumeau Medaille D’Or (gold medal).
I’ve long admired Miss Revlon, Cissy, and their fab fifties fashions, but have never really been able to justify their cost. So I found the prettiest brunette ‘14R’ doll (as marked on the back of the neck, and a head mold commonly used by a whole variety of manufacturers in the 1950s such as Royal Dolls, Deluxe Reading, and Eegee) for about a tenth of the price of a comparable Cissy. Sold nude and not in bad condition – apart from a couple of body blemishes that proved to be easily removable – and with hair in decent shape.
This project was to create a smart, structured look, using lightweight men’s suiting for a streamlined outfit. I enlarged a dress pattern for the 14-inch Lisa Littlechap doll (by Remco, 1963), in Johanna Gast Anderton’s excellent book Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls, to fit an 18-inch doll. I made a quick muslin toile to check for size. The bodice was a little wide, so I just sliced a little out of the middle and I was ready to make the final pattern.
My doll group was to have a meeting with the alphabetic theme ‘XYZ’. I’d previously transferred designs onto store-bought paper-backed fabric run through an ink jet printer. But I was sure that some white tightly-woven cotton, cut to 11 x 8½ inch letter size, would work just as well as the pre-prepared products you can buy. I lightly sprayed the back of the fabric with lo-tack adhesive to stick loosely onto thin backing paper, and then printed it. The result was a couple of 11 x 8½ inch swatches printed with my ‘XYZ’ design, which was going to make a great contrast for the bodice and sleeves of the dress.
A more ambitious tailoring task was based on one of Kate Mitsubachi’s elegant designs from her book Barbie Mode: Dresses for Classic Barbie Dolls. I had been put off by the apparent complexity of the patterns and the fact that this book is totally in Japanese (not one of the languages on the curriculum at my primary school in rural England). But buoyed with confidence from my “XYZ” success, I wanted to work with a distinguished scrap of dogtooth check fabric I’d stashed away. It was tricky to do at this small scale, and I still find the whole lining methodology completely perplexing. But it worked! The dress is built like an elongated version of a traditional footman’s jacket and yet looks bang up to date on Fashion Royalty’s Future Bound Luchia Z – I love mixing vintage and modern.
You might have noticed that I’ve been pretty monochromatic in my choice of dolls and fabrics. This was by design, on the basis that if you’re trying to make high-style on a low budget you’re likely to have more success if you stick to a limited palette than if you go truly garish.
Most high-style designers favor muted colors when going for a classic look – think vintage Armani and Prada. Or just have a look at the staple items from Jason Wu, either for Fashion Royalty or his full-size fashion label for grown-up people. Core collections normally feature blacks, browns, and the sludgiest of muted shades. These colors act as a foil for brighter accents used very sparingly – perhaps only as a flash of jewelry or the bright red sole of a shoe. Stay mindful of male tailoring and fabrics closely aligned to a men’s wardrobe, more Armani and less Versace when you’re trying to make a lot with a little, and you won’t go far wrong.
That’s it! Now I can stop sewing for a bit and allow my fingers to recover from being jabbed with needles.
This story first appeared in the summer 2020 issue of Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine. You can find more patterns in the Techniques section of The Bold Doll.
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