Presenting an exciting new range of hand-made designer fashion dolls, expertly crafted from the finest porcelain and dressed to thrill. We talk with their creator.
Beverley Senatore is a talented doll-maker from the United Kingdom. She has previously enjoyed great success with making dolls designed for doll houses at 1:12 scale. Her great new passion, however, is for 1:6 scale fashion dolls and the creation of the dolls, their outfits and accessories.
These little beauties are hand made in porcelain and fired in Beverley’s own kiln. She is such a perfectionist that she designs and creates every aspect of her dolls, from painting their faces to tailoring bespoke outfits.
The dolls themselves are quite voluptuous with something of the old glamour of Hollywood about them. This means that standard Barbie- or Fashion Royalty-size garments are a bit too snug across the hips and chest. Ever the egalitarian, Beverley is creating a slimmer body type for her next range of dolls, so that they will be able to share their clothing with some of the commercially available lines.
The dolls and their outfits are beautiful in their own right, but to show just how versatile they are, we have also shown them in some ‘borrowed’ wigs and outfits.
As Beverley explains, “I became involved with dolls as a little girl, I loved Pippa the Pocket Size Doll, Tressy, and Sindy. I never had any Barbie dolls until I was adult and started collecting. I chose to create my own dolls because I no longer got the same satisfaction from just collecting.”
“The first dolls I made were for dollhouses. I still make those today but I have more of a passion for fashion dolls. There are so many Barbie dolls out there for the children’s market. I began to feel that even the adult collectors’ Barbies were similar to the kids’ versions, but with better clothing So I decided to create more realistic women dolls with ranges of clothing from the 1940s and 50s right up to the modern day. I wanted to design for an hour-glass figure, and my dolls are anatomically correct. It’s important to me that my dolls look like real women.”
“My favorite doll creator is Mel Odom, I always wanted to be like him – such beautiful dolls. I love the 40s style Most of my inspiration came from him. He has given me advice about presentation, and I was thrilled when he said that my dolls are lovely. The first doll I ever owned as an adult was a Gene doll. I fell in love with Mel’s muse and collected quite a few. Now I don’t collect any more because I love the ones I create for myself.”
“One of my biggest challenges was in getting the size of the doll right. A lot of experimentation was involved. I had to make the doll bigger because porcelain shrinks in the kiln. This was all quite hard work, but now I use my master molds for size whenever I sculpt more dolls. My favorite part is sculpting the face, and the worst is the legs! The most useful skill I had to learn, and yet the hardest, was in making molds. It required an awful lot of patience and plenty of practice.”
“I am very proud of where I am today. When I want to create something I won’t stop until I have achieved what I set out to do, There have been lots of very late nights, where I’ve only had a couple hours sleep because I want to get a certain part just right.”
“I promote my work on facebook as Beverley’s Designer Dolls, and on my website. The projects I am working on at the moment are creating and designing more outfits and handbags for my dolls.”
“My future projects include sculpting men dolls. I will sculpt one body type and then sculpt different heads to fit. I will also be creating film stars from the 40s to the present day. In fact my very next project is sculpting dolls of the actors Claire Holt and Ian Somerhalder, of The Vampire Diaries, and presenting them at the Eyecon Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.”
If you are interested in seeing more of Beverley Senatore’s work, visit her instagram link. This story first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine in 2014.