And in the blink of an eye, she was gone. The fabulous Lorifina was introduced by Hasbro as an online design-your-own doll. She was launched with a great website that allowed shoppers to customize their doll. Your basic purchase came with a choice of skin tone, wig, and eye color. To make her your own you got to choose an outfit and footwear from the site, creating a bespoke fashionista ready for delivery to your door.
This beauty, however, wasn’t around for long. She was not considered to be a commercial success and the line was dropped almost as soon as it arrived. The only way to find Lorifina now is on the secondary market, where there are still plenty of treasures to discover.
Lorifina was conceived as an antidote to the current and ongoing vogue for extra-skinny models. Hasbro wanted the doll to conform to a more healthy body shape. She’s slender, but not excessively so.
According to Kim Losey, a senior brand manager for the company, “The Lorifina Collection provides an opportunity for tween girls to express their personal styling by creating a custom doll and then dressing her in clothing inspired by the most fashionable cities in the world. We leave it to girls to create their own ‘story’ and ‘characters’.”
The gorgeous face sculpt was created to reflect a multi-ethnic world. The hair is Kanekalon® and the wigs were made at a factory that produces human hairpieces. Lorifina has articulated toes so she can stand in comfort in both flats and heels. The outfits, sold as separates, were definitely fashion-forward. There were three launch collections, as shown on the site screenshots (left). Centered on fashion meccas of the world, the eponymous collections were London, New York, and Tokyo.
A bit of digging on the internet unearths rather more fashion ensembles than the website suggests. It could be that further collections were planned and made, but never actually made it to the marketplace. On these pages we are showing some of the elusive clothes that are absent from the inaugural range.
The outfits are of great quality for a playline doll. The shoes, in particular, are excellent; the intricate detailing belies their molded plastic construction. Much design thought has gone into the individual clothing items. While each is very well-made, it is as a collection that the story really comes together. The pieces are infinitely interchangeable and wearable. In Lorifina you truly have reached mix-and-match heaven.
Quite why she was consigned to the doll archives remains a mystery. It could be that at 20 inches tall she was too big a size commitment for adult collectors. Or perhaps the price-point of $98 was felt to be high for the kids’ market.
Seek her out while you can, Lorifina is such a versatile doll, and samples are still readily available from online sellers. Get her before the lady does vanish completely.
This feature first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine, 2013.