Beverley Senatore’s dolls just got some new moves. Her range of hand-made porcelain fashionistas are now available with articulation. The Bold Doll talks with their creator.
Beverley Senatore, the talented doll maker from the United Kingdom, previously launched a fashion doll line without articulation. Following several months of painstaking research and experimentation, she is ready to reveal her new 12-inch tall articulated doll, Milly.
These intricate new dolls are hand made in porcelain and fired in Beverley’s own kiln. With a perfectionist’s eye to detail, she designs and creates every aspect of her dolls, from painting their faces to tailoring bespoke outfits. She has enjoyed great success in the past with her dolls made for doll houses at 1:12 scale. But now she is focusing on her new passion: creating 1:6 scale fashion dolls.
The articulated dolls have similar proportions to Silkstone Barbie or Fashion Royalty dolls, just a little shorter in height. They can share 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, “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.”
“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. My future projects include sculpting men dolls. I will sculpt one body type and then sculpt different heads to fit.”
“I promote my work on Instagram as Beverley’s Doll Art. At the moment I am working on creating and designing more outfits and handbags for my dolls.” Her dressed dolls sell for £189 (GBP), and an outfit including a bag and shoes costs £45 (GBP).
This feature first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine in 2016.