My oh my...11 years already!!! The last 12 months were a challenge...... I admit...we crawled throughout the year to arrive at the finish line this year! But we are still standing! It has been a case of life getting in the way of doll play!!! That said....my vinyl darlings continue to give me quite a bit of joy and I navigate difficult days. And so as long as they are still with me...as long as I am still collecting.....as long as the ladies and gentlemen in the photo above (these are just the dolls in my bedroom) stare me down each morning as if to say..... "Move your butt April and make us some new clothes"....... Fashion Doll Stylist will continue to live on.
As I've stated repetely... we are living in a new world. Covid changed the trajectory of all that existed before. To my eyes, 2020 marks the official beginning of the 21st century. Forget about everything you knew before. It's all different now and that includes fashion. Added to the personal challenges of caring for loved one with dementia, life is further complicated with toxic politics, war, social media trolls and the upside down, crazy aesthetics of fashion's new world. Fashion of the times I grew up in was elegant, classy...something today' youth calls "old money high fashion" or "quiet" luxury."
Most of the old masters of yesteryear who were alive and shaking things up years ago while I was reporting on Parisian fashion years ago: Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Hubert de Givenchy, Kenzo, Issey Miyake, Emanuel Ungaro, Andre Courreges, Paco Rabanne, Thierry Mugler, Nino Cerruti, Sonia Rykiel, Patrick Kelly, Hanae Mori, Versace, Azzedine Alaia- have, sadly passed away. Others (Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Claude Montana, Valentino Garavani, Donna Karan) have sold their businesses and moved out of the spotlight.. Most of those "ladies who lunch," socialite women like Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly and oil baroness Nan Kempner & friends who kept these high fashion brands in business--have also passed on. In their place....young rogue designers who break all the rules, celebrities often adopted as designers for name brands and the corporations who employ them. These days, it is difficult to identify the real clientele, the folks who actually buy brand name merch. But it seems the corporations cater to new money destinations: pop stars, influencers, celebrities and athletes...a market more aligned with more gritty urban and less European refined tastes. And so, for me, there lies my principal obstacle....not fitting in with the new "street style" aesthetics. Carrying "current fashion trends to my 12.5" friends has become a chore! In all fairness.....this is normal. There has been a changing of the guard.
But still..... I love my dolls. In fact, seven new faces arrived in my home over the past year. As usual, I rename my dolls. Let's meet them:
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| Meet Aurelie. She's Integrity Toys' "Ultraviolet Poppy Parker." Up until last year, I had not been a fan of this doll until I saw another's collection of Poppys of color. Aurelie is the third to enter my collection. |
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| Meet Jon. He's IT's "Sound Romain" Monarchs Doll. He's handsome--the only thing that interests my girl dolls. They would like more of him! |
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| Meet the twins. Chocolate dipped gorgeousness. On the left is Juliette, otherwise known as Earth Angel Eden from IT. On the right is Julia, a Lilith Blair doll. Both from IT. |
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| Here's Kylie. She's another gorgeous IT doll "Night Out Erin Salston" Normally I am not a fan of dolls that show teeth. But this doll knows how to smile and doesn't overdo it (except for when she arrived and saw all of the clothes, shoes and accessories at her disposal!) |
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| Liya is IT's Serving Cake Keeki Adaeze. With her copper toned hair and hazel eyes, she is simply stunning. |
I renamed IT's Naturally Cool Ayumi to "Michelle" in honor of a dear friend who passed away last year from breast cancer. This doll closely resembles my friend, a former top model from Atlanta Georgia who moved to Paris to work for the late Black designer, Patrick Kelly.
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| And last to come into the flock....MaryJae...a doll I renamed in honor of hiphop goddess, Mary J. Blige. Because of her outlandish look, Devining Beauty Adele was not a doll I had thought of buying when she came out in 2021. I am usually not a fan of blond hair on dark skin. But when I saw her on eBay for a much reduced price, I took the time to closely examine her and think about all of the possibilities. Once in hand, I noticed the drama she brings to everything she's dressed in. She is a real stand-out! |
But then we hit a wall and had to go looking all over social media to find inspiration. That's when we landed on the Instagram page of biascutwoman. The Swirl (09/23). Creating a dress out of a single slat of fabric attached to a bodice was a pattern drafting challenge that yielded fascinating results!
Before that challenge was this....a dress that emerged from a single square of fabric. We called it the AI challenge (08/22) even though biascutwoman swears it was a real pattern for a real dress. She used AI to animate the pattern into a garment. We used a doll to figure out the tweaks needed to turn it into a real dress.
Our year ended the same what it began....with red carpet dresses from the Golden Globes.
And so.... what is to become of 2024 here on my blog? All I can say is that we are taking one day at a time as I continue to adjust to my new "normal." I have not been posting on Instagram or Pinterest as regularly as I did in the past. Caring for dad gobbles up so much time. Still, I'm working hard to put more balance in my life and set aside more time for research and projects so there isn't so many wide gaps between postings.
I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your continued and loyal support and for still tuning in on those almost rare moments when I have managed to post something. I promise to get back to my reading list and visit those of you who still maintain your blogs. Doll people, you are wonderful!
Love,
April and the gang
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Bless you sweetheart. As ever I look forward to seeing your new creations and wish you peace and love.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much and thank you for your friendship. Big dolly hugs. April
DeleteHi, April...there is a special place in heaven for care givers...maybe even with lots of dolls. Love all of your posts, and I hadn't realized the bias lady was doing A-I...this shows us how long we have lived from altering see-thru, flimsy patterns of the past to now. Of course AI can scan a body, and then take the information and instantly cut a gown? But where's the heart? And, can AI feel a fabric or roll a trim? hmmm, interesting topic. I remember wanting to take CAD software and drawing classes 20 years ago and just couldn't justify the expense to 'play'. Hugs, see you soon again, Sandi
ReplyDeleteYou know, Sandi, I'm a good example of "Be careful what you wish for!" In the 1990's and beyond, I was pushing students to design for the new century and hoped the fashion industry would embrace this new technology. I even foresaw a time when designers would be able to see their creations on a catwalk before ordering the first yard of fabric for the collection. And now....it's all here...AI and everything. Am I happy? No. Because it's all decorative with little real thought to what it really looks like on the woman. I've been seeing so much AI fantasy crap from folks who haven't a clue as to how clothes are made or anything about fabric. Their images are "pretty works of art" but the real knowledge is lacking. That goes for both fashions as well as dolls. (I can't tell you how annoying it was to see so many fake Barbies flood my feed!) But here we are. Like it or not. I just hope at some point real life craftsmanship and market sensitivity will return.
DeleteBiascutwoman told me that the dress made from a square was indeed a "real pattern." But too much was lacking...no darts to fit to the body, no closures, and the floppy panels on each side left a lot to be desired when brought to life full scale. At least on the doll...it worked! April
Hallo, please forgive a random drive-by by an internet rando. I was just trawling the internet looking for advice on slopers to fit Barbie dolls and was directed to an earlier post of yours (Which was very helpful. Thank you for making it.).
ReplyDeleteWhen I find a helpful blog, if it’s still being updated, I check recent entries to see what the person is doing. So I saw that you are having some rough times.
I just wanted to say thank you for bringing beauty and interest into the world, for making beautiful things with your hands and sharing how so that other people can too. That was kind and generous of you.
I know world events, and US ones, and often personal ones too, can be disappointing and disheartening. That’s why it’s so important to share and give heart to each other and make our own corners of the world stranger and more interesting and more beautiful places, to comfort each other and to bring some joy. Because we can.
Your work is absolutely brilliant. Your recreations of high fashions capture their elegance beautifully.
I’m just a casual hobbyist, with a handful of old (but not interestingly old) Barbies and an interest in making outfits for them for my own purposes. I appreciate that you and people like you provide such inspiration and practical artmaking advice. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your very lovely message. It's always wonderful knowing that all of my hard work that goes into each blog post is appreciated. My collection of dolls, this blog, my readers and all the wonderful folks of the doll community are all instrumental in helping me get through this phase of my life. So again, thank you!
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