Garden of Earthly Delights

OOAK fashion IT doll Agnes ‘Up with a Twist’ (my repaint), which has won an Industry Award from DOLLS Magazine.  Pretty chuffed about that.  I think I’ll have to remake her small head ornament, those feathers (Galah feathers I found) are the wrong colour pink for this outfit.  Silk and freshwater pearls, Galah feathers.  Freshwater pearl jewellery with gold plated findings.

Inspired by Cara Delevigne’s red dress at the Oscars for 2023.

I haven’t done a close up of her repaint so there is some reflections on her face. This Agnes is also on a NU.Face body with the smaller bust. I usually only use natural light for photography, as I have done here with my Fuji XE4. Occasionally I’ll use a small lamp. I do minimal post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, mostly because I’m not very skilled in it.

‘Waterfall’ OOAK silk dress on Integrity Toys doll Kyori Sato ‘Karma’ (2018). Industry Choice Award from DOLLS Magazine for fashion design, my repaint. Inspired by a trip to the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in 2019 where I saw some fantastic coloured pencil pencil paintings by the Aussie artist Peter Eglington. The feathers are Toucan feathers I found outside a pet shop in Canberra years ago.

Hoping to drum up some interest in sales before I head to Baltimore for the Integrity Toys convention from 9th-12th October. That way I can take them with me and deliver them at the convention. If someone is interested in buying but is not going to the IT convention that’s fine too, but postage is NOT included in these prices. High resolution images are up on FLICKR at https://www.flickr.com/photos/joolsmanley

I have five complete OOAK dolls with outfits for sale, plus 21 that are outfits only. All of them include shoes and accessories.

Circe’s Garden
Ayumi Nakamura – London by Night (2008)
New NU.face body
Inspired by John Galliano for Dior (2007).  Silk underlay with tulle overlay.  Vintage Thai silk bodice, hat and skirt tie.  Beaded neckline, silk ribbon ties on hat and neck.  Separate petticoat underneath.  Includes IT black shoes with ribbon ties. My repaint – SOLD

Anna Karenina
Poppy Parker IT doll – Japan skin tone, NU.face body
Silk top and separate skirt.  Top is embroidered with beads.  Velvet ribbon necklace and freshwater pearls.  Tiny handbag.  Inspired by the movie costumes for Anna Karenina which are highly stylelised but give the impression of historical clothing.  Black patent faux leather shoes.
My repaint – SOLD

Oveture
Lilith Blair – possibly Lead Singles?
NU.face body first version
Silk dress circa 1810-20 embroidered with gold coloured thread and freshwater pearls.  It was actually made to showcase a piece of vintage cotton Alençon lace which is on the bottom of the dress because I didn’t want to cut it up.  The lace is very old but still in good condition.  Separate petticoat underneath. Freshwater pearl jewellery and recycled mink stole.
My repaint – SOLD

Les Liaisons dangereuses
Poppy Parker –  High heeled Poppy body.
18^th Century silk dress inspired by the movie because this particular Poppy reminded me of Michelle Pfeiffer.  Freshwater pearl earrings, velvet ribbon necklace and customised fan.  Petticoat and shoes.  Separate petticoat underneath.
My repaint – SOLD

A Lady and Her Lute
Poppy Parker – Go See!
Re-bodied on a new NU.face body
Indian silk overdress with Indian metallic embroidered trim, silk under-dress, broiderie anglaise petticoat, blue IT boots.  Freshwater pearl jewellery and glass beads, findings and freshwater pearl headdress.  One sixth scale lute.
My repaint – SOLD

Inspired by a dress (1935) in the movie Atonement.  I’ve tried this dress quite a few times and it just doesn’t work out at 1/6 scale the way I want it to, not enough fabric to add weight to the skirt.

Inspired by the designers Rodarte (Kate and Laura Mulleavy).

Inspired by the costume designer Eiko Ishioka.  This was my entry for the IT convention OOAK comp and the them was simply ‘gold’.  I have bought the jewellery in Vrindavan, India in 2013 and the dress is pretty much a fantasy piece designed to display the jewellery.  The model is an IT doll Isha (my repaint). Sorry about the photo, not very good.

Denise Travers http://www.denisesdolls.com is very kindly taking a few of my OOAKs to the Portland Convention for me as I’m travelling in other countries before I get to Portland.  If anyone wants to see the little catalogue please feel free to email Denise at dtdoll38@yahoo.com  and she can send a PDF file.  Had to fix the formatting, sorry.

Up for sale are:

The Snow Queen

Poppy – Welcome to Misty Hollows 2017 on a 2017 Nu-Face body
$500 USD
Inspired by Alexander McQueen this was my entry for the 2017 IT Fairytale convention OOAK competition. Tulle over white silk.  The headdress is finished with freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals on a silk hat. The tulle veil over the antlers is weighted with clear rock crystal beads.  Customised The Vogue shoes.
Everyone knows Hans Christian Andersen’s Snow Queen, bit of a narcissist, or possibly psychopath. Perhaps she wasn’t evil, just misunderstood. Fairytales often had good advice for children, some of it to prepare them for the realities of adulthood perhaps?  Well the original versions anyway.

Theodora

Elise Jolie – J’Adore La Fête 2015
$500 USD
Inspired by the 6th Century Empress Theodora. Silk underdress with silk overdress (well I think it’s silk but I bought this fabric in India and I’m not sure) embroidered with freshwater pearls.  Headdress of freshwater pearls and coral.
A girl who rose from the slums of Constantinople to marry Justinian II, if I recall. Ruthless, ambitious, and she kept her head.

Fasten Your Seatbelts

Agnès Von Weiss (Festive Decadence 2009?) on an FR2 body
$500 USD
Inspired by the great movies of the 1940s this is an OOAK Japanese kimono silk outfit trimmed with recycled mink. I can’t remember whose purse she has stolen.  She is wearing soft purple The Vogue ankle boots.
Agnès has the best ‘resting bitch-face’ on a doll I’ve ever seen.

Veruska

Clash Control – Erin (2008) original NU.Face body
$350
Probably inspired by Jean-Paul Gaultier.  Japanese silk top with silk skirt.  Adorable little IT shoes with beading a feathers.  Faux fur stole and hat.  Chunky IT jewellery.
She sort of accidentally ended up looking a little Russian – she doesn’t actually look like Veruschka at all.

Blue Moon

Sneak Peek – Eden Blair (2015)
SOLD
Purple silk dupion dress with IT shoes.  Accessories in freshwater pearls and glass beads. The dress incorporates a tulle petticoat. Silk clutch purse (which opens).
I think I was looking at modern haute couture Dior at the time.  The bodice is a drafted pattern, but the skirt is freehand folding, which is what interested me.

Valentino

Kyori Sato – Dangerous to Know 2013
$400 USD

Inspired by Valentino, the master of feminine dress.  Silk dupion with freshwater pearl accessories and silk hat.  IT shoes.
More than that I cannot say, she’s a mystery unto herself.

Such a Little Neck

Lillith Blair (I think from Element of Surprise 2008)
$500 USD

This is an historical dress from around the early 16th C, approx. 1536.  Silk overdress with silk petticoat with gold lace which is lined with white cotton lace.  Beaded headdress and freshwater pearl earrings.   DG girl red boots.
‘Such a Little Neck’ – she’s called that because she reminded me of Anne Boleyn. I think I’d been watching the Tudors. Anyway, being beheaded is a very cruel way to die, and strangely enough, it happened to ambitious women quite a lot in those days. The dress is historical from around the 1530’s and it is silk and cotton.

Sansa

DG Girl – Holland, London Calling Collection 2013
Inspired by Game of Thrones.  Silk underdress with silk tabbard top, embroidered belt and headdress withs ome freshwater pearls. Half slip petticoat underneath.  DG Girl boots.
This little doll reminded me of Sansa at the beginning of Game of Thrones, sweet and innocent, and we all know it went horribly wrong eventually.

Finally,

Belladonna

Agnès Von Weiss, October Issue on an FR2 body
SOLD
Inspired by Jean-Paul Gaultier.  Vintage black Alençon lace over silk dupion, and lightly beaded to show the pattern.  Tulle frills on the bottom.  Velvet stole lined with silk. Glass bead jewelry.  Completed by black IT ankle boots that are finished with tiny leather flowers.

Integrity Toys fashion doll convention, Orlando Florida
19th – 21st October 2017

Off to the IT fashion doll convention in Orlando on Monday. I sometimes wonder if I’m quite sane travelling to the other side of the planet for just a week for fashion dolls, but the theme of ‘Fairytale Fashion’ was irresistible.  I’m also taking two OOAK competition dolls but who knows?  I read the original versions of Grimm’s fairytales as a kid, and as struck by the insanity, violence and miserable lives some kids had to endure.  The only ‘fairytale’ thing about some of these stories was some kind of supernatural intervention and/or justice in the end.  I think as a result my competition entries look a bit angry and sad, so that’ll put people off – oh well.  I’ll put the comp entries up after the convention.

Here are the five OOAKs, one with an Integrity Toys dress, that I’m taking with me, hopefully to sell with Denise Travers, who will have her sales room there.

Integrity Toys Doll:  Poppy Parker ‘Joyous Celebration’, my repaint.
Early 1960s vintage Thai silk dress.

Integrity Toys doll:  Eugenia Frost – my repaint.  Can’t remember which one unless I look it up.  Integrity Toys dress, loosely 1950s style.

Integrity Toys doll:  Vanessa ‘In Bloom’, my repaint.
Late 18^th century style dress in vintage Thai silk, silk underskirt.  The basket is made from vintage French millinery straw.  The hat is from another IT convention a few years ago.  I have always had mixed feelings about this style of dress.  It was romantic and feminine, but it was also expensive, impractical, restricting of movement, and represents some of the worst excesses of the European aristocracy.   Fortunately, the dolls don’t care.

Integrity Toys doll:  Imogen ‘City Girl’ – my repaint.
Mid 18^th century Scottish style dress, although this tartan did not come into being until much later with the Black Watch, but I couldn’t find any silk in Flora MacDonald’s tartan (some of my ancestors are also from the Isle of Skye).  I was looking at Scottish fashion around the time of the battle of Culloden.  The white rose in the beret was a symbol for the Jacobites, and not for the last time clothes became part of political resistance and identity.  Silk skirt and wrap with fine Indian lawn shirt, black cotton vest.

Integrity Toys Doll:  Elise – my repaint.  She has also had a new hair job in synthetic mohair so I don’t know which Elise.
Early 16^th C silk dress.  Sky blue vintage silk satin embroidered with glass beads and freshwater pearls, with an underskirt in Indian silk brocade.  She vaguely reminded me of Elizabeth I, and the dress style is from around 1540s, although I think Elizabeth I would have had a great many more pearls on her dress.

More after the IT convention, which is going to be heaps of fun!

Cuba was quite similar to Mexico in that the Spanish influence was very evident.  Cuba was beautiful and fascinating but as you can imagine there were very few dolls, and certainly I didn’t see one single Barbie.  I did see some really interesting dolls though.  The doll below belonged to a fortune teller in the main square near our hotel in the old section of Havana (I could tell you the square but I’m too lazy to look it up).  The doll was watching a space for her owner, and I can assure you it didn’t look like anyone was going to touch her, or even go near her, any time soon.

Guardian doll, Havana, Cuba

Fortunate teller, Havana, and her guardian doll

Somehow she was more than a mere fortunate-teller.  More of a spirit guide really, and she reminded me strongly of the South American beliefs of Candomblé.

The other interesting thing found all over the places we visited was the dressed statues in churches.  This figure has the most beautiful velvet dress and gold lace head scarf.  You can see in many of these images that a woman covering her head is by no means unusual in many cultures.

Black Madonna or saint, Basilica Menor de San Francisco de Asis, Old Havana, Cuba (I don’t know the significance of the pole-axe).

The image below was taken in an artists’ street in Havana and was mostly African Cuban works.  This little corner is decorated with various figures, and the black dolls heads on the two stumps are intriguing.

Street garden, Old Havana

There were other dressed figures in various churches.  There was so much to see the image below is just one example of embroidered clothes on figures of saints or madonnas.

These tiny wire figures were also found everywhere.

Small wood and wire figures, Havana market.

Lastly, because I liked the horse (OK, the guy is cute too, but anyone under thirty is cute when you are as old as I am).  I didn’t have time to compose the shot, only a few seconds.

Horse and rider, Trinidad de Cuba, Cuba

In late August 2016 we were in Guatemala for about a week.  If you want to see really good photography on Mexico City, Guatemala and the Caribbean you might want to visit my partner’s blog Murray Foote.  This one is more about dolls and I’m not claiming to be much of a photographer.

Guatemala is a magical place, although probably summer is not the best time to visit.  The advantage was that we were the only guests at the time.  The El Sombrero Ecolodge is delightful, and it is a short car ride away from the Mayan site of Yaxha.  Naturally there weren’t many dolls to be found at the Lodge, but the sunsets were great, and Tikal and Yaxha are amazing.

Sunset over Yaxha Lagoon

El Sombrero Ecolodge is located in the Yaxha Lagoon in the Yaxha-Nakum- Naranjo National Park in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve in Peten, Guatemala. It is only one hour drive from Tikal and Flores and 30 minutes from the Belize Border.

http://www.elsombreroecolodge.com/

Part of the Mayan complex at Tikal – just to set the scene

At Tikal there were plenty of Mayan dolls for sale to tourists.  We were approached by a local Mayan guide who asked if we wanted to hire him (sadly no, we didn’t).  However, he told an interesting story.  Anyone who visits Tikal is required to make a sacrifice, as it is a sacred site (and he was not referring to money here).  I believed him, the place is a huge site and totally awe-inspiring.

Little dolls made from dried corn leaves

Corn doll seller, Tikal

This lady had set up her stall a bit away from the main tourist shops which sold all the usual stuff, as well as the rag dolls common everywhere.