Inamorata Inro doll has been released

Hi everyone,

I promoted the work of Emilia Nieminen and her Inamorata dolls before here on this blog and last Friday, February 15, her first release doll Inro was finally made available in her shop.

Look at this beautiful close up of her doll, taken by Emilia:

You can see more photos of Inro and purchase you doll at:

http://www.emiliacouture.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=29&Itemid=15

Congratulations Emilia for making this dream come true and creating an absolutely beautiful fashion doll!!!

"Divorce" Outfit from the Abbe Lane collection by Superdoll

Hi there,

There has been a new release in the "Abbe Lane" collection by Superdoll this week. The makers of the Sybarites have been inspired by glamorous retro movie star Abbe Lane to create dolls in her likeness wearing outfits inspired by her film roles as well as personal style.

On Superdoll's youtube channel, you can see videos of the glam press launch of the Abbe Lane dolls as well as of Abbe Lane herself:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCif5sF4kdrVZRwfoK9ayhqg?sub_confirmation=1

Two dolls have already been released- they are called "Wolf Whistles" and "You Devil, you", which are both still currently available at the Marl and B store, as well as the all new outfit called "Divorce":

http://marlbe.com/barbie.cfm?department=SYBARITE&category=Dolls

I really like this outfit but I am undecided sicne I normall turn to very glamorous evening or avant guarde looks. But the accessories are so cute and original- take a look at this wonderful photo taken and used with the kind permission of gerri/aquabluerose (infidel-aquabluerose.blogspot.com/).

Happy Valentine's day!

Dear all,

A very happy Valentine's day to everyone! Sybarite Domina has put on her best sultry look for you. She is wearing the hat from her own stock outfit and is holding the fur from Sybarite Couture Savage (a doll that I adore but don't have in my collection). Let's celebrate international chocolate and strawberry day!! ;-)

Inamorata dolls by Em'lia Couture - first release doll Inro

Hi everyone,

I'd like to introduce an all new fashion doll for 2013: Inamorata dolls, the creation of designer Emilia Nieminen, whose fabulous OOAK commission work on other creator's dolls I already featured in this blog (http://fashiondolldiaries.blogspot.de/2013/02/spotlight-on-one-of-kind-dolls-by-emlia.html).
This year, Emilia is ready to take the final big step to creating and distibuting her own dolls and I can tell that she is completely and utterly determined to bring her own vision of beauty and quality to other doll collectors. Emilia is currently in China supervising the production of her first limited edition doll, which will be presented further down in this blog entry, called Inro. And the way I know her, this means she holds and inspects every doll of the edition of 40 (sometimes I feel a bit sorry for the factory workers since I can only imagine what it means to work with a perfectionist inspecting every single doll you make ;) ).

One thing that struck me about Inamorata is that they are very much designed from the point of view of someone who collected dolls for many years. Every positive and negative experience that Emilia ever made when working on commission pieces went into these dolls, be it the poseability of different types of joints, the question where the visibility of joints was bothering her most when taking photos, or the natural look of bone and muscle structures in the body.

But let's jump right in with some basic facts and some photos. All photos in this blog post have been taken by Emilia Nieminen and be sure to visit her home page and flickr page to find out more about her dolls, or if you'd like to order:

www.emiliacouture.com
www.flickr.com/photos/emiliacouture

Inamortata dolls are 16" in size and have 21 points of articulation. Emilia has already reveiled two head sculpts for Inamorata: the Asian sculpt Miao and the African inspired sculpt Nnaji. Emilia told me that she spend a lot of time trying to create the most autentic sculpts she could and I think the results speak for themselves- here is Nnaji:

 

 

One great example for thinking from a collector's perspective is that Inamorata dolls comewith four different kinds of hands to increase the range of expressions for photos, but this also includes one pair of (dressing hands" that you can put on to navigate the doll's arms trough sleeves without damaging the fabric or the fingers of the doll when they tangle. The photo shows prototype designs:

 

And here you see the Miao sculpt:

 

In case you fell in love with this cute little face instantly I have good news for you: this is the screening used for the first Inamorata doll called Inro which will be commercially available and go on sale at Emilias homepage www.emilicaouture.com on February 15 in an edition of 40. There is currently no pricing information available and her outfit is still to be revealed. However, here is another photo including her exact measurements:

And finally, here are teasers of Emilia's prototype Inro doll which gives us the theme for this doll release: she is inspired by feudal Japan and Samurai harness!



2013 Valentine's day Sybarite: Sinatra

Valentine's day is traditionally called the birthday of Venus, the head sculpt used by Superdoll for most of their "regular" production dolls.
To celebrate Venus' birthday, there is often a Valentine's day doll release- last year, there was the beautiful Pompadour- I feel this doll is unfortunately a bit underrated (maybe because she is not the most versatile doll) but she is truly unique. I have her in my collection and here's a quick photo of her showing her "powdered" face and curlers.
The year before it was V3, the first doll of the latest Sybarite generation.

This year's doll is also very unique. She is called Sinatra and went on sale February 4, selling out February 5. Sinatra has a beautiful golden outfit and her accessories include a love letter, written with the feathers in her head piece. I was not sure if she is for me and also overspent on dolls the last two months or so. I am almost sure I will kick myself when she starts appearing in owner photos but I am starting to get used to it after a few years in the doll hobby, I guess: you truly cannot have everything. Even if i do want to.

Sinatra uses the Venus head sculpt. Her edition number was not given so I would assume it's 100.
The photo of Sinatra is property of Superdoll:

www. Superfrock.com

Spotlight on one of a kind dolls by em'lia

Hi everyone!

*Please note: not all pictures in this entry are work safe*

I'd like to use today's post to highlight one of my favorite doll artists out there and a dear friend to me: Emilia Nieminen of em'lia couture.

Emilia has been in the doll hobby for many years using all kinds of dolls as a canvas for her one of a kind (OOAK) creations, starting with 12" dolls, mainly Fashion Royalty, moving on to 16" fashion dolls and Asian BJDs, and finally crowning her personal ambitions with her own doll line, Inamorata, which will be covered by me in my next blog entry :-)

One of the things you will recognize when browsing her work and probably, like me, find surprising about Emilia is the sheer bandwith of her work. She seems to find inspiration in anything from period gowns to insects (which are continuously ignored by fashion creators except maybe for Patrizia Pepe with their chunky "fly" jewelry ;-) ) and always find a way to articulate it trough her work.
Another interesting aspect in em'lias work is that she, like her big idol Alexander McQueen, is never shy to use her work as a form of social commentary, also delivering painful truths wrapped up in highly conceptual ooak pieces.

In addition, I can highlight that working with Emilia on commission pieces is an absolute dream and she truly has the spirit of wanting to create something special for all her clients.

But instead of just talking, let's jump in with the dolls that are in my personal collection! All these dolls have been repainted by hand by em'lia and mostly their hair was restyled in one way or another.

This is Lisbeth, a former Fashion Royalty Giselle. Emilia and I wanted to create a doll that wa sinspired both by vivid colors and Asian influences. So, I nicknamed her my Cyber Geisha (but she doesn't like hearing that). She is wearing a blouse by HJ Couture.

And here is Linda, a former Fashion Royalty Agnes. She is loosely based on the look of classic 80's supermodels such as Linda Evangelista. I love photographing this doll, she has tons of attitude and like the real linda, she is an absolute chameleon. She is wearing clothes from Fashion Royalty in these photos.

Next, em'lia repainted a Fashion Royalty Square Dasha doll for me. The idea was simply to use natural colors so that the doll could model many different types of clothes. The dress in the picture was also made by em'lia.

Last but absolutely not least here is a doll that we named Necrosha. She is a former Sybarite Slipper with real gold embellishments on her face, bust and hands. She is barely seen in my photos. There are three reasons for this: most importantly, she represents something very personal to me which makes me relucant to show her off. Secondly, Sybarite repaints are a kind of controversial topic since they are artist dolls to begin with. I understand both sides in this discussion but in this case, I just could not resist the temptation to realize this project using a Sybarite as perfect canvas for em'lias work. Thirdly, she was damaged in her transit from Emilia to me and I fixed her according to my abilities but not sufficiently for me to avoid feeling a little pain whenever I look at her. So, if anyone out there is able to restring Sybarites and does not dislike repaints on a personal level, do let me know. Necrosha is wearing pieces from Sybarite Couture Salon and a Sybarite wig.
I called this picture Ador(n)ed.

Finally, I would like to highlight a few dolls that are not in my collection. All pictures below have been taken by Emila herself. Please be sure to visit em'lias flickr and homepage to see all her dolls:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emiliacouture/

http://www.emiliacouture.com/home/

Here is an amazing concept doll called the Black Butterfly, a former Fashion Royalty Agnes. Emilia created both doll and outfit:

Here is another former FR Agnes, pair of a set called "The Guillotines". Note this dress was made by Emilia in painstaking handwork:

Here is a doll from the Insectopia collection- as mentioned, Emilia is inspired by absolutely everything. This doll is the Golden Scarab and a former Fashion Royalty Colette:

Lastly, I would like to feature a doll from one of Emilias more controversial collections. The collection is called "Until dead do us Part". Due to what many felt as an offensive level of display of violence, Emilia was asked to remove pictures of this work from doll homepages. This collection evolves around the role of women in modern society, abuse and suicide. It is Emilias way of highligthing that women are often still looking for their rightful place in modern society and that there are many different layers and aspects to the topic of violence against women; as well as a comment on current ways of potraying women in the media.

Here is what Emilia has to say on the doll called "Hunger": "The second doll "Hunger" also has suicidal tendencies. She is a young girl who falls in love, and marries, a vampire as is "fashionable" in the TV nowadays. However, the story doesn't get a romantic happily ever after ending, but far more real one. It is also a potential ending to any girl who in real life falls for a guy with the "I don't know whether to kiss you or kill you" pick up line. I think the trend of romanticising danger is not a healthy one, though admittedly it is not the first time murderous rebels are idealised".

My short but but intense aquaintance with Numina dolls

Hi everyone,

To start off this blog entry, I would like to let a beautiful doll speak for herself- please meet my "Debut" Ajuma, a mesmerizing 16" resign doll made by Dollcis Numina (sorry for the less than ideal photo quality, I took this with my iphone such as many other pictures in this post):

One of the things I like so much about this doll is her very unique and authentic head sculpt. It is a fact that many other doll companies create head sculpts that can be used for different characters of different ethnicities by just changing the color of the material. I do not blame this method as such (maybe I am going to dedicate a blog post to this topic?) but I absolutely love seeing ethnical sculpts that are exactly that: a representation of the things that make people unique (and beautiful).

Here is another picture of her wearing a Sybarite wig and a Sybarite outfit called "Bugged":

This doll really deserves a proper photo shoot with proper light and camera soon!

I was still able to stay away from Numina dolls for a remarkably long time, maybe because the first head sculpts released by them were less appealing to me personally. I started to be really interested when I started seeing more and more images of the absolutely amazing head sculpt with Asian influences, Devon. Here is a photo taken by Paul Pham, owner and designer of Dollcis, showing one of his Devon dolls:

(And please do check out the gallery of all Numina dolls to date at http://dollcis.com/wordpress/?page_id=4 )

However, I continued to resist telling myself I had no more resources (namely space and money) to collect another 16" doll line until I met Paul Pham and a few of his dolls in person at the Paris Fashion Doll Festival (PFSF) 2012 in Paris.

I was struck both by the elegant facial details, bodies and fashions of the Numinas he had on display as well as the sheer friendliness and love of dolls radiating from owner and designer Paul Pham, for whom these dolls are obviously the realization of a long dream. It is always inspiring to meet creators who just love dolls, and to learn about dolls that are so important to their creators that every single ones has been checked, touched up and worked on by them personally. I get this impression very strongly from the Numina dolls, as well as from the Sybarites and a few other "smaller" doll creators (compared to companies releasing thousands of purely factory made dolls each month). Another creator who is probably the most extreme will be featured here soon, too, and is my good friend em'lia :)

Here are a few snap shots I took at the Paris Fashion doll festival while Paul Pham was luckily not the slightes irritaed by a crazy doll fan robbing on the floor in front of his booth at the festival ;)

Here is Atropa, a limited edition doll of five for the festival. The chance to buy her was raffled among the participants interested but unfortunately my name was not among the winners. Paul mentioned she was inspired by vintage horror movies- she uses the Devon sculpt:

Here is a Prototype doll using the Ajuma sculpt but with a lighter skin color:

And here is a dark skinned Ajuma prototype- sorry for the very blurry photo, I was literally shaking in the way I only get excited when seeing beautiful dolls ;)

Last but not least, be sure to like Numina on Facebook if you want to see more pictures and updates:

facebook.com/NuminaDoll