Dollieh Sanctuary

At least I think that this dress came from a porcelain doll - it was being sold at a flea market by itself. The size indicates either a short porcelain doll or perhaps one of the annual Orchard House Madame Alexander dolls, since it would probably fit my Orchard House doll fairly well.

Anyway, Estella's style is actually fairly frustrating to try and find for a doll. All the Victorian dresses are really lolita dresses. Since I've had her, she's been wearing a handmade bustled ballgown, which is gorgeous but a) the string used to cinch the bodice is just thread and snapped after use so I need to find and thread through a better, stronger replacement, b) the bustle is twice as big as she is so storing her was a hassle, c) her large bust was popping out like mad, and finally d) it was not good enough for a day-to-day dress.

This dress is definitely from a much wider doll, but it was perfect for the period I wanted her dressed in and eyeballing it, it seemed right enough. To make it fit a bit better I bustled it myself. It still needs some crinoline or something underneath it, but I think it works a lot better than any of the lolita dresses out there.

My only problem is the color, but it's even harder to find dark or muted color dresses for dolls - the character's supposed to be dressed for mourning, though in her story the time for full mourning has passed so I'm thinking of just adding some jet jewelry to her to help.

Here's the "new" dress - also a "new" wig; this one fits the description of Estella's hair that I first wrote. I've actually had my eye on this wig long before I had a doll for Estella, I just never wanted to spend so much on it, but someone had it secondhand, so I got it from them the other day!



You can sort of see the gather of the bustle in this.

Very pretty dress!

It is from a Bisque shoulder plate doll called Antoinette from the Anastasha collection. My best friend showed me hers this weekend with the same dress in green.

Very pretty, and what is the odds of someone knowing where it came from?

Very pretty, and what is the odds of someone knowing where it came from?

Oh wow, thanks, Richilla! I guessed the Orchard House doll because mine is in a somewhat similar dress in lavender. I found the green one that you were talking about though! I'm going to go looking for this one now

It's a great coincidence, zirconmermaid, and a great one! Now I can find more information about it - it's a lovely little dress.

Thanks for the compliments, mica

very pretty dress

I do this all the time, raid the wardrobes of old porcelains for clothes, wigs and such. They're a good resource. There's usually a ton of them out there. They're cheap and their clothes can often be converted for other doll use. Sometimes it involves sewing a bit, altering, but it's still less expensive than buying outfits made for other dolls. I particularly like to take dresses and turn them into skirts and tops for my big girls. A lot of the time the tops won't fit adult dolls properly as made but if you separate the tops from the skirts and trim down the top and add a waistband to both, thin out the sleeves, you can often make a nice two piece outfit that will work. I've used a lot of Victorian tops as shirts for 16" fashion dolls and I can usually get 2 skirts out of a Victorian skirt.

It just depends upon how big the porcelain was to begin with and how much puffiness there is in the outfit. The bigger the outfit the more work is involved but actually there are a lot of porcelains out there with nice clothes that will fit other dolls almost unaltered. The only thing I really don't like is that I usually have to remove velcro and add snaps. I can't stand all the velcro they use on that stuff. Very rarely do you see a porcelain with snaps. It's annoying.

I usually steal the lashes and the wigs. Most are mohair but I actually have gotten some that were acrylic off them. I've stolen more than one pair of eyes from a porcelain for use elsewhere too. You do have to be really careful doing that though. Porcelain is sharp and it can fly when it breaks. I cut my finger badly a few months ago pulling a pairs of eyes from a bunch of porcelains I didn't want otherwise. I still have a little tender scar from doing it that I don't think is going to go away. Turned out they were too big for the doll I meant them for, but I'll have them in case I need them or to sell if I want. Beats spending $10-20 a pop for a pair of eyes and $25 plus for a wig though...

At this point I've got two huge bags of porcelain clothes to work with. I really should pull more of that stuff out actually. It's a lot easier to alter something that to make all new stuff. I actually have several outfits from those same dolls. Someone gave me a bunch of those when I was first collecting. I thought the clothes were nice but those dolls did nothing for me so I just deconstructed the dolls and stole their stuff for later use. I'm not sure but that dress does look familiar. Probably I have it somewhere, laugh. I think there were 4 versions? One red, one green and one in peach? Plus one in B&W.

Let's see...

I had these dolls...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gwyneth-porcela ... 20cde690c1

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANASTASIA-COLLE ... 3cc801d592

(The teddy is adorable with this one. It's jointed like a real old teddy.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Anastasia-Colle ... 3a7c93fc68

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Anastasia-Colle ... 2c6a4c84f9

(The green dress.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Anastasia-Colle ... 20cde7cea8

I altered this Celeste one for my Kitty Collier. She looks terrific in it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Anastasia-Colle ... 19d76c8a5c

Yeah, here's the peach version on Camille.

I can't find the others but there were several more including a winter outfit that was adorable. Eliza's outfit was my favorite because obviously it was inspired by the Ascot dress in My Fair Lady. That's also been altered and is in Kitty's wardrobe...

Oh, and if you like Victorian clothes that are well made another company who's dolls you should look for are Paradise Gallery. I have several very well made outfits from their character and 18" Edwardian and Victorian ladies that fit my 16" girls very well and they used nice wigs for those besides.

See the Paradise Galleries thread I made for more stuff. I think you would like their clothes and they are usually better made than the Anastasia stuff...

Interesting; I'll have to look in to that, magkelly