by magkelly » Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:10 pm
Fashion Royalty, Integrity's main line of high end 12" dolls designed by Jason Wu. They have a very distinct haute couture semi-Asian inspired look and this "Jem" does rather resemble them more than she does old Jem. I think so anyhow. That bone structure, the eyes, it's very FR, though the eyes are not as made up as theirs generally are. I like Jason but all the Integrity fashion dolls are looking like at least partial clones of his FR work. It's because they're so successful I'd guess but it's just not very Jem, IMHO. She just doesn't really look like Jem/Jerrica at all to me. When he was producing Mel Odom's new Gene dolls the same thing kind of happened. Not all but some of the Integrity Gene dolls started to look like his idea of Lana Turner and not at all like Gene. Some people liked it, some didn't, but I personally never cared as much for those dolls. They were beautiful but for Gene they were just too hard edged. They just seemed like another character to me almost.
I don't know who designed these but they're definitely in the new Integrity style and I'm just not too sure I like her. I don't want to see Jem priced away from kids either. Jem was a kid's show. It's okay that adults love her and collect her but kids should be able to watch and fall in love with her too and at $100 she's just not for the kids. Jem's supposed to be a playline doll. A doll kids can dream with, play with, not just for adults to pose and sit on a shelf. My idea of the new Jem line was more like the old line but with articulation, and maybe wigs, sort of like Liv. $20 and under dolls that everyone could afford. A new cartoon is fine but if every doll in the collection goes for that it's not going to fly with the kids so why even bother?