Could they be the next Bratz?? After Barbie jealously murdered her rival last year, there hasn't been much new competition. But these dolls look pretty cool:"Spin Master Ltd. is launching Liv dolls, a line of teenage fashion dolls. Spin Master says the girls are targeted at girls aged six to ten. The dolls include Daniela, Sophie, Katie and Alexis.
"Spin Master says some features of the dolls include 14 points of movement, easy to change wigs, insertable glass eyes and detailed fashions. Accompanying the retail launch of Liv is livworld.com, which offers a daily narrative of each doll's life to anyone who's purchased the doll. Liv dolls have a unique access code that opens an online world and invites girls to learn more about each Liv doll and play wth the Liv doll's virtual closet.
""Liv shines because it looks amazing and is incredibly realistic," says Nicole Perez, Senior Marketing Director helming Spin Master's new girls' division based in Los Angeles. "Not only do Liv dolls stand out because of their outstanding design and features, but they are deeper than your average fashion doll. Each teen has a detailed, relatable story that girls will love to follow." Liv dolls are in stores now and retail for $19.99 and accessory items range from $5.49 to $19.99."
Well, I don't know if I need a doll to be "deep" but the removable hair/wigs really appeal to me, and these dolls look more jointed and pose-able than Bratz dolls. And they look cuter and less insipid than Barbie. They actually remind me quite a bit of the Japanese Momoko dolls which are absolutely amazing but also prohibitively expensive...unless you are a Japanese collector with quite a bit of disposable income, in which case you probably have a good-sized collection of these dolls which you enjoy by: taking them on vacation with you, photographing them / posting your photos online, and sewing, knitting, and designing your own fashions for them. I'm not even kidding. If you do a Google Image search using the key words "momoko doll," you will find the most impressive assortment of photos lovingly posted by Japanese adult collectors of the doll.
It's about time somebody produced a cheap American Momoko doll rip-off which we Americans can enjoy in our own non-committal, non-intense, non-Japanese way. Why should the Japanese have all the fun (just because they commit more fully to their weird hobbies)?
I know it's been said before, but Japanese people are deeply strange.
ReplyDeleteHeh heh! I know! Or, as a very funny person once said ;) "those Japanese people are really fucking up their kids."
ReplyDeleteBut I guess that's slightly off-topic here, since Momoko collectors are adults. There are definitely adult American doll collectors too--like Barbie collectors and people who buy those stupid Marie Osmond dolls--but they don't go the extra strange step of taking them on vacation and photographing them "on location."
It's weird but I also admire it--they have such an obsessive devotion to their hobbies. I think American collectors tend to get more concerned with the "value" of their collections, to the point where they sometimes don't even take the doll out of the box. That seems joyless and lame to me.
Momokos are collected all over the world. I have some here in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI think that there's less stigma regarding doll collecting in Japan than there is in the U.S. for example. So the Japanese feel freer to create and to enjoy their hobby. Equally passionate doll and action figure (DAF) collectors in the U.S. exist, but we tend to stick to ourselves. You can see and read about my American DAF collecting at my blog,
http://phillycollector.blogspot.com/
I have links to other collectors and DAF discussion boards. So you can see, I am not alone ;-)
Regarding not taking dolls from the box, that sometimes has more to do with lacking space to place opened dolls. When you have hundreds or thousands of dolls, it's harder to keep them dusted if they are all and always deboxed.
Again, you're welcome to visit. I love hearing from new people.
I'd like to get some of the Liv dolls and to replace their heads with more proportionate Barbie or other fashion doll heads. Best of two worlds, ha!
ReplyDelete