10 February 2020

Paper and Vinyl

Inspired by Xanadu’s post about paper dolls, I started to think about dolls in general. I remember my childhood - there was a lot of paper dolls - bought, cut out of magazines and homemade. That was a huge thing during my days as a young girl. I often used magazines with ads as a base for clothes. The clothes in the ads became the base and fabric for the clothes for the paper dolls. Some extra paper glued on, just to make the clothes stronger and more ready for play. 

Ballerina Marie, then probably Lisa and finally a Swedish sportsman as paper dolls.
Crown Princess and her Prince as paper dolls
I read an article about paper dolls and these started as a ad for fashion for the high society aristocratic ladies. Later on the paper dolls became toys for rich girls. The first paper doll in Sweden was a Swedish ballerina, Marie Taglioni, born in Stockholm 1804. Soon after that other celebrities became paper dolls. The first paper doll you could cut out yourself in a magazine came out in 1914 here in Sweden and she was called Lisa. In the 50’s and 60’s you could find Elvis, The Monkees and The Beatles as paper dolls. And Lisa, she got new clothes and accessories every week in many magazines. In the 80’s the paper dolls lost their popularity as a toy, but there are many collectors that still collect paper dolls. Some paper dolls can be worth a fortune today. The latest paper dolls here in Sweden are Crown Princess Victoria and her Prince Daniel, royalty wedding from 2018.

Skrållan
When it comes to dolls made of other material than paper, we have Skrållan and Lillan. Skrållan is Sweden’s oldest talking doll. She was made in 1966 and talks (battery needed), laughs and cries. She can say shorter phrases as ’I am thirsty’, ’I am hungry’ and so on. Lillan is a baby sister to Skrållan and even she comes in a talkative version. Today Skrållan can talk five different languages - Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian and English. Her body is soft, her hands feet and head is made out of vinyl and she closes her eyes when sleeping. These dolls have a lot of accessories (chair, bed, stroller, bike…) and are popular among kids. She is 45 cm and comes with blonde or brown hair. Lillan is 36 cm.

Three myIDolls
Of course we have Barbies, Monster High and similar dolls. The new doll on the market is something called myIDoll. The vision behind these dolls, made and manufactured in Sweden, are to inspire children to play and have fun, without the gender norms and any beauty standards. It is all about realistic human bodies in different shapes and colors. Diversity. These dolls come with boobs and genitals. The dolls are hand painted and have movable joints and a body of soft silicone. They are about 25 cm tall. Dress them as you want, pick a wig and have fun. Or maybe just grinch and walk away. Skrållan and myIDoll are not my kind of dolls, but I am glad that there are diversity in this hobby and you can find your doll and style.

You can more about myIDoll here and more about Skrållan here
And about Marie Taglioni you can read about here.

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Pictures come from Allas, myIDoll and Skrållan.

16 comments:

  1. I remember playing with paper dolls. They were of movie stars: Rock Hudson and Doris Day. I also cut paper dolls out of my mother's Spiegel Catalog.

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    1. It is something special with paper dolls!
      I remember Rock Hudson from the older days, in Dynasty.
      It would be great to someday find some old magazines with paper dolls, probably something hard to find.

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  2. I enjoyed seeing those vintage paper dolls. Makes me nostalgic. Oh and the IDolls look quite interesting. It's a nice message for kids these days particularly how hard media pushes beauty standards (that are often unhealthy!).

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    1. In another article, the founder of myIDolls, said that the seed for her idea was planted after a Christmas celebration. Her kids had gotten Barbies and similar dolls and she felt that the market needed something else. She got a lot of criticism for the shapes and the thought of genitals. She said that normal people look like that. We have even eyes and a nose, so we need to put a better example for the young children.
      When these came to the market, the opinions exploded and divided the people into two camps. It was interesting to follow the discussion and the kids I have seen with these dolls, play as they played with dolls they had before myIDolls.

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  3. I loved paper dolls as a child and usually made my own, with cardboard and drawings of people, then covering them with strips of sticky tape to make them more durable. I had hours of fun with them, making them outfits from paper and making up stories about them.
    I like the outfits on the myIDolls, they look very interesting.
    x

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    1. I could spend many hours too, playing and making clothes to the paper dolls. I used something similar to eye putty for my clothes. Did not need much at all. No stories though, I was more into the fashion and even coloring drawn clothes. Those were the days! :)
      The clothes for myIDolls are colorful and great. I wonder if the clothes would suit Barbie or even PureNeemos.
      Hugs!

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  4. I used to have so many paper dolls. The best ones were in Apu magazine, all the Miss Finlands etc. :D Oh it was magical back then. Srållan I think I've seen before, when I was a kid we had few baby dolls to take care of, but actually we liked plushies more. xD Those myIDolls are new one. First look, interesting concept, good that you can custom them to your liking. They might need a bit more work I guess, great to see the there are many different kind.

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    1. I remember the paper dolls in Apu magazines from my childhood, when visiting my relatives. Usually I cut those out. It was rather magical back then.
      I think that Skrållan has dolls even in the neighbour countries. It can speak even Finnish, if you change the language on the plate. I was more into cars, Sindy and Barbie, but I had some plushies too.
      The myIDolls are a bit special. The concept is well thought, but the dolls may need some more refinements. But it is great that there are different dolls out there, for every taste. :)

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  5. I have seen some amazing paper dolls on DevianArt and other homepages. Need to look after those blogs and see what they write about. It is always wonderful to see those vintage sets.
    Skrållans is a doll that has been around for a long time. I never had one, because I was more into Sindy dolls and Barbies. There have been some copies of this doll, but they never really made it for a long time in the market. Some refinements have been made during the years but it is great that Skrållan has been there for kids for so long.
    I agree, myIDolls, has a great concept and they are amazing in their simplicity but some fine-tuning may be needed. The founder have informed that there will be new lines, body shapes and skin colors. That may be enough, but who knows if more is needed and if the myIDolls can beat Skrållans time out there for kids. Probably not.

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  6. There is hope and I think they are into something new. While growing and making refinements, the buyers will guaranteed follow. And new ones will come too.

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  7. Don't know how I missed this post. Thanks for the mention Niina, I'm glad it inspired you to write this post, I found it very interesting. The history of the Swedish paper dolls in particular. :)
    Big hugs,
    X

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    1. Well, that can happen to anybody :) and you are welcome! Glad you like the post!
      It was interesting to read about different dolls and their history for this post. There are so many different dolls out there!
      Big Hugs!

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  8. I really enjoyed this post, you wrote about so many intresting things about dolls of different types. Thank you! :)
    I made my own paper dolls when I was a kid. I really liked playing with them - especially making clothes.

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    1. Thank you, I am glad to hear that you enjoyed the post!
      I see that many played with paper dolls as an young girl. An easy and rather cheap way to play, create and learn!

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  9. Oh, I loved paper dolls as a child. My uncle owned an stationery shop and got me 2 paper dolls albums, one with winter wear and the other with summer clothes. At some point I tried to draw my own, because that way I could make as many clothes as I wanted to .

    A couple of years ago, my sister in law got me some vintage inspired paper dolls for Christmas. It's manufactured by an spanish company called Cayro, that mostly makes board games. I haven't opened it yet, but now I really want to.

    I found your post very interesting and informative. I had never heard about those dolls before, but Skrållan reminds me a lot of the spanish Nancy doll or the italian Furga.

    Hope you have a great weekend.

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    1. Those older paper dolls, vintage ones, are so beautiful and I hope you like the one your sister in law bought you! I wish that I had saved the paper dolls I had and made. I do remember having them in a folder to keep them flat. Probably these are at my childhood home.

      Made a search for the dolls Nancy and Furga and I agree with you. I see the similarities. Nancy doll is a cute one!

      Enjoy the weekend! :)

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