Disney Dolls Appreciation Discussion

[Shivatopia]

Once again, as a friendly reminder, let's please try to keep the thread on topic. There are other threads more suitable for announcing new releases. This thread was meant to discuss and share pictures and reviews on the actual dolls. Thanks!

 

[alex555]

This set is perfect, and must buy for me !

This is officially the 1st release of a 12in Ariel doll in her Pink gown. The 17 in Singing one looks good as well, but she's too big for me to display it. Also, I have been looking forward to buy a Prince Eric doll in his Wedding outfit after getting my Wedding Ariel, unfortunately he kinda was hard to get since the current one being sold at stores is the one in his Regular outfit. I really hope this sets come to America soon !

 

[Lilianne89]

Since this is an appreciation thread, I want to express my deep appreciation & give a big shout out to DRJ1828 for helping me get the Disney parks classic princesses, which I've been dreaming to add them to my collection and thanks to the kind help of DRJ1828 they're finally here and they're perfect!

So here they are, my newest addition to my princess collection

I love them, they're perfect!! Thanks so much for everything DRJ, you're amazing!!!!

 

[Selithiel]

I know this doesn't really go here, but plenty of people here still seem to be looking for the Designer Princess dolls. I wanted to let you guys know that someone in my area is selling Tiana, Mulan, and Jasmine for $100 each, so if anyone is in need of them just toss me a message and I'll see what I can do. I normally wouldn't mention this, but that's cheaper than they go for on ebay.

 

[Shivatopia]

And now for the grand finale! Cruella de Vil is my favorite Disney villain, and I was incredibly disappointed when it was announced that she was the last of the series to be released. More waiting! But luckily, the wait was totally worth it! Luckier still is that this year, the Designer doll collection seems to have fizzled in the sharks' faces when their sad attempts at selling the first few dolls failed. This eliminated the madness of last year, and the only people who showed up at the retail stores to buy the dolls in person seem to be actual collectors.

Designer Cruella de Vil

First, I want to put a disclaimer that I do have a strong bias in Cruella de Vil's favor, so naturally, I am going to say that she is my favorite doll in the collection. She is not perfect, but her pros outweigh the cons by far. Of the six Designer Villain dolls, she is the one that can easily stand alone as a fashion doll without being entrenched in otherworldly symbolism (hair horns, crowns, octopus tentacles), because Cruella is a character from a story set in the real world. Furthermore, Cruella's character is supposed to be a fashionista, and I think the Disney artisans captured that well. Sure, she is dripping in Cruella's classic iconography (fur coat, slinky dress, cigarette holder), but one can very easily see her at a gala event or the fashion runway.

Let's start with Designer Cruella's face. For purposes of this collection, Disney has beautified Cruella greatly. The character from the film has an almost skull-like quality to her face with her gaunt features, slightly turned up nose, super-prominent cheekbones and jawline, and her inhuman wide smile. The doll does have some of these features, but they have been toned down considerably to make her more glamorous. Her mouth, in particular, has a downward turn that seems uncharacteristic of the normally jovial Cruella, but she has prominent cheekbones and a visible jawline that is still pretty (it is not as heavy as Designer Queen Grimhilde's jawline). Her eyes are gorgeous. With a sly side glance and heavily lidded eyes, one can feel her sneakily eyeing Anita and Roger's dalmatian puppies, imagining what sort of fur coat their pelts would make. Her eyeshadow is actually a shimmering silvery-green color with black eyeliner. A line of dark lavender shadows over each eye beautifully. Like all of the dolls in the collection, she has rooted eyelashes that compliment her quite well.

Designer Cruella's hair is neatly coiffed, but it really looks like Lady Tremaine's hairdo, though the color blocking is not the same (Lady Tremaine has white and dark grey hair, while Cruella has black and white. Designer Cruella also has a pretty row of white curled bangs. To be honest, I was never crazy about her big bubble updo, especially since it does resemble Lady Tremaine's hairdo. I still believe that they should have given her a super-chic pageboy or bob haircut that could have still followed her traditional half-white/half-black hair color. If I had any talent in rerooting, that would have been something I would have considered doing for my deboxer doll. If Designer Cruella did not have her massive fur coat to balance the size of her hairdo, she would look very top-heavy.

Her dress is certainly a re-imagined gown that contains elements of her original design, but is more exaggerated all around. Even in the original novel 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, Cruella is described as always wearing form-fitting satin gowns, her favorite mink coat, and contrasting jewels. Oddly, Designer Cruella has a black sequined dress with only a black satin lining. I find that ironic, because the Disney Designer doll collections tend to overuse satin to death, but the one character that is supposed to wear satin only has it as linings for her garments. Her black sequined gown has a very daring low neckline that comes down to her naval. At the bottom of the V-neckline is a large faux diamond. The dress also features a rather high slit on the side of her dress to show off her shapely legs. The hemline continues well past her feet.

Cruella's mink coat is quite massive. Unlike the design sketch, it looks more shaggy than rounded. I attribute that to the type of faux fur used in the coat's construction. The hem of the coat makes an attempt to imitate the rounded ends of Cruella's classic look, but they kind of ended up looking like the edge of Designer Maleficent's cloak. I think that could have been done better, personally. The coat has a red satin lining. The sleeves are 3/4 length, and the opening is more fitted than I would have liked. She should have wide sleeves. I think they excluded the three mink tails that are supposed to hang from the back of her collar.

Designer Cruella has a bunch of accessories. She has bold red satin gloves, a turquoise gemstone ring (sewn on her right hand glove to give the illusion of her wearing the ring outside of her glove), matching turquoise gemstone earrings, her slender cigarette holder, and her mink-tail purse. Her satin gloves look good with her outfit, but in general, on dolls, satin gloves do not tend to fit very well (re: Designer Queen Grimhilde & Designer Queen of Hearts). Her jewels are sparkly and eye-catching. Her cigarette holder (and cigarette) could have been made a bit bigger to be more visible and to scale. Her purse is made completely out of hard plastic, and also seems a bit small.

For some unknown reason, they gave her black high-heeled shoes. Cruella de Vil has always had red shoes, and even the Design sketch has her in red shoes. Once again, something between the translation of the character sketch to the doll's creation got lost.

Overall, I love Designer Cruella de Vil a lot. So like with the Designer Princess dolls, I lucked out that my favorite character from the featured group also ended up being my favorite from the collection. I would have given Designer Cruella de Vil a different hairdo, red shoes, and altered some of the design elements of her mink coat, but she is a gorgeous and prized addition to my collection. She was worth the excruciating wait!



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 01 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 03 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 08 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 09 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 10 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 06 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr



Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 15 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr

 

[Selithiel]

Wonderful review and pictures Shiva! She is also my favorite in the collection (which is why I am so disappointed I can't pick her up yet - oh well!). I think she is just so wonderfully done, and as you stated, the pros definitely outweigh the cons on this one. I like your idea for the hair - it could have been similar to how they rooted designer Snow White's, only without the big curls at the end. She certainly is beautiful, and I really look forward to getting her!

I have to ask - what is your ranking for all 6? I think mine is: Cruella, Grimhilde, Queen of Hearts, Mother Gothel, Ursula, and Maleficent (despite Maleficent being my favorite villain - those horns just killed it for me!).

 

[Shivatopia]

Wonderful review and pictures Shiva! She is also my favorite in the collection (which is why I am so disappointed I can't pick her up yet - oh well!). I think she is just so wonderfully done, and as you stated, the pros definitely outweigh the cons on this one. I like your idea for the hair - it could have been similar to how they rooted designer Snow White's, only without the big curls at the end. She certainly is beautiful, and I really look forward to getting her!

I have to ask - what is your ranking for all 6? I think mine is: Cruella, Grimhilde, Queen of Hearts, Mother Gothel, Ursula, and Maleficent (despite Maleficent being my favorite villain - those horns just killed it for me!).

Than you, Selithiel! I think my Designer Villain doll ranking is now holding at: Cruella de Vil, Mother Gothel, Queen Grimhilde/Ursula (tied), Queen of Hearts, and last is also Maleficent for me (yup, it's the hair horns). These may change once my doll set comes in on Wednesday, because as of right now, I only have three of the dolls in hand (the Designer Mother Gothel I deboxed, plus Designer Queen Grimhilde and Designer Cruella, which are gifts). So stay tuned for my last three reviews later this week!

 

[stybbafirefoot]

LOVE the Aurora from this set, shame she's so hard to get hold of

 

[Merriennes]

Awww I am soooo jealous, I have been trying to get the Jasmine and Mermaid Ariel Park versions to finish my set, they didn't have either in Disneyland Paris when I went there the other week. Hopefully I will manage to get them elsewhere in the end though ;o)

Since this is an appreciation thread, I want to express my deep appreciation & give a big shout out to DRJ1828 for helping me get the Disney parks classic princesses, which I've been dreaming to add them to my collection and thanks to the kind help of DRJ1828 they're finally here and they're perfect!

So here they are, my newest addition to my princess collection

I love them, they're perfect!! Thanks so much for everything DRJ, you're amazing!!!!

 

[ElysionsPrincess]

I am SO excited for my Cruella to come in. She's the only one of the line I just HAD to have! She is so gorgeous!

 

[PrincessxJasmine89]

Shivatopia, I actually ADORE reading your reviews, they're so detailed and well written! Cruella is the only doll I own from the set, and my goodness she is soooooooooo beautiful... I've never been swayed so much when seeing a doll in person as I was with Cruella at the store yesterday- I never intended to get any of the dolls! :lol: She now sits proudly near the darker corner of my collection... next to all the Brave dolls :lol: They're the only dolls I own not dressed in bright, Princess-esque colours!

 

[RapunzelSalat]

You are right about her hair. It doesn't quite read "Cruella" to me. Although she is still an amazing doll. I would have liked to have seen her hair half white and half black (which is her signature look) and in some other grand style. Hold your hand over parts of her hair so you can just see one color on each side and you will see how much more "her" she might have looked even if she just had the half n' half color.

 

[ryn1690]

I got me an extra Cruella so I can debox her and add some things ...Just wanted to share

I took the one that looks like it's kissing her off because it seemed awkward LOL.

 

[Shivatopia]

Great pics, Ryan! The inclusion of the dalmatian puppies with Designer Cruella looks great, but if she actually had her hands on those puppies... well, all I can say is: poor puppies!

By the way, here's what Designer Cruella de Vil looks like with red shoes. I think she looks much better with them. Once again, I guess it's a good thing that Disney falls short just a bit with some of their dolls, because the deficiencies get my creative juices running. It's always a lot of fun when I am pushed to take that extra step to personalize my dolls to my own tastes.


Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 20 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Cruella de Vil - 3632 - 21 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr

 

[ryn1690]

OOOOOOOHHHHHHH I love the red shoes on her, they look great!!!!

 

[ElysionsPrincess]

Oh yeah, red shoes are definitely better! She looks beautiful!
Ryn1690, I love the puppy pictures! Especially the last one! It looks like its going to give her a kiss!

 

[alex555]

Yeah, those red heels make a good difference! Is there any Disney Store doll that comes with red heels? The only one I can think of is Gothel, but her heels are more of a Dark red than the bright red this Cruella doll needs.

 

[Shivatopia]

Yeah, those red heels make a good difference! Is there any Disney Store doll that comes with red heels? The only one I can think of is Gothel, but her heels are more of a Dark red than the bright red this Cruella doll needs.

The 12" Lady Tremaine doll from the Cinderella doll gift set is the only Disney Store doll I've found so far that has red high-heeled shoes. Among the princesses, Mulan typically has red shoes, but they always give her flats (which is more appropriate for Mulan, but not for Cruella de Vil).

And you're right, Designer Mother Gothel has magenta/wine colored shoes, which also don't suit Cruella either.

 

[Shivatopia]

Behold! Summoned from the very depths of Hell, here is the Mistress of All Evil: Maleficent! Not a queen or a witch (as I have heard many people call her), Maleficent is an evil fairy with more pride than you can shake a stick at. I'll be honest that I was underwhelmed by the Designer Maleficent doll when I first saw her, primarily based on what I saw from the neck up. But now that I have one in hand, I can now give you my current thoughts on her...

Designer Maleficent

So, even though she was the first doll to be released from the series, because I had pre-ordered the entire doll set on August 20th, I held off from obtaining one until my pre-order set arrived. She just did not have the same allure to me the way Designer Cruella de Vil and Designer Mother Gothel did.

However, after being able to study her up close, Designer Maleficent is a very impressive doll... at least from her hairline on down. I do love her outfit, which fuses elements of her scaly dragon form as well as her classic evil fairy robes. The bodice of the gown and unattached sleeves are made of a pleather material topped with a frill of black tulle. I do have to question the wisdom of the tulle, since it just seems a bit too girly for a hardened character like Maleficent. At the bottom of the bodice, over her hips, the pleather is layered to resemble the scales of a dragon. This is well-executed and really strongly conjures a mental image of her dragon form. The fitted skirt of the gown is made of black velvet with purple and red satin inset vertical panels drawing up from the hemline, which ties back to her original character design. The tight fit of her dress is a departure from the big voluminous, flowing costume that Maleficent traditionally wears, but in this case, it somehow works, especially with the pop of color from the satin insets.

Her cloak is a separate garment with a jeweled clasp at the base of her neck. I think that the purple collar framing her face is a nice touch--again, drawing from her original character design. The cloak, itself, is made of soft black velvet with a purple satin lining. The bottom hemline of the cloak is cut to resemble the ragged edges of Maleficent's original robes. I am not sure if I like the smooth clean edges of the sides of the cloak or not. Since they gave her the detached fitted pleather sleeves to match her svelte gown, she does not have the visual presence of the jagged flame-like edges of her original design's robe, and the smooth clean edges of Designer Maleficent's cloak seem too tame and... dare I say it, soft? That said, I'm not sure if making Designer Maleficent's cloak have jagged edges all around would have looked good. It's hard to say, because Maleficent's traditional outfit is actually a huge one-piece robe with all of the dramatic elements built into the design for a 2-dimensional character. In the film, she does not appear to be wearing separates.

Designer Maleficent's face is pretty and also true to her character, but the actual shape of her head is all wrong. They gave her an amused, slightly mocking, expression with beautiful side-glanced eyes and rooted eyelashes. Her eye makeup is in shades of purple and green, and I was quite surprised that they used a purple color of her eyebrows. The whites of her eyes are appropriately yellow, and it is actually not as disturbing as I thought it would be. She has an amused smile bathed in a dark raspberry color. Now, as beautiful as her face is, and even though her face does instantly make me think of Maleficent, the shape of her head throws me off. Maleficent has a very long and narrow head with a very long, pointed chin. This doll sculpt subtley incorporates a more prominent chin and pronounced cheekbones to give the illusion of a narrower head, but it does not really work for me. I get more of a feeling that this is a pretty woman who is dressing up as Maleficent for Halloween rather than that this is actually Maleficent.

I will only take a moment to discuss her hair: less than impressive. Instead of looking like the curved sharp horns of Maleficent's headdress, they look like round bunny ears made of hair with the sloppy tied off ends in the back that many of us have discussed before. In this area, they needed to execute her hairstyling to perfectly match the design sketch in order for this to be successful. They failed to do that. It would have been better if she had her horns as part of the head sculpt (like the Mattel Great Villains Maleficent doll), or if they had imitated the hairstyle and ornamental horned tiara that Kristen Bauer Van Straten wears as Maleficent in Once Upon A Time. The hair bunny-ears are just not good.

Similarly, I think that they ruined her staff. It should be a hard, simple design with the main feature being a glowing green crystal orb at the top (the Mattel Great Villains Maleficent doll has a superb staff that has all of these elements). Instead, we have a stage-prop, jester-looking thing that is very bendy and wobbly. This was a missed opportunity.

So, overall, I think I can say that I do like Designer Maleficent much more than I did before, but she will not be one of my favorite dolls from the collection, mostly because of her hair. As display space is an issue, she will be one of the dolls that will be packed off to storage first, unfortunately. I do like her outfit, and if I find a discounted doll out there, I may buy it just for her clothes. I'd like to recreate a OUAT-style Maleficent using this outfit. Oh, and one last thing: I just had to reposition her arms in the box to give her a wider stance. The factory packaging had her arms put so close to her body that it made her look very closed and small. Maleficent is a very big personality and should fill up all of the space that she is allotted. Thankfully, the factory packaging allows for some adjustment of her arms without compromising her collectibility status.

 

[Shivatopia]

"Who dares to taint with vulgar paint the royal flower bed? For painting my roses red, someone will lose his head!" Perhaps one of the most memorable Disney characters I remember as a child was the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and I'm not sure if it was because she is based on the playing card, which I also loved as a child; if it's because she was so outrageous; or if it's because she resembled a female version of Fred Flintstone with a very bad childlike temper. Maybe it was all of the above.

So when she was included into the Designer Villains collection, I was pleasantly surprised, since they could have kept more to the counterparts of the Disney Princesses, which would have excluded her and Cruella de Vil (the horrors!). However, she was included in the collection, but of course, she did fall victim to the standards of haute couture when they made her thin...

Designer Queen of Hearts

As with the 17" LE Queen of Hearts doll, you can tell that the original inspiration was predominantly from the 1951 animated feature film of Disney's Alice in Wonderland, through the colors of her outfit, the general design of her gown, and her hair color and hairstyle. But also like the 17" LE doll, elements of Tim Burton's Red Queen Iracebeth have snuck into her design as well, which in my opinion is not a good thing.

I'll start with what I think is the worst part of the doll, which is the way they handled her face. This is a very sore point, because for me a doll's face is one of the most important features. Like with meeting real people, we look at a person's face and into their eyes to see if we can make a connection. This doll's face is lacking in several areas. I will not deny that she has a certain prettiness about her that appeals to probably a great many people, but I just cannot get myself to really like her. Her green eyes are half-lidded and not side-glancing, which is usually a look I like on a doll, but on her, from most angles, she looks sleepy... or bored. As with all the dolls in the Designer collections, she has rooted eyelashes, which are nice. Her eyes have black eyeliner and gold eyeshadow. They put a black heart-shaped beauty mark under the corner of her left eye, which I don't really understand where that came from, and her eyebrows are a bit faded toward the center of her face. Now, I would be fine with all of that if they did not put the final nail in the coffin: her tiny geisha-like heart-shaped lipstick. Yuck! I barley tolerate it on my 17" LE doll, but on the Designer Queen of Hearts, it just makes her whole face look a bit weird to me. I keep trying to imagine what she would look like with normal lipstick, and if these dolls were not $80 apiece, I probably would buy one just to try to change that one feature on her face to see if she would appeal to me more. I totally understand the whole "beautifying of the characters" to make them look more high-fashion, but I know I would have loved a doll that looks like the Disney parks character (last photo below) a million times more.

Ok, so now that I got that off my chest, let me talk about everything else, which I think was done very well, starting with her hair. I think that the Designer Queen of Hearts doll has the best hairdo in the collection. It is neat, and tightly styled, with no apparent random hair-nubs sticking out in the back. The inspiration is definitely based on the animated version of the Queen of Hearts, but more stylish. She has a tiny corkscrew curl hanging on the right side of her face, which does look elegant and fashionable.

Her gown is well-made, and I have to admit that it is a lot better than I initially thought it would be, based on what I saw in the stock photos. But there is really a lot going on with her outfit, from the ruffled gold organza and black lace skirt, to the red velvet bodice and back bow, to the red heart-shaped satin collar with the explosion of white tulle. My biggest complaint is that she looks a bit heavy around the middle, because the rounded red velvet hip panels are pushed upward by the stiff material of her bell-shaped organza skirt, which makes her waistline look chunky. The extra material of the red velvet back bow also contributes to there being just too much fabric around her middle-section. The red velvet of the hip panels is actually a thinner material that can be pushed down a bit, but not enough to really smooth out her waistline to make her look as svelte as her design sketch, which for me was a knockout design. I also would have liked it if her skirt flared out a lot more at the bottom hemline, like the design sketch, instead of having her fall victim to the same fate as Designer Belle's dress, where it kind of reminds me of those crocheted doll-toilet-paper covers. As for her collar, I think I would have liked it better if they had used a frilled white lace instead of tulle, so it ended up being a bit flatter, like the design sketch, and so we could actually see the red satin heart-shaped base of the collar. As it is with the explosion of tulle, you would never know that she had the red satin in the back. So, yes, I still have a lot of criticisms of her dress, but it is still nice. Nice, but not great. Oh, and she does have a pair of matching red satin gloves.

The Designer Queen of Hearts has two major accessories, both of which demand that you recognize her royal status: her crown and her scepter. The crown is actually a complete piece: a gold-colored cylindrical ornament, and not just a front-facing of a half-crown. I do appreciate that they did not cut corners like that. What I don't understand are the odd uneven points on the crown, some of which are bent -- and the design was intentionally made that wasy. It's odd. Her scepter, also made of gold-colored plastic, resembles a fine gold filigree heart decorated with faux rubies. It is a fine piece and does compliment her well.

I'm afraid my review sounds more negative than positive for the Designer Queen of Hearts, and I think it is because I am disappointed in the final doll product, compared to the gorgeous design sketch that preceeded her. The doll has a few features that I would have liked to have changed, so for me, she is a pretty doll, but not one of my favorites, which is a shame, because she is one of my favorite villains. But that could also be why I am being a bit harsh with my critique...

 

[Pongo]

Than you, Selithiel! I think my Designer Villain doll ranking is now holding at: Cruella de Vil, Mother Gothel, Queen Grimhilde/Ursula (tied), Queen of Hearts, and last is also Maleficent for me (yup, it's the hair horns). These may change once my doll set comes in on Wednesday, because as of right now, I only have three of the dolls in hand (the Designer Mother Gothel I deboxed, plus Designer Queen Grimhilde and Designer Cruella, which are gifts). So stay tuned for my last three reviews later this week!

Thank you Shivatopia for your thoughtful reviews. You always notice things that I miss and makes me appreciate the detail that went into these dolls more. My ranking is Cruella, Grimhilde, Gothel, Mal, Ursula & Queen of Hearts. I am still not as forgiving on the lack of full figure bodies on Ursula & Q of H. My DS said they had a lot of complaints about it, and now that Disney has Marvel, they make the Hulk and the gang but too cheap to give these proper molds? Anyway, I think you are a bit harsh on Maleficent and her horns, it is exactly what a evil insane gal would wear to her big night out. It may not be her best look but you have got to love her for putting herself out there. I am sure Mal and Mother G go to the same hairdresser who convinced them they would kill on the red carpet. But seriously, I love your little fixes like the gloves & shoes that make such a huge impact. I hope someone at Disney reads this and discovers you soon!

 

[Shivatopia]

Thank you Shivatopia for your thoughtful reviews. You always notice things that I miss and makes me appreciate the detail that went into these dolls more. My ranking is Cruella, Grimhilde, Gothel, Mal, Ursula & Queen of Hearts. I am still not as forgiving on the lack of full figure bodies on Ursula & Q of H. My DS said they had a lot of complaints about it, and now that Disney has Marvel, they make the Hulk and the gang but too cheap to give these proper molds? Anyway, I think you are a bit harsh on Maleficent and her horns, it is exactly what a evil insane gal would wear to her big night out. It may not be her best look but you have got to love her for putting herself out there. I am sure Mal and Mother G go to the same hairdresser who convinced them they would kill on the red carpet. But seriously, I love your little fixes like the gloves & shoes that make such a huge impact. I hope someone at Disney reads this and discovers you soon!

Thank you, Pongo! I love writing about my dolls. Through writing my reviews, I really get to take the time to study them and appreciate the more subtle details as well as come up with ideas of what I would have changed, which sometimes leads to me actually taking creative action.

In truth, I am actually fine with the concept of Maleficent having hair horns, and my big complaint is against the actual execution in the hairstyling of the final product. If the doll's hair horns actually looked like the design sketch of Designer Maleficent, she might actually have been my second-favorite doll after Designer Cruella de Vil. Instead, we have these bulky bunny-ear-looking masses of hair that are occasionally not symmetrically placed on her head, and also have been of uneven heights (at least they are on my doll). Doll hair is tricky to work with, and I have half a mind to get another Designer Maleficent doll just to see if I can do her hair better than the factory did. They had a tall order to live up to with her having hair horns, and I just think that the manufacturers flubbed it.

 

[Shivatopia]

“…And don’t underestimate the importance of body language! Ha!” Designer Ursula has been a hot topic ever since the unveiling of the collection, due to the most obvious fact that her body size was greatly reduced from the voluptuous Sea Witch that we all know and love into a thin runway version of her campy self. Initially, I was on the side that denounced her slenderizing, but my mind was changed when I saw the actual doll in person and I really connected the non-literal intent of the collection with the final product. This gear-shift actually allowed me to appreciate what they did with Designer Ursula.

Designer Ursula

When I first saw the design sketch for Designer Ursula, I really glossed over her. It looked enough like her, but did not stand out in the same way that the sketches for Designer Cruella or Designer Queen of Hearts steal away your attention. Ironically, I had the same feelings about Designer Ariel’s design sketch. When I saw the stock photos of the Designer Ursula doll, I was taken aback by how thin she was, and I immediately thought she resembled Ursula’s sister Morgana more than Ursula. That changed a lot when I was finally able to see the actual doll in person at my local Disney Store through the display dolls. Sure, she has a thin build, but her face and spirit were oozing Ursula all over!

Designer Ursula’s face absolutely captures the sly and scheming soul of the wickedest Sea Witch in the whole of the Seven Seas. Her violet eyes are alert and just stare at you as if she were daring you to reject one of her deals. Of course, she has rooted eyelashes that only enhance that sneaky look in her eyes. Her eye makeup is layered in shades purple and grey, with swooping arched eyebrows that just look so marvelously drag. Designer Ursula sports a very cunning smile that reminds me of the moment in The Little Mermaid when Ursula knows that she just hooked Ariel into her grand scheme (re: when Ariel asks: “Can you do that?” before Ursula starts singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls). In short, this doll’s facial expression is just downright perfect! They even included the beauty mark beside the right-hand corner of her mouth.

Her hair is a massive fancy swept-up white updo that not only references Ursula, but it also makes me think of sea foam riding on the surface of the sea waves. It’s actually a very intricate hairdo, with a tight white bun at the top of her head, surrounded by inhuman tiers of wavy white curls. They also included her two grey side streaks into her hairdo as loose curls. The entire front section of her hair is actually one length of hair that folds over on itself to make two levels of rounded waves and ends at the top in a single long curl to make the third tier. If anyone could actually pull off this hairdo in real life, I’d be amazed.

Her dress references Ursula’s look by consisting of a strapless black pleather bodice and a skirt made to resemble her octopus tentacles. The bodice takes a fashion step forward by not having a rounded sweetheart neckline, as one would have expected for Ursula. Instead, the ends draw up into triangular points at her shoulders and there is a row of tiny black gems along the entire length of her neckline. Her skirt also surprised me, because I expected it to have a hard texture, similar to the ruffled organza dresses of Designer Belle and Designer Queen of Hearts, but the skirt of Designer Ursula’s dress is made of vertical ruffles of eggplant purple satin and a shimmery violet soft mesh fabric. Shiny purple sequins decorate the satin ruffles to make you think of the suckers of Ursula’s tentacles. You have no idea how happy I am with the fact that her skirt has the freedom of movement with these light fabrics! It convinces me that is the gowns for Designer Belle and Designer Queen of Hearts had been made with gold-colored satin instead of the stiff organza, I might have loved their gowns a lot more. Again, I don’t think there is much they could have done to make this dress any more perfect, unless they had allowed six ruffles to trail about an inch longer than the hemline of the dress to really make you think they were tentacles.

She is not lacking in accessories at all. They gave her a pair of gold colored shell earrings, her snail shell pendant necklace, and a gold orb, which I imagine is supposed to be Ariel’s voice. It has been suggested that it is supposed to be the magical scrying device she was using to spy on Ariel’s activities and whereabouts, but that was more like a shifting bubble than a solid gold orb… So as far as I’m concerned, it is Ariel’s captured voice. Designer Ursula actually does not need gloves, even though that means her wrist and elbow joints are exposed (which I normally dislike on my dolls). But her look is very complete without gloves, unlike Designer Mother Gothel, who really needed black gloves to complete her look.

So, from starting out as one of my least favorites in the Designer Villain collection, Designer Ursula has actually moved up the rankings considerably. Her face, hair, and gown are all perfect. You do need to be able to overlook her thin body size in order to fully appreciate the details in her that really have captured the essence of Ursula. Of course, I would have liked to have seen a full-figured Designer Ursula doll with the same styling and gown design—that would have been phenomenal—but I am perfectly happy with this creative doll that is inspired by the Sea Witch.



Designer Ursula - 0106 - 01 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Ursula - 0106 - 06 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Ursula - 0106 - 07 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Ursula - 0106 - 08 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr


Designer Ursula - 0106 - 10 by Rathful.de.Vil, on Flickr

 

[Shivatopia]

I was going to wait until Halloween to share this latest project, but I really could not wait another week... My favorite Disney Princess is Snow White and my favorite Disney villain is Cruella de Vil, so of course I wanted to see what my Snow White doll (the Snow White doll from the Disney Store 10-pack princess gift set) would look like in Designer Cruella de Vil's outfit. I had to wait to receive the doll that would be my deboxer Designer Cruella, but the wait was worth it! I had a lot of fun with this photo shoot. I deliberately did not give the gloves to Snow White, because I did not think that she needed them. I also did not have her hold the cigarette, because that just seemed incredibly wrong to even go there. No cigarettes for princesses!

So, may I present: Blanche de Vil!

I really get a sense of Old Hollywood glamor from Blanche de Vil, as if she were a young Hollywood starlet from the 1930s. Perhaps she is attending the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Carthay Circle Theatre on December 21, 1937. Although this gown has a very daring neckline, it does not look vampishly sexy here on Blanche de Vil as it does on Designer Cruella de Vil. Perhaps it is her hairstyle or her more natural makeup or her girlish red bow? She just glows with an air of sophisticated elegance alongside her soft feminine innocence. One thing is for certain, Blanche de Vil's 1930's cute hairdo proves that they could have styled Designer Cruella de Vil with a chic pageboy or bob hairstyle and she would have looked great.


Blanche de Vil - 20 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 16 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 18 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 11 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 09 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 01 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 05 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr


Blanche de Vil - 04 by Princess.Aurora, on Flickr

 

[DRJ1828]

Wow, Snow White looks great in Cruella's gown and mink coat. A nice touch with the crossed legs. And the red shoes are so much better than her usual yellow ones. I also think that Snow White's innocent and youthful looking face and hairdo cools down the sexiness of the plunging neckline and open skirt, but she looks so beautiful! Thank you for the photos!