There are 7 outfit sets available for the First Edition Lammily Doll, themed by cities/countries of the world. It took me some time to decide which set to pick. Normally I would have chosen brighter colours -- for example, the Strolling in Paris set appealed to me very much. However, my main interest in dolls is making clothes for them, so I chose the Rocking London outfit because I thought the colours and components would match best with clothes I'm planning to make for Emmy. The set includes:
★ grey turtleneck jumper
★ tartan skirt
★ tweed jacket with attached belt
★ black leggings
★ black shoes
★ houndstooth scarf
My order was sent in a padded mailer bag, enclosed in a plastic satchel. I thought the packaging was adequate and the contents were protected well. The clothes set comes in a flat cardboard package with a plastic window. The window isn't that large and it's difficult to see the clothes themselves, but there's a half-length photo of Lammily wearing the set on the front, so you can have a preview of what's included. On the back of the package, there's another full-length photo of Lammily rocking the outfit, and some fun facts about London.
The outfit components are arranged on a backing board and attached to the board and to each other with thread and pintags. Many many many tiny little pintags that took a lot of delicate scissor work to extricate. I'm not that good with scissors at the best of times, but I finally managed to separate all the clothes without damaging anything. From here I'll look at each component separately, in the order that I put them on:
* the leggings: The leggings seemed to be made of a thick polyester with very little stretch. They were extremely tight and difficult to put on. In fact, I didn't think there were going to go over the hips at all for a while. I was worried about pulling too hard in case I cracked the stitches. I did eventually get the leggings all the way up, but I was pretty close to giving up and throwing a tantrum! A small child would definitely need adult help to get these leggings onto the doll. Even though they're made of thick, good quality material, I was disappointed at how difficult they were to put on.
* the skirt: The skirt is made of a checked material which frays easily. There were a lot of loose threads which I snipped to neaten it up. It might have benefitted from being overlocked rather than straight-sewn to avoid this problem. The tartan pattern isn't as vibrant as I might have expected, but it's the same fabric as shows on the box and online, so you can't complain about that. Once on, the skirt fits nicely and the mid-thigh length works well with the leggings. The curved seams fit well over Lammily's hips and show off her curves nicely. Once the loose threads were neatened up, I was happy with this garment.
* the jumper: The grey marle turtleneck jumper has 3/4-length sleeves and a matching ribbed fabric at cuffs and neck. It was a little difficult to get onto the doll, but not any more than clothes I've had experience with previously. Everything seemed fine until ......
The jumper doesn't fit over Emmy's hips! It's not wide enough to meet properly at the bottom and forms an open V-shape. Also, the velcro on one side is shorter on one side than the other.
However, from the front Emmy looks so good that I have to forgive the issue at the back. The figure-hugging fit is very sophisticated.
* the jacket: The jacket is well-made with some lovely details like the notched collar and silver buttons. The lining is made of the same tartan fabric as the skirt, and also has a lot of loose threads around the armholes. A bit of careful snipping solved this problem. The jacket has an attached belt made of shiny black ribbon with a silver buckle. A small child would need help doing up the buckle as the ribbon needs to be threaded through. The buckle is not attached to the belt and could easily slide off and be lost. Sewing the buckle onto the end of the ribbon would have been a simple solution and I will probably do this myself at some point. Despite this, overall I love the jacket. It fits Emmy well and looks very smart.
* the shoes and scarf: The houndstooth scarf is made of nice fabric with no loose threads. It's long enough to tie in a knot around Lammily's neck. The black low-heeled shoes are good quality as well. They slip on and off easily. However, Lammily's feet are moulded flat, so heeled shoes don't really work. The the toes point upwards, it's more difficult to stand the doll up, and it just looks strange. It seems that, just as Barbie can't wear flat shoes, Lammily can't wear heels! On the other hand, it's nice that Emmy finally has something more dressy than a pair of sneakers to wear.
I only purchased one outfit for my Lammily doll, as they are rather expensive and I wanted to see what the quality is like before spending more. I purchased this set for an introductory price of US$19 -- the price of all the sets has now gone up to US$25, the same as the doll itself. The exchange rate is very poor at the moment and that works out to be about AU$35. That's a pretty steep price for an accessory set!
The set has some really nice pieces in it -- the jumper and jacket in particular, and the leggings will match well with many different outfits, so I'm glad I purchased the Rocking London set. Bearing in mind the cost and my wanting to make outfits though, I have to conclude that I would not purchase any other sets from the official line. Well ... unless it was something amazing like a Mori or Decora outfit....
The whole outfit looks good but I love the jacket in particular! I think that for the price the quality/fit should have been better, though
ReplyDeleteI think so too. I'm going to make some doll clothes when I have the time.
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