Lottie Doll Unboxing

Last Christmas I received a Lottie doll, which sparked my interest in dolls again, and led to some research on the best ways to photograph them. I tried it out with a simple background and using my daylight lamp, for the unboxing of my Lottie Autumn Leaves doll. Actually, I've had this doll for a while. I first saw it when I was looking up Lammily doll reviews, and saw a photo of them together. I immediately thought, "Emmy needs a little sister!" At the time, the only source I could find in Australia was an online shop called Gumnut Toys, though I believe they are available in department stores now.

The Autumn Leaves Lottie is one of the earliest produced. The later versions are more diverse and have more defined themes (such as the Fossil Collector Lottie I'll be reviewing in future). I chose Autumn Leaves mainly because of the clothes, but also because of the hair colour. As you can see, the Lottie doll is boxed in a carrier-style cardboard box with a handle. There are windows in the front and sides through which to view the doll. The box can be opened without damaging it, and can be re-used as a carrier for the doll and her accessories. On the back, there's a short but cute story about walking through the forest.

As I was lifting the doll out of the box, I suddenly knew her name would be Alice. Unboxing a doll and naming it is such a magical experience: I understand why people have such large collections! Alice was attached to the backing board with twist ties and plastic around her forehead, and her accessories came in little plastic bags attached to the backing board. Alice's coat was held closed with a stitch which I had to cut. I was worried I would damage her coat in the process as it was a delicate operation. A child certainly could not have unboxed the doll without help.

The Lottie doll stands 18cm (7 inches) tall. According to the manufacturer, the doll's body is modelled after that of a 9-year-old child. Aside from the head, her proportions are realistic. Her head and eyes are slightly large in proportion to her body, but not enough to be very noticeable. The head moves from side to side, the shoulders and hips have ball joints and the knees have click joints. She can sit with her legs straight out in front of her, unlike the Lammily doll. She can stand up with shoes on, but not very well barefoot. The overall shape of the body is very elegant.

Alice's hair is soft and silky and lovely to the touch. It's a little crinkled from the twist tie around her neck, but hopefully that will drop out over time. Alice's face is just darling, and I love looking at it. It reminded me of another doll I'd seen -- the Licca-Chan doll from Japan. I don't have one ... yet! It's on my wishlist.

Alice's clothes are just beautiful, with different textures and fine details like tiny buttons. The coat is lined with a blue polkadot fabric. All of the clothes are very well made. They fasten with velcro and are very easy to put on and take off. The adorable flocked boots have a split in the back so they are also easy to remove. Many of the clothes in the Lottie range have a cohesive style -- with leggings, mixed bright colours, stripes and cute motifs on the tops. The motif on Alice's jumper is attached with velcro, allowing it to be swapped with others in the range. I thought this was a clever and a really cute detail. In the later dolls in the range however, the motifs are printed on. It's a shame that they can't be swapped, but on the other hand I guess I could make my own motifs for Alice.

The only piece of clothing I don't like is the hat. The concept of the hat is very cute, with its animal ears. However, it's made of stiff felt and sits high up on Alice's head. The printed paw motif is set off to one side, and that irks me. At first I thought it was a mistake, but when I saw photos of other dolls online, they were all the same. I wish the motif had been in the centre of the front instead of offset like that. The colour is very similar to, but not quite the same as the coat, which looks rather strange. It's only a small niggle though, and overall I love my Lottie doll to bits. I can't wait to unbox her sister!

As I mentioned in the beginning, I ordered my Lottie from Gumnut Toys, which is a small, Australian family-run company selling educational and wholesome toys. I've placed several orders with them and my experiences have been 100% positive. They are my Lottie provider of choice!

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First Edition Lammily Doll -- Unboxing

Here's a little Christmas present I bought for myself. Well ... if it didn't happen to be Christmas, I would have made up another excuse! The Lammily doll has been designed to be the most realistic-looking doll available. The artist who designed Lammily wanted an alternative to the increasingly skinny and unrealistic-looking fashion dolls on the market. Actual data on the average measurements of young women was used to shape every part of the body. I first heard about Lammily in the culture section of my preferred TV news and, thanks to the power of the internet, the purchase was made practically before the end of the next ad break. And now she has finally (i.e. 10 days later) arrived!

What a neat package! It's smaller than I thought it would be. The doll box fits inside the packaging with no room to spare. There's no waste of packing materials. I like that!

The front of the box has a beautiful illustration of Lammily with her suitcase. There's a lovely message to all the crowdfunding supporters on the back of the box. The door opens up to reveal a booklet slipped inside. The booklet tells a lovely story of Lammily's journey throughout the world, doing lots of interesting things, including eating croissants and fixing a bike. I can't imagine certain other dolls doing that!

The flap that the booklet was attached to opens up to finally reveal the Lammily doll. She's dressed in the same denim shorts and shirt from the booklet illustrations (and from all of the pictures I've seen of her online!). I like it much better than the bikini some dolls come in, and the ombre on the shirt gives it a trendy touch. The clothes fasten with velcro. As a kid, I always struggled with press studs, having to slip my fingernail in between them to pry them apart. The fabric they were attached to inevitably got ripped. Then again, I never liked doll clothes with velcro fastenings, either. Just call me fussy. The velcro on Lammily's clothes is softer and less stiff than I remember from my old Barbie dolls, though.

Lammily's shoulders, wrists and ankles are ball-jointed. Her knees and elbows have snap joints. Her hair is extremely soft, lovely to the touch. The expression on her face is friendly and quietly confident.

There's only one slight concern I have with the doll, and that's the feet. I had to be very careful taking the shoes off. The ankle joint moves at the slightest touch -- a couple of times when I was posing her, I suddenly found one of her feet had turned completely backwards, which was vaguely disturbing. A bit like the foot exorcist!

There has been a lot of hype surrounding the Lammily doll, with comparisons between her and certain other dolls on the market. She surely looks different to the dolls I played with as a kid. Yet somehow, she looks familiar. It occurs to me -- she looks more like me. She has the same sturdy, strong legs as I do. Her waist looks more like a person's. Her hair (aside from not having a fringe) is a lot like mine. She doesn't wear crazy, bright blue 80s makeup. ... Well, I've been known to do that on occasion, but not every day! ...

It's hard to say what the effect of playing with unrealistic-looking fashion dolls had on me as a kid. I knew I didn't look like them. I never wanted to look like them. My main interest was making clothes and accessories for them, so I viewed their bodies more as shapes to be decorated, rather than human beings in miniature.

Having said that, when I viewed the video on YouTube showing why Lammily was created, I shed a few tears. So perhaps the effect goes deeper than I realised.

When I grew a little older, I became disillusioned with Barbies, but still remembered the fun I had making outfits for them. I always told myself that if a realistically-proportioned doll was ever produced, I would get one and take up the hobby again. And now here she is. I'm not sure yet what I'll call her though.

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This YouTube video has an unboxing, review and some discussion on Lammily and body image.
This blog post has pictures of Lammily with no clothes on (for the easily embarrassed, don't worry, she has plastic undies embossed on), and shows her full range of movement, and comparisons with other dolls.