Here is an article about Barbie and the Liv fashion dolls that I enjoyed. It's from last year, but it is new to me and may be new to you.
What tickles me is how the author thinks in terms of Barbie OR Liv when we collector-enthusiasts are merging the two. Barbie or other doll heads on Liv bodies. Mattel and Spin Master probably haven't considered that possibility either.
Does anyone else LOVE the header photograph by Jamie Chung.
9 comments:
The gap in Liv's Barbie chase might decrease if Spinmaster would improve the hand sculpt (they're too flat) and ax the oversized heads.
Yes, I love Chung's pic.
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I readily admit to never have going onto the Liv website or reading their backstories... which is probably why I never knew that Daniela was supposed to be hispanic! Heck, I didn't realize that Alexis was the black one until they came out with the "darker" Alexis.
After reading the article it kind of makes me frustrated at the direction they took the Liv bodies this year. Where are the grand ideas? Why move backward instead of forward? Ugh.
Pretty interesting article :D It kind of bugs me that they don't get the little details right, but I guess that's today's journalism for you. (they got the outcome of the Mattel/MGA lawsuit wrong, and Barbies don't really have 8 points of articulation- ever, and Liv dolls weren't just crosseyed at some point in the past- they're nearly always crosseyed ;)
I wonder where that "Livs are over" rumor came from anyway. As far as I can tell, they've only slowed down with the releases, right?
Hi DBG! Yes, I enjoyed that photo more than the article. Shrug. SpinMaster would win - for me - if they decreased the head and went with painted eyes. But they aren't likely to do either of those things or to re-shape the hands. Sigh.
Hi Muff! I didn't realize Daniela was Hispanic nor that Alexis was Black until I read it in an online description. Shrug. The dolls seem to have the same head and their complexions seem to be the only variation among them.
Hi Alrunia! As for the errors, I think that when some writers discuss dolls, they don't feel compelled to check the details. As for the Barbie articulation, that could be shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees? That certainly isn't across the board though.
I think that SpinMaster's slowing down the releases might have set collectors and other interested parties to fear that the line was "over."
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Oh, you might be right that by 8 they mean knees + shoulders + hips + elbows. I figured that usually the neck joint counts as an articulation point which makes the most common Barbie have 7, and the pre-fashionista ones were either 9 (+ elbows) or 10 (+waist joint) or 12 (+ ankle joints in the ballerina dolls). But yeah it's a pretty nitpicky detail :)
Yes, the neck joint usually is counted as an articulation point. Hmmm ... now I wonder what the author meant by 8? Shrug. Perhaps the author wanted to get queries so she used an off number? Nah ... then again, why not - grin and wink.
Took me a minute to get caught up on my blog reading. Thanks for sharing the link to this interesting story even if they got some of the details wrong. I have bought almost a dozen Liv dolls to re-body other dolls but like Muff I have never visited the on-line site so I had no idea Alexis was supposed to be black. I thought she might be Hispanic. Nor did I know that Daniela was intended to be Hispanic. I thought she was just a brunette. The fact that the dolls' ethnic identity is so homogenized has peeved me for a long time which is one of the reasons I enjoy disposing of the grotesque over-sized heads.
As for the "Live is over" rumors, I think we also need to investigate how stores allocate shelf space. In the Targets and Wal-Marts where I usually shop, I see Liv getting squeezed out by Star Dolls and Monster High dolls who have colonized a separate aisle from the Barbie stuff.
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