Necro-ing this blog for a reason. I always knew that, when the time was right, there'd be a cheap Keisha doll on ebay and I'd also have the money.
So, finally got this. This poor doll has been through some stuff.
The first notable thing is that her arms are falling off. I placed an order for a specific MAC restringing kit. I once tried to restring my Alison, and I could barely get her back together. This kit was $6, and hopefully it will make the process easier this time. I actually got two kits. If this isn't hard, I'll use the second kit on my Alison, and if it is hard, I have a backup in case I mess up.
When I was looking up articles on how to take care of AG Addy's hair, since I'm not familiar with this texture, I found some articles saying that it's more common to find Black dolls secondhand in really bad states, when compared to white dolls from the same target demographic. I don't have any information to say that happened here, but I hope it didn't.
Her torso and legs are shiny, which the ebay seller said, "shiny from ???" in the listing. It's definitely because there was some kind of writing or sticky something on her, and whoever removed it used a really strong solvent that started dissolving the vinyl. I don't really mind this. It'd be better if she didn't have it, but if she didn't have it, she probably would have been $50 more.
As I've kind of rambled about previously, I'm not here to be a "everything must be new!" kind of collector. The adult American Girl collectors community is just kind of alarming, and I don't want to be that. I just want to have some dolls to tell stories with and make clothes for.
For those of you who don't know, I have a lolita fashion blog about doing it on a budget. Lolita fashion is a subfashion from Japan where many things are in the $300+ for a dress kind of setup. I'm not in the fashion to impress anyone with my wallet. I'm in the fashion to wear goofy dresses and have some fun. I don't remember why I brought up the blog even though I only brought up the blog three sentences ago. Okay.
And her hair has definitely been cut. I was initially concerned that a ton of it has been pulled out, but I can only see her wig cap in a few spots, so I think this has scissors taken to it. It's only a few inches shorter than what it looks like stock hair was.
Also, my concerns that I wouldn't be able to take care of and style her hair were just completely unnecessary. I was able to brush it and pull it into a ponytail just like my other doll's hair. I didn't get a good before picture of her hair. My camera on my phone seems to think it's still 2008 and shoot some crazy blurry shit.
Anyway, if AG Addy's hair is anything like this, I think all the waspy adult collectors of American Girl dolls are full of crap when they say that her hair is so difficult and unmanageable and untameable and all that other crap. Which, you know, one of the things about dolls is that they represent people. If you're talking about alien dolls with slinkys for hair, that don't in any way represent people, saying that they're inferior to other dolls because of their hair is probably fine. But when adult women say that a certain doll is inferior to the other ones because the hair requires slightly different styling techniques or something, and that doll's hair represents people's hair in real life, yikes.
But y'all already know that. That's much more a reminder for myself than anyone else. I don't really need to say it, but I am, because no one reads this blog. It's more like a diary that I happen to leave open on my coffee table than it is a real blog. The only reader of this blog is going to be me in five years. If you found this blog, please leave a comment. I don't think anyone even uses blogger in 2023, but here I am.
So, anyhow, I got her into some pajamas. She'd been in the ballet tutu for who knows how long, so it's time to not be in the ballet tutu.
So, project registration, fixing Keisha:
1) restring so her arm's aren't coming off.
2) clothes
3) that's about it off the top of my head.
As a closing, I'd like to share with y'all the thing I wrote in my phone yesterday at work:
They think it will be a medieval thing going to the future, but it's extras on a movie set and someone stole an important prop.
They're two bands now and it's a competition.
Someone's a fashion designer
Candy striper
superhero or sidekick
pirates
Ellennellie wtfhername is goes through the mirror to get new clothes for her kids. she's basically a time lord. the parents trust her because one of them went on an adventure in the mirror when they were a kid.
The last thing that I want to say is that I think the "rare" books that only have cover art:
Heather's Fashion World, The Mystery of the Pharaoh's Tomb, Jane in a Land of Enchantment, and A Tale of Two Alisons were probably all never actually written. Someone on the blogodome says that they have a confirmation from the author that Heather's Fashion World never existed, but I can't find that online. That said, it's really not uncommon in big collection stuff like this for things to be sort of created "out of order". Since the team writing the books and the team making the clothes are different teams, it's entirely likely that someone (or the main team) gets together and comes up with the concepts for the stories, and maybe some rough outlines. Then, the doll team would come up with the collection design. From there, the concepts of the books and the designs of the doll collections would be sent to several people, including whoever is in charge of the cover art. There's a lot of concept art involved in making things like this, and making the cover art would probably be part of the main design process. Interior illustrations can also be made off an outline, well before the actual book is written.
Meanwhile, the writing team is probably several different people, none of whom have any say in the doll design process. They write the story, and go back to it after the doll line is nailed down, and then they add the costume descriptions to the story.
The other reason why I think these books never existed is that the art for Pharaoh's Tomb isn't actually even completed. Alison, Rose, and Megan's clothes are just flat colors. Heather's Fashion World also is just a sort of placeholder texture without shading. It's very likely that the covers were started before the doll lines had been completely solidified. They knew Alison was in shorts and a tank, and Megan was in long sleeves (and obviously they're all color-coded, so you know what colors to use), but there's not a clear answer for what everyone's OG 2001 starter outfits were going to be, so there's no point in rendering the fine details.
In fact, this is probablysomewhat similar to how the books were. They knew what was going to happen, but didn't have any fine details down.
inb4 "that doesn't look half finished to me", I'm pretty sure they weren't going to release Megan with a bio-luminescent cardigan.
I'd love to see where these images were originally posted, and how they made their way onto the internet. If anyone knows, please comment it. I see the titles and covers all over the place, but I never see the source.
That's all for right now, everyone.
EDIT: Okay, it's been about 5-6 hours since I wrote this, and I found something that changes everything:
Text: Fun, Friends, Imagination, and Adventure...
The Magic Attic Club began several years ago as a mother watched her daughter and friends play with their dolls, creating wonderful stories for them. She recognized how this innocent play helped young girls develop and grow, releasing their imaginations to discover much about themselves and others.
As the Magic Attic Club has grown, we have received many kind letters from young girls and their mothers, fathers, grandmothers, aunts, relatives and friends. The positive response from our customers reinforces our objective to encourage creative play with the dolls and strive for high quality in every product we develop.
I have had the pleasure of watching my own three nieces, Julia (7), Nell (7), and Jane (4), their frineds and many other children experience the Magic Attic Club. The dolls and costumes create hours of play with fun accessories and furniture, and the books take them on wonderful, imaginative adventures. The lessons in values and self-discovery are an added benefit inherent in the Magic Attic Club concept.
The Magic Attic Club is about fun, friendship, imagination, and adventure: five friends who find a trunk full of costumes and a magic mirror through which they go on incredible adventures. Every girl will delight in how their own imagination goes to work, or as we say at the Magic Attic Club: "The real magic is in you." Stay tuned--the magic has just begun!
Christine E Taylor
Division Director.
Did you all catch that? DID YOU ALL CATCH THAT? Okay, so--
*tears down wallpaper, revealing a brick wall covered in photographs with red string connecting the pictures into a convoluted web*
--JANE. Where do we know that name from? That's right, from Jane two paragraphs ago! Also from Jane, nine pararaphs ago! So, if Jane was Jane when she was four in 1997, that means that--
*tacks new piece of red string onto the board, seemingly at random*
--when Jane was new in 1999, Jane was six years old!
This leads me to believe that Jane was potentially a working name or a placeholder. We know from our existing images that Jane is an apparently white girl with hair lighter than Alisons. Is the Pharaoh's Tomb picture, we see her wearing white and pink. WHO ELSE--
*slaps new image onto the board, without pins or tape. It flutters to the ground before anyone can see what it is of*
--DO WE KNOW who is also pale blonde and wearing pink and white!?
*Slaps the board like a car salesman slapping the hood of a car. Several pieces of red string fall off*
That's right! We have hard evidence that Chloe was always intended to be Jane, and Jane was intended to be Chloe, because Jane was obviously a placeholder name, and it was chosen because the Division Director watched her niecea play with the dolls, and the youngest one was Jane, just like how Jane was going to be the newest, and therefor youngest in terms of time in the club, member of the Magic Attic Club.
I still don't have a source for the four book covers I posted up there, but since they're not necessarily finished-looking, we don't actually know if they were ever intended for public eyes. The actual typesetting of the titles might be a thing a fan did.
Also, this section of a poster showing Chloe is proof that she can travel through time and space.
Anyway, let's make it clear that the last doll released in the series is now officially named Chloe Jane. As you can see from these high-res images, Chloe and Jane are 100% identical.
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