Chic City Walk Miri (an almost-review)

My cell phone seems to have died, and with it my camera, so we'll have to make do with the rather blurry photos from yesterday.

I think I mentioned Miri was the one I wanted originally, but since the Super Model dolls have been very much "subject to availability" around here, I was a bit reluctant to get attached to any particular version of either doll, figuring I'd wait instead until I came across one that I liked. The Chic City Walk line wasn't one that particularly drew my attention when I saw the dolls online. I try to avoid dolls with accessories I don't want since they tend to drive up the price a bit, and I'm not particularly interested in dogs.

When I found the last Miri in the store, I took a closer look and decided I actually liked her. The shoes sealed the deal, of course, but the rest of her outfit isn't bad either.

This is a pretty simple and realistic ensemble - my favorite kind of doll clothes! The color theme is pink, white and black, and not much else.

The t-shirt has a pink bowtie print. The seams are a little bit uneven and also loose to allow the fabric to stretch - probably unavoidable. The pink necklace was actually sewn to the shirt and for a while I was wondering whether I was supposed to cut the string or never change her clothes, but it was just a single stitch that turned out to be fairly easy to cut. A kid might tear it before mum or dad has a chance to get the scissors, though.

The denim jacket looks like it might stain, but I haven't seen any trace so far. It's black with pink seams which I suspect will turn grey when I wash it. That by now familiar mesh fabric is used to protect the seam of the sleeves, but nowhere else. It's better made than Scary Couple/Mystic Girlz-Steffi's jacket which had a similar cut.

The pants did stain - not much, but still enough that I want to be careful and wash them out - except I can't, because it turns out they and the little tutu are sewn together. Well, more like "crafted as one single garment" - I don't think I'll be able to turn them into two working pieces of clothing. We'll see if I give it a try. I don't want the tutu to turn grey if I wash the whole thing, but I don't want to risk further staining either. Apart from that, they look nice.

I don't know if I've mentioned, but these dolls don't have holes for earrings. Miri comes with a row of bracelets of the same kind as Palm Beach Juls did - I love these.

The shoes are pretty much perfect and yes, I love them. The only thing I can think of is they're the same for both left and right, which is a bit odd for a doll with feet that actually look like feet. The resulting gap can be seen here. They still fit though, so it doesn't really matter. They're just sliiiightly too small for Liv. I don't want to damage them, but it could possibly work, maybe if you do an evil stepsister and file Liv's toes off. I'll let Miri keep these, though.

The hair is slightly wavy and feels a bit thicker than Juls', but otherwise much the same.

She came with the top layer of her bangs glued down flat with gel, and this weird plastic strip that kept the hair under the bangs in place. This is just as confusing as it sounds, and I'm not sure you can tell from the pics what's going on: the bangs start high up on the head, while the front row of plugs (the ones along the hairline) are kept long and just swept to the sides under the bangs. It does add a bit of volume, but then why the gel? To add to the confusion, the whole thing seems to be rooted a bit off-center on my doll, and a few plugs that should have been kept long have been cut and are sticking out at the side. A bit annoying but no disaster. She does have a lot of hair, there's plenty of room to hide the mistakes.

She has very light makeup, just pink lipstick and some glittery copper eyeshadow, same as Juls.

Apart from the dog she comes with a little black clutch, which is cute and fits the overall style but is just a solid piece of plastic. Do kids actually play with those? I can't see the appeal, but I'm just an old lady who is eternally disappointed in fake handbags that don't open.

I think I've discussed the articulation of these dolls before. No news there, she has the same floppy ankles that I'll have to find a solution for. The left leg isn't quite straigh so she looks slightly bowlegged, but not too bad. Something else I've noticed in most of my Simba dolls (Super Model, Steffi Love) is they often have what I guess is traces from the molding. It's usually little lines and patches of rougher surface on the arms, lower legs and feet. Miri has some very visible wrinkles on her feet. It doesn't particularly bother me, but since it seems to be a recurring feature I thought it should be mentioned. I don't think I've seen it in any Mattel doll I own, for example.

I took a few shots for skintone reference, but the lighting was even worse than I realized at the time so they may not be entirely correct. Both Miri and Juls are a more yellow hue, making Fashionista Barbie and Obitsu look reddish pink in comparison. The closest match out of my dolls is the Volks EB Beauty, who is just slightly more neutral/greyish pink. And yes, that's my new Obitsu to the right. :) The head is a Takara Jenny friend doll (but more about that another day).

Volks, Miri, Obitsu natural, Fashionista

Show of arms: Miri, Volks, Obitsu

Volks and Miri

Miri! (Yes, another Simba Super Model)

Chic City Walk Miri

Alright, I wasn't planning on getting any more dolls this month, but this one was too good to pass on. I had some time to kill at the mall after my dentist's appointment on Wednesday and found a new toy store, a chain I haven't heard of before. At this point I probably know the doll inventory of the big chains by heart, so of course I had to check it out, and what do I find if not the Super Model dolls! It's the first brick-and-mortar retailer I've seen, so that's good to know. I wish they'd had Sarah so I could compare the skin tones, but it was mostly Juls and a few Bel.

And I wasn't going to buy anything, just recon for future purchases, but then I saw they were on sale, and they had one single Chic City Walk Miri left - and then I saw her shoes and that was it. Pink ballet slippers, how can you say no to that??

I'll do some sort of review on her some other day, for now I just want to show her off a bit!

See?

Cute outfit

She came with the dog but not the stockings.

(A few more pics at Flickr)

It always makes me happy...

...when I see someone found my blog through a relevant google search. The reason I even have this blog is because I've found so many of the answers to my obscure doll-related questions on doll blogs. It might be a post written years ago, on a blog that hasn't been updated since, that has a photo that just so happens to show that particular angle of that particular doll I needed to see to figure out if, say, a rebody would work. That's why I sometimes get a bit obsessive documenting every aspect of my rather mundane thrift store finds: you never know, someone might be looking for a pic of that very doll! - Or they might not, but in that case at least I got some practice with the camera, so it's all good.

In more doll-related news: today I got my first full-scale Obitsu delivered! Full-scale may be a bad choice of words, since they come in all kinds of sizes, but within 1/6 scale that's how I think of the 27cm body as opposed to the 21, 23 and 25cm. I have two heads that have been taking turns on the 25cm body I got about a year ago, but now they both have their respective permanent homes. No photos today because apparentlyg I forgot it gets dark at night and I still haven't got a good set-up for doll photography, but I figure the 27cm Obitsu is probably one of the most well-documented dolls out there anyway.

Further adventures in image editing

Still working on trying to turn my shoddy cell phone photos into glamour shots, using the magic of a free image editor. I'm not sure I'm ready for that internship at Vogue quite yet. (Notice how they all have different contrast and color balance!) Better than what I started out with, though.

Palm Beach Juls (Super Model by Simba Toys)

No Photoshop here!

I was going to write something about the second Scary Couple set I got, but I wanted to take a few comparison pics of them and I haven't gotten around to it yet. Bad news is that the staining is just as bad - not disasterous, but I guess this means it's something you'll have to take into account with these dolls. (Wonder if the other Mystic Girls have the same staining problem? I haven't got one, but they seem to be the same as this one.) The good news is this Kevin doesn't have different color hands, so if I'm only keeping one it's this one.

Meanwhile, I just wanted to show off the new Super Model, since she's from the beach line and I'm in a summery mood. For some reason these dolls have become a bit of a favorite of mine lately, I'm not even sure why. Only a few pics because my camera died.

Her face reminds me of someone... Celebrity?

This is Juls, basically the Barbie of the gang (blonde, blue-eyed, often appears separate from the others in promo pics). Originally I was thinking of getting a Miri, but then I realized Juls and Sarah (the two medium/tan skin tones) might be useful as body donors. Juls was the only one I could find at a reasonable price (you can find them all on German ebay, but the shipping was a bit high) plus I liked her shoes best anyway. Plus, can you not love that polka dot pattern??

L: Fashionista

This quick comparison was all I got before the battery died. Juls is similar to the tan Fashionista, just a slightly more yellow shade (a bit of a surprise, since the Fashionista until now was the least red tan body I had).

Juls is slightly different from the picture on the box

The whole beach line has a retro '60s look with big square sunglasses. I think Miri's pink-on-black blouse is my favorite here, it reminds me of OP art.

 Too much starch?

...I'm not entirely sure what to call that thing, actually. A tunic? Blouse? Anyway, I thought the fabric would be the flutter-in-the-breeze kind, but the garment literally stands on its own. Not the quality I'm looking for in beach wear. I'm going to wash it and see if it improves.

Just a detail I've noticed lately: Simba stitches this mesh over seems that are in danger of fraying. Good idea, but it peeks out over the edge at the neckline here. I like this tunic-thing, though, it even if the hemline is a bit uneven.

I hadn't seen what she's wearing underneath, but predictably it's a bikini. bit of a disappointment, as it's pretty badly made. Most everything is uneven - seams, hems, ruffles - and the bottoms are way too big.

The tunic is too big to wear without anything under, but that also means it's the right shape for a full-size doll.  No pic of the Fashionista modeling it, since the battery died.

Everything plastic that came with her:

Glasses, ear rings, three red bracelets, one white, and of course the shoes.

Shoes were a bit hard to get off (or maybe I'm just overly careful about not breaking the wrists) but slipped off easily with a bit of hot water. Not much to say about them: good and simple, much more useful than Bel's hot pink heels.

Pictured: upside-down butterfly, probably

Bel's bracelets were incredibly badly designed - or damaged, I'm honestly not sure - and fell off as soon as I removed the rubber band, but these come off easily and stay on without problem. I like the simple, functional design of the red ones, and the white one has a little ...butterfly, I think? Anyway, it's cute.

The sun glasses are tinted pink plastic, painted white around the frames and on the sides. The paint job isn't perfect, the coat is a little thin at the edges, but I like that they left the glasses mainly pink instead of trying to hide it. They fit Monster High too, just slightly more loosely. (No pic of that either!)

Simba, what were you thinking here? Yes, the bag is hollow and the top is open, but it's only for show, isn't it? The plastic is so stiff the sides don't need glue to stay together, but you can pry it apart with a bit of force. But - if the plastic had just been a bit softer you could have opened it by pinching the sides, and then you'd have had a bag that's elegant and practical. I think you kind of dropped the ball on this one, Simba.

Might be good for hiding things in, though.

Like I said, I'm not sure why I like this line so much, but I do. It's not perfect, but there aren't any huge flaws either - except maybe for the ankle joints: if they had just been a bit tighter the dolls could have stood on their own (or at least after you get rid of the huge head and hair). The face sculpt used to put me off - it's a bit flat and ...unsculpted  (Monster High, this ain't) and I keep getting the feeling the eyes are placed too high for this level of stylized cuteness - but I think that's starting to grow on me too. It's a lot better than Bratz, that's for sure!

Not sure about the eyes...

Actually, I'm tempted to keep this one as she is. It's always interesting to see how doll design mirrors contemporary style, and she looks really "beach '13" to me. I was planning to use her as a body donor, though, and if I let her hang around and develop her own character I'll feel bad if I chop her up for spare parts later!

Incoming!

This week has been pretty unproductive so far, but that might change. Tomorrow I'll try to drag myself to what-passes-for-the-post-office-these-days and pick up the parcels waiting for me, and then possibly write something about the contents. (Or not! I might get lazy, we'll see.)
One is another Scary Couple - the sale is still going on, and I jumped at the chance to have some extra material for comparison. Plus is solves the mismatched sock problem! The other is another Super Model, a Juls this time. Not my favorite, but I want to see how her skin tone compares to Mattel - and she comes with white shoes!