Burlington recently replaced a Best Buy at one of the shopping centers around here, so I headed over to see if it's cleaner, neater, and politer than the other nearby one. They had done a real holiday inventory set-up!
It's holiday time, so we need Disney-esque princesses.
The edge gals are clearly Cinderella and Aurora. I kind of love the short versions of their typical outfits and may steal this idea for sewing projects. The gals in long dresses baffle me. The gal in aqua might be intended as Elsa? But who is a dark-haired princess in dark pink?
It's almost as difficult to figure out the characters in Chic's Fantasy Fairytale sets, which have something I'm thrilled to see (and rarely get to): all-Black princesses!
Top left is clearly intended as Tiana, and top right is Ariel. Bottom middle is Belle, and bottom left is plausible as Cinderella. That leaves top center as Elsa (though the period of the gown is wrong), and bottom right... purple.
Have I so badly lost track of Disney princesses that there's someone famous in purple?
Meanwhile, Sparkle Girlz are going upmarket, into the boxed $8 price range. This one exploits the "surprise" element, because part of that sparkle is exploiting the trend of the moment.
It's like if Madeline Hatter and Tinkerbell had a daughter.
Sparkle Girlz have also entered the standard clone fields of baby-sitting and dog-walking. Nobody in clone land wants to come up with a new body mold to do a real Skipper knock-off, so they reproduce Skipper's pastimes on their standard "teen fashion" doll.
Kudos to Zuru for committing to the Giant Heads, Giant Eyes schtick down to the level of babies and bulldogs, I guess. But has anyone at Zuru HQ ever seen a dog being walked?
Finally, no toy display is complete without a fairy. It looks like all of the design effort went into her wings.
One of my goals at Burlington was to look at socks for bargains that might work as winter sweaters and body-con dresses for my dolls. This was kind of frustrating, as girls clothing this season has a remarkably limited color palette based around ballerina pink, white, and tomato red.
The entire women's and girls' sock aisles were like this! The color combo is pretty, but it's not one I especially want to do anything with. Perhaps I will reconsider and do pink-and-white ensembles for the Katie Kolony, but I'm not feeling the excitement on that one.
Then I found the pair of socks that's the exception to the universal color scheme!
This four-pack was priced at $4.99, so it's the same $1.25 a pair I'd pay at the dollar store. Figuring one sock per outfit, I have enough socks for all seven adults and teens to have new winter sweaters at 75 cents an outfit, plus my time and patience.
I'm calling that a success, as well as an incentive to learn how to use the serger.
Regarding the Disney-esque princess dolls:
ReplyDeleteThe aqua skirt with dark pink details on the blond doll in the top picture, that you identified as Elsa, strongly resembles the skirt of a dress that a Princess Anna doll wears in the Disney Frozen Royal Sisters two pack by Mattel, although the bodice design on the blond clone more closely resembles the Elsa doll's. As for the brunette in the pink dress, it's possible her look was inspired by the secondary outfit pink dress that Belle wears in Beauty And The Beast. I believe that some of the doll versions of that outfit took liberties with the design and used a heavy application of glitter.
The blue dress on the black princess in the second picture between Tiana and Ariel looks like one of Princess Merida's dresses from the animated movie Brave.
The doll in purple in the third picture was most likely inspired by Rapunzel from Tangled.
Signed, Treesa
This is great! Thank you! I'd forgotten, or never knew, that Belle had a secondary dress.
DeleteBelle's primary looks are her blue village dress and her yellow ball gown, while her secondary looks are a green dress from the library scene and the pink dress that is most prominently featured in the snow scene/Something There song number, where she pairs it with a hooded cape.
DeleteSigned, Treesa
I looked at the pictures again, and the rose detail on the collar of the short pink dress could be a reference to Sleeping Beauty/Princess Aurora/Briar Rose, or it could be a reference to Belle and the Enchanted Rose featured in the film. So maybe the long pink dress is Sleeping Beauty inspired and the short pink dress is Belle inspired, and the doll company swapped their hair colors?
DeleteSigned, Treesa