Why and How I Created LACE & the LACE Doll Collection

I found fashion or “Lady” dolls, and how they were dressed, interesting as artifacts of history, a connection to our forebears. “Did my great grandmothers dress like that?” The construction of clothing interested me as well.

I collected fashion dolls, antique to modern : Peg Woodens from the 16, 17, and 1800’s, China Ladies, French Fashion Bisques, Cloth sculpted artist dolls, Early Barbies, The Bild Lilli and The Cheap,hard plastic, Lilli “knock-offs”

But I wanted to create a posable, natural looking, smooth and easy to dress fashion doll of today for myself and for other adult collectors to add to their collections and to their fun, a doll that would be a vast improvement on the rubbery toy fashion dolls that were being mass produced and designed primarily for children.

My inspiration for the posable body design came from the old Peg Wooden jointed dolls. I spent 3 years designing and sculpting the body and the first 10 of the 25 heads (faces) in the collection (5 dolls of the 30 in the Lace Doll Collection share a face mold but have different skin colors). Most of the faces are pensive, a few are smiling, and some of the later ones are more edgy. I made many prototypes before I had the doll I wanted. I first copyrighted the dolls in 1992.

I then spent a year learning about plastics, how to make silicon molds, to cast in resin and to find suppliers. I have great respect for the skilled people who do this work well. I worked hard and did my best.  I began advertising and selling the LACE dolls in 1994.

I also designed clothes patterns and made body suits, pants, pantyhose, stockings, lingerie, etc. and finally I designed and produced the “LOVE-KNOT” platform heels, like the dolls, cast in resin and elastic strung, shoes that stay on the dolls feet. I had the most fun putting together the fabrics, colors, prints, weaves etc for the ensembles. The fabric shop was my candy store, my imagination store. I traveled to China town in Boston for unusual things.

I printed and mailed 1-8 page fashion catalogs, 2-4 times a year a year. The photography was a lot of work too but also great fun. I loved being a “fashion designer” & “fashion photographer” in this little realm, designing and taking beautiful photos of my models. Many of them, are ascribed an ethnicity or nationality but they are not intended to define nor can they fairly represent the ascribed ethnicities and nationalities. The dolls are a fantasy and not a serious representation..I simply tried to capture and represent the beauty I find in the diversity of people. I wish  the Lace Collection spectrum could have been wider……    to be continued…….