Dolls, Etc.

GiltGroup emails have long been ignored in my gmail inbox.  With tight funds, the last thing I need is more excuses to explain a $100 purchase with, “But look, honey!  It was 70% off!  Think how much we saved!”    

However, when I saw a Madame Alexandre sale in GiltGroup, my usually thrifty brain went:"…they’re so pretty which is unusual since most dolls tend to be creepy...my niece-goddaughter loves dolls…if it’s not a purchase for me it’s like I’m saving even more money…I win!"  

Dorothy and Toto!

I love having nieces and a nephew.  

I knew I was going too far though when I saw a Funny Face doll and almost managed to convince myself that as the fatal combination of my favorite style icon and totally the best fashion movie ever made (that I’ve seen, anyway), I should own this.  Fortunately, I managed to talk myself out of it, perhaps influenced most by the crushing weight of my Very Grown-Up Job in An Office, since in most similar cases, my adulthood actually works out as a justification for a purchase like that: the preservation of my childish whimsy.  Here’s a picture so you understand how compelling the argument was:

Funny Face

Right?!  Audrey is lovely. There are certain movie icons who remain as the Unbeaten Ultimates in American Cinema.  Sofia Loren remains the reigning queen of impossibly voluptuous Roman goddesses in human form (although Sofia Vergara is representing our era pretty well).  Marilyn Monroe is the American girl-next-door, the hardy and sumptuous farm-girl who is knowing in some ways and vulnerably naive in others; though she may have been the beginning of the cliché held by some American men that the more beautiful a girl is, the more mentally unstable she is.  Audrey is, of course, the Hollywood Princess, so convincing not from exceptional acting skill, but because of the success of type-casting.  As the daughter of an actual Dutch baroness and originally a disciplined ballerina struggling to make money after immigrating from impoverished post-WWII Holland, she more stumbled into acting than pursued it, and had all the charm  and sweetness expected from a Cinderella story.    

P.S. I just perused the Madame Alexander website and: a) a lot of their dolls are actually very creepy looking, so hooray me for finding cute ones; b) what is the deal with a doll company that insists that plastic dolls are age 14+?; and c) they have a Henry VIII and Wives collection, supposedly part of their Showtime Collection, but still weird.  Sadly, Anne Boleyn's and Catherine Howard's heads do not pop off.