Dolly Craze

Lately I'm crazy over 1/6-scale dolls. You know, Barbie dolls and similar. Not in the sense that I like playing with them, but more related to my interest in costume design.

It all started years ago when I saw some OOAK (One Of A Kind) dolls in Chinese wuxia styled costumes being auctioned on Ebay and I thought they looked absolutely fabulous. At that point of time I had the thought of doing the same myself, by repainting, rerooting and creating costumes for these dolls, just that it remained only as a thought. It was only recently, when I had to do costume design for "Medea" as a school assignment that the thought came to my mind again. The difference is that this time round, I really put that into action. Here are 2 costumes I had designed for the title role of Medea.

Medea in opening of play (top) and during the finale (bottom) when she was dressed similar to that of Goddess Kali. Model is a Volks Dollfie 27cm doll.

I still have 7 roles in which I had to design costumes for, and I'm not sure if I can finish them by the start of next semester! One thing I can be sure of, is I'd certainly be blamed for "spoiling the market", because doing mock-up costumes is not part of the assignment's requirement, but I did it anyway because I felt it can better aid me convey the kind of costume I wanted to create. Having said that, I don't think I'll do that again, if there's another costume design assignment in future for class, because it's simply too time and energy consuming!

Not forgetting making Chinese opera costume for my doll as well!