New blog

The new blog is ready! It took a bit longer than expected but I think everything is working now. The only thing that still needs some work is for me to receive emails when a comment is awaiting moderation, so please be patient if I don’t accept your comments right away.

Here is the new address: Songes de poupées !

I hope to see you there! ^_^

Moving

No I’m not moving… not yet. But the blog is!

I’ve been planning that for quite some time, I’m moving the blog to its own hosting and a “real” wordpress. This will allow, among other things, to have the three different languages in one place. Yoohoo! I imported all posts and comments from those blogs into the new one yesterday. It was a lot of work to reorganize all this inside the multi-language blog. ^^; But I think the biggest part of the new blog is set up now. In the meantime I’ve disabled comments here on old posts, so that people can’t post new comments that would be lost (i.e. not in the new one). The present blogs will stay, but I’d like all activity from now on to move to the new one.

There are still a few things to change before it is viewable, please wait a little. I’ll update here with the new address as soon as it’s ready (or ready enough to be used, even if some tiny details still need editing).

New J-Doll

I’m not usually the best fan of J-Doll. Some of them are nice, and can have nice concepts, but they really can’t compare to Momoko dolls in my eye. But today I discovered this new one announced by Groove, and I have to say I find her really cute.

She’s named Robson Street. I don’t know which country it comes from, and her outfit doesn’t really give me any clue.  But I really like her style! I like the different pieces of her outfit, the layered look and the bright colors. It gives her some personnality. Plus I tend to like JP/Groove’s wavy hair.

I don’t know when she’s supposed to be released exactly, I lost track of J-Doll’s releases and they didn’t tell it in the blog announcement.

CCS Noble Punk

This doll is absolutely gorgeous. I totally fall in love with her each time I see her for real. She has a very strong character that I think few have. Most Momoko are beautiful. But this one really is special.

(picture taken at Petworks/CCS booth at Dollshow 25)

Odeco & Nikki patterns

Here are the patterns that you can find in the last issue of DollyDolly magazine (vol.19).

They were exhibited on Petworks’ booth at the Dollshow. They were using the exact same display they used for the magazine. The outfits are from allnurds. They were selling a colour variation at their own booth:

And at A-line’s booth we could see the outfits they made for DollyDolly magazine vol.18. I had shown a crapy picture from the magazine at the time. Here is a better one:

As usual you can find all pictures from those booths on my Flickr stream.

P.S.: by the way Songes de poupées will be moving soon. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the new address.

DS25 ~ Rosette dolls (Silver Butterfly+G)

Okay so I have to talk about those. First because they’re beautiful, and then so I can finally close the tab that I’ve kept open for weeks on my browser to include the link here. ^^;

Some of you might be active BJD collectors/fans, and already know about them. But I don’t have any BJD yet and I’m not aware of all new dolls that appear. I’ve discovered the Rosette dolls at Silver Butterfly’s booth at the last Dollshow.

Aren’t those two girls pure beauties? I was under their spell the moment I saw them. I took tons of pictures and asked the young woman attending the booth what dolls they were. I didn’t remember seeing any like this before. Of course when I came home I had forgotten the name! :s I knew I had to note it down. So began a search through the Internet to find them again. I discovered that the booth was shared between Silver Butterfly and CoCoon… and found the dolls on CoCoon’s blog!

I learned again there that they are called Rosette and that the owner of the blog had done a custom make-up on them. After a few more searches I then found their official website: Rosette school of dolls (warning: the site doesn’t work well with Mozilla Firefox, I have to use IE). They’re made by Soom, and are supposed to be pupils of an elite school. You can also find them for sale at Soom’s regular online shop. They’ve just released limited dolls for summer with closed or half-closed eyes (I like the regular ones better, but some might prefer those! And for only $30 more it’s not very expensive considering they’re kind of limited).

There are currently 5 different dolls: Camellia, Violet, Fir, Marguerite and Armeria. They’re 47.5cm high and can have two kinds of body: girl body or lady body. The only difference is the bust (girl = small breasts, 14.3cm chest circomference ; lady = bigger breasts, 16cm chest circomference). Their head circomference is 17cm/6.5inches and their eye size 12 or 14 mm. You can find the other measurements in the “library” page of the “Rose house” section. You cannot choose the body type yourself, it depends on the girl. Only Marguerite and Fir have the lady body.

Both customized dolls on Silver Butterfly’s booth are Fir. Above is the official picture of Fir’s standard version. This shows how the make-up is important in a doll’s character, because they seem very different from each others. Fir is my favourite of all the molds. Violet is nice and Camellia is quite cute also, but Fir have a little something that makes her special in my eyes. I so wish I had $423 to spend. ^^;  And that I knew how to make-up a doll. I love the custom make up CoCoon gave the dolls, compared to the stock make-up, which is very pretty but classic, it’s wonderful. I know it is part of why they enchanted me like that. The one on the right especially (with not much clothes on). She reminded me of a french comic book series I like a lot, “Sky doll”. Especially the character named Agappe. I’m not sure why now that I look at the pictures, but at the time she gave me the same feeling. It might be the thin body, bare breast and “dreamy” make-up.

If you don’t need a Rosette doll now I don’t understand you. Okay, just kidding, but I really think those are wonderful and I’m totally obsessing over them (as if the U-noa girls weren’t enough). And it must be nice to have a bigger doll to make clothes for (1/6 is nice, but very small :s And human size is sometimes a little too big and fabric consuming). Sigh…

PS: the funny thing is that the booth was very popular, but not because of those. Just beside they had a set-up with big male BJD, that attracted all the attention. I was the only one there captivated not by the male dolls but by those two beauties. ;p As usual you can find all the pics from this booth on my Flickr, including the hot guys.

PPS: here is a blog which is for now showing pictures of Rosette dolls only (in Japanese): http://ghungroos.jugem.jp/

CCS09AW “Puppy Garden”

Okay so now I’m officially disappointed in Petworks/CCS. Just as I finished typing my previous post I decided to check their information page, to see if there was any news. And there was. They updates it yesterday about the new collection: it will be composed of two sets.

And I’m so disappointed that they seem to definitely change their marketing method. It was a nice thing for once, but as a habit it’s not fun at all. I know from the start that I won’t be able to get a single item from the new collection, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. CCS was my favorite dolly brand by far, and now I won’t be able to buy their clothes anymore. That makes me sad. And feel like I totally doesn’t matter to them (or other people like me who can’t spend so much). I’m sure they have their reasons for doing that (they’re sure to get their money back right from the start), but it makes it seems like its all about money and not about the people. Of course it is. But you don’t have to show it like that.

They took the CCS dream away from me…

On the practical side: the sets will be 39,000 yens and once again sold on preorder through Azone. Preorder period is from June 1st to July 21st. They will be delivered in winter.

Dollshow 25 ~ CCS

Petworks was showing the samples of the next CCS collection (for this autumn). Here is a selection of pictures, you can see the others on my Flickr (I’m not showing all color variations here).

(note the reappearance of the high boots)

Once again this new collection is very different from the previous ones. I don’t love all the pieces, but I do appreciate their originality.

They didn’t know yet whether the collection would be sold as a set or each pieces separately. I surely hope those will be separates! First, because I want to dream and I want other people to dream also. The sets are too constraining, you can’t buy a piece at a time (and they’re sold through preorder only, which means you have to buy them and then wait for half a year to get your clothes!). And while the idea of a unique set destined to give you a doll and basic pieces is nice, if they do it each time you can’t really talk of “starting sets” anymore.

And here is a pic of the yukata girls to come out this summer (the others are here).

dollshow 25 ~ Puchimado

I didn’t know this maker, but I found those doll really funny and kind of cute with their gigantic head and innocent face. It seems they’re on an Obitsu 23cm body. I think maybe a less skinny body would look better on them. Maybe a custom body, or a Pure Neemo one?

They have two types of faces: ones with painted eyes and mouth, and ones with 3D eyes and mouth (I don’t know how to describe them).

Harajuku Dolls Exhibition & Dollybird 12

Before I start with the Dollshow reports, I wanted to talk about this exhibition and the new Dollybird. Some of the articles to come are going to mix the Dollshow and this event, so I thought it might be interesting to introduce it first.

Harajuku Dolls Exhibiton, or HDE, started on April 29th in the Laforet Museum (Laforet is a big department store in Harajuku, Tokyo). It will be on until May 10, and I definitely recommend going to see it if you’re nearby, because it’s great! The entrance fee is 700 yens.

This event is closely linked to the new issue of Dollybird (a japanese doll magazine), which is released this month. For this new issue they contacted several people from the dolly world and gave each of them a few pages to show pictures of their work. Each section ends with what I suppose is an interview of the creators. I first heard about it last February, after the Doll flea market when Hiroko-san from Kogumaza and Hiroko-san from Daisy-D talked about it. They’re both featured in the magazine. Kogumaza-san wanted to collaborate with the creator behind Hard Pain for the setting of her pictures and some accessories (he does amazing stuff). It turns out most of the dolls featured in the magazine are exhibited at the event. Or most of the dolls exhibited at the event are part of those featured in the magazine, as you prefer to put it. Not all the artists taking part in the exhibition are featured in the magazine, but most of them are. So the magazine ends up being a kind of summary of the exhibition. It doesn’t contain pictures of the exhibition itself, but it contains roughly the same dolls. Plus almost all the creators are giving a free pattern inside.

Here is the list of all those who are featured in the magazine, with the kind of doll they provided a pattern for if relevant:
- Koitsukihime
- Left Thimble (SD)
- Little Princess (Unoa zero)
- Kanihoru (Odeco & Nikki)
- Kogumaza (Momoko)
- Mitsubachi Keito (Skipper)
- Mugendô (SD)
- Silver Butterfly (SD13)
- Honey Meryl (U-noa)
- Dolls Drug Kingdom (SD, SD13 (guys))
- Ruriha & Wisteria Lodge
- Daisy-D & mitsubachi@BabyBee (Blythe)
- Alfort

So you can find work from all those people at the event, plus Elolita and Spica. This exhibition is really great. I think it’s one of the best doll exhibition I’ve been to. The space is divided by some kind of walls, so you discover the whole thing slowly, you can only see a little bit a first, then you get to see more, until you arrive at the center space wich is bigger. Most of the work is shown as frames: the walls have rectangular cavities where the dolls are set, lined by a frame. It looks like painting in a museum. This idea is really nice, because each “frame” can have its own setting and atmosphere, and can be enjoyed separately from the rest. You can appreciate each set at its best.

The section devoted to Koitsukihime was different: the space was bigger, the dolls being exhibited in a circle area protected by a dome of white drapes. Sadly pictures were forbidden there. It was the first time I saw those dolls for real. The work done on them is really impressive, with lots of details and realism. But I’m not a huge fan of the dolls themselves (meaning I wouldn’t want to get one for me).

Another small section was devoted to Blythe, with a few dolls exhibited on pillars under glass protection as usual in Blythe events. Just beside this area was the section for Alchemic Labo/U-noa: the different types of dolls, a huge number of Lusis and Sist customized and dressed by Little Princess, which are being sold there (I thought I was going to get crazy seeing so many of them at the same place, and for sale!), and a few display cabinets devoted to their new doll series! The big news for me when I could get a glimpse of the Dollybird at the Dollshow was the release of those dolls. Maybe you already know about this, but I don’t have much time to go read the dolly communities nowadays, so I didn’t know anything about those new dolls. And they were exhibited there at the event! I took a few pictures to be able to show them, and I might take a few snaps of the magazine also. Prepare for a post about those soon for all the details. Here’s their names, judging from the tag I saw: Roron and Ririn.

The last part was more business-like: it was a space devoted to several doll brands to showcase their dolls and products. It was interesting because there were many different kinds of brands and dolls, some of which I’m not used to see here. Here’s the list of the brands I remember: Azone (Pure Neemo), Integrity Toys, Momoko & U-noa Light (Sekiguchi), Pullips (exhibiting the Angelic Pretty dolls, so I was able to get a picture of those), Moof, Kinoko Juice (with their original doll Kiki, I’ll talk about her later), Momolita (Mottee, Momolita Preta, Nano Haruka and her new sister), Minoru World, Ai, Luts. Plus at least two others I don’t remember.

When you get out of the exhibition space you arrive to the shop, where you can find losts of nice products. I guess you could find even more the first day, but I wasn’t there to see. Most of the exhibited dolls are also for sale, I think you have to ask one of the staff members if you’re interesting in them.

I really really really enjoyed this event! You get the fealing that everything was carefully planned, prepared and thought out. The dolls and outfits are wonderful. And the settings are really great. I was also very happy that you could take pictures of almost everything. But of course my two batteries had to go dead before I took pics of everything! I forgot to charge them again after the Dollshow… -_- I had to fight real hard against my camera to be able to get everything. I guess the camera won, saddly… I even had to use my phone camera in the end! But I think I got a glimpse of all the displays. It’s just that you won’t get as many detailed photos as usual (but maybe you’ll be happy of that, I know I take lots of pictures ^^; ). You can see a few preview pics in this post, I’ll sort out the others and post everything on Flickr later. Hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did!

P.S. : the first picture at the top comes from the official site.