It’s hard to dig through the threads of Sundries without seeing someone talk about how they have a dress by Designer A for sale or a hard-to-find pair of pants by Designer B. Not everyone goes for “designer” Blythe clothing or accessories because it can be very expensive and not everyone sees what other people may see. It’s one thing to pay $5 for a new doll dress that someone’s looking to get rid of because they’re trying to fund a new doll purchase, but it’s entirely a different thing when someone’s asking for $150 for a doll dress. Let’s face it, I could clothe me for $150 and still have a lot of money left over for something else. Or I could just get an entire new doll for that amount!

What makes “designer” doll clothing so attractive to doll collectors? Is it a status symbol to have something made by a certain individual? Is it a source of pride to be able to own that $500 doll that wears an outfit worth a fifth of it’s value?

What makes “designer doll clothing” worth it to you? What’s your ‘maximum’ price for a single piece? And, more importantly, how much do you spend on clothing for yourself? (Just to put things into perspective.)

I avoid getting caught up in bidding wars over doll clothing. I don’t know if it’s because I lack the expendable income that a lot of other people in the hobby have or if it’s just my own personal feelings towards clothing labels transferring over to my dolls’ wardrobe (oh, the horror, non-brand name clothing for my dolls!). Of course, if you’re not hurting yourself (or someone around you) by spending copious amounts of money on doll clothes, that’s perfectly fine.

As long as you can pay for your mortgage, insurance, transportation, food, electricity, water, internet (!) and things like saving for retirement or just a rain day emergency fund, why not spend some ‘fun money’ on cute doll clothes? I can appreciate the time and talent that goes into really pretty pieces of doll-sized clothing – I know from my own experiences that sewing small clothes is fairly time consuming (and challenging!). But when second-hand items reach triple digits, I think it should be time to stop and consider what you’re buying and if the price is really worth it.

After all, just because the item can sell for $100 today does not mean that it could resell for a similar (or higher) price later on.

Sometimes I look at my dolls and wonder why I spent so much money on them. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I think about all the other things I could have gotten with that money. I could have paid for most of one term’s worth of tuition. I could have bought a lot of books or a new laptop (!) or a new digital camera. I could have bought new clothes (for me!) or shoes or pretty dresses (wait a moment, I buy dresses anyways…).

But then I think about all the things that Blythe has drawn me towards.

It drew me more into uploading and participating on Flickr.

It drew me more into sewing (I did knit and crochet before, but now I do it on a smaller scale).

It drew me more into the Blythe forums (I was a member prior to owning a Blythe, but I certainly wouldn’t have been so actively participating if I didn’t own one… or seven.).

And Blythe drew me to create this blog (yay!).

So while I could have bought a whole bunch of other things (and, to be truthful, I still spend money on tuition, the occasional new book, clothes [not that often] and pretty dresses [possibly too often]), I don’t think most of those things would have done as much for me as Blythe has. After all, if it weren’t for Blythe, I wouldn’t have made so many friends online (or tweet so much!) and it’s definitely been worth it, making friends with people and being active in a community like the Blythe community.

What has Blythe done for you?

These are some of the misconceptions that I had about Blythe when I was first entering into the hobby, I find that many of them are shared with many other people in the community as well. How many did you believe to be true when you were a newbie in the dolly community?

1. You will only need/want/have 1 Blythe doll, ever.  (I have seven dolls now.)
2. You will only create/sew/design your own doll clothes and not buy any. (While I have bought fabric and other sewing supplies for doll clothing, most of my dolls wear stock clothing or things made by other people or commerically produced doll clothes [eg. Skipper].)
3. You will find customizing incredibly easy and not nerve wracking. (So no true. Sticking hot glue sticks to an expensive $$$ doll’s eyes makes me so nervous!)
4. You will not be mildly ridiculed by your family/friends/assorted loved ones over a doll purchase. (My sisters all kind of shook their heads at me. My parents think it’s “cute”, but a waste of money. My boyfriend thinks they’re awesome, besides the evil looking eye colours [orange and pink, which looks red when the lighting is off].)
5. You realize that there are a lot of acronyms in the hobby and there is no way that you will never be able to know what most of them mean. (Too bad my brain can’t hold onto information about physics like it does doll acronyms! BDD, EBL, CP, FBL, GDD, BK, TIB, VM, SP, LM, MML, DD, AA, ABe, RR, ADG, KB…)
6. Your photos will never look as good as [insert name here] or [insert name here]. (Okay, this one is true, but I can, on the very rare occasion, take photographs that I’m not ashamed of putting online for others to see! Natural lighting is a huge help, same with having clothes that don’t clash with a doll’s hair.)
7. You will be the youngest/oldest/oddest person in the Blythe community. (While I can’t give you any guarantees that you won’t be the oddest, there are a lot of people in the hobby and chances are that there will always be someone older than you or someone younger than you.)
   
8. You will be able to stop after that 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th Blythe. (Yes, I thought this too. I justified some dolls as they were older releases/inexpensive!/limited edition, but I always seem to have my eye out for that 8th member of my doll family!)

We all have our own personal preferences. While I think it’s incredibly nerve-wracking to hold melting hot glue to an expensive doll’s eyeball, other people don’t seem to have that same issue as I do. I own primarily fully-stock dolls. Most of them only have minor customizations (a few chip changes, sleepy eyes, or just a new string) because I don’t think that I could ever bring myself to take a needle file to a doll’s lips (plus shipping in and out of the country is expensive indeed!).

But enough about me! What I really want to know is…

Do you prefer stock Blythe dolls or customized dolls? Why?

I think there are huge merits to both. Some people only found the Blythe community because they saw a customized doll photo somewhere. Some people are drawn only to the stock dolls and those cute little illustrated teasers. Some are just content with the doe-eyed look that some dolls just naturally have. Which do you love (and have)?

I’d just like to say a few words of thanks to Vicky, for allowing me to interview her as well as sponsoring a fantastic giveaway prize for the readers here at BlytheLife.com and a thank you to those who entered into the giveaway, it is a pretty impressive prize, isn’t it?

But I’m sure what everyone is most interested in is who won… And the winner is…

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