Pros: Dolls are beautifully coloured and detailed.
Cons: No instructions period, paper is flimsy. You have to cut everything out yourself.
The Bottom Line: Clearly this is not a item that has wide appeal. It would make a unique gift though to anyone interested in fashion history, Victorian clothing or paper dolls.
MagickCat's Full Review: Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar,...
Dainty lacy gloves and far away looks. Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890 allows you to slip into the high drama of Victorian fashion, without suffering the trauma of stuffing your stuffing into innard crushing corsets.
Meet the Girls Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890 comes with four proper painted paper Ladies and their very extensive wardrobes. Let me introduce you! First of all there is Abigail the quiet one, the Beatrice the social butterfly, Caroline the marriageable one... Lets make that three proper painted paper ladies...
And then there is Daphne.
Abigail faces you directly; she is a pleasant enough girl but oh so very dull and tiresome. Lets just leave her in the corner where she belongs.
Over there is Beatrice and Caroline. Both vacantly staring to their sides with shoulders slouched and arms hanging, all together dreadful posture. What terrible posture they have! Just dreadful, but you should really see them on a day when they've hit the absinthe and opium hard...
And then there is Daphne with that one eyebrow arched craftily. She always looks like she is up to something and all that skin that Daphne shows...you just know she is a shrew.
Gossiping and Keeping Tabs
The dolls themselves have pretty poorly designed stands, and with no instructions to be found within this booklet, you are left to your own devices in figuring out just how to put them together.
Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890 claims to be printed on heavy card stock, but the paper is still very flimsy.
The dolls, Abigail, Beatrice, Caroline and Daphne, are printed on the same type of paper as the fashions. As you can guess this makes these ladies rather unstable. Paired with their listless poses you get the sense they are drugged up or about to pass out.
But what Victorian experience would be complete without a good fainting spell?
Like most paper dolls, the dresses are kept in place by little paper tabs. However each outfit usually only has two and at the most four paper tabs to wrap around the dolls bodies. One good gust of wind and you have the four Marilyn Monroe’s of 1867.
(Daphne probably had a hand at designing this)
There is also a large tab at the bottom which folds behind the dress.
Abigail, Beatrice, Caroline and Daphne
No I didn’t give them any of those names. Each doll is already named for you, so it saves you the fun of thinking up a snotty Victorian name. Oh well, at least they included a Beatrice.
Apparently none of the girls are into sharing clothing. As every outfit has the name of the doll it was intended for clearly printed on the tab. You could probably and awkwardly interchange some of the outfits, but many of them are drawn to match the necklines of the individual dolls.
Feathers, Fans, and Finery.
The costumes featured in Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890 are richly detailed and lovely. No two are the same.
The girls come with seven different costumes complete with matching hats. Plus the dresses they are already wearing makes for 8 perfectly fitted outfits direct from Harper's Bazar.
For modesty sake they come fully clothed and not in their under things, unlike some other paper dolls I could mention.
Abigail is partial to walking suits she owns at least 4. She also comes with a mirror to pine into for being such a bore. Daphne picks gowns cut much too down. Beatrice likes her gloves and Caroline is the only paper doll to come with the much celebrated bridal gown.
But why does only one doll come with a wedding gown?
What does it say about the other dolls? Who knows? Caroline's threads are a little fancier then the rest; perhaps she shacked up with Joe Millionaire.
Colour me Antique
What stands out is the fantastic colours used in Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890. The artist Theodore Menten, has obviously taken a lot of care in picking out colours and patterns appropriate to Harpers Bazar magazine.
Nothing looks modern or out of place.
Despite poking fun at the positions the dolls are drawn in, they do look very authentic and very dainty right down their rosebud lips.
The two things I do not like about Victorian Fashion Paper Dolls from Harper's Bazar, 1867-1890 are the lack of instructions and the flimsy paper the dolls are printed on. It is supposed to be heavy card stock but the dolls themselves should have been made out of something sturdier. Also the back of this "book" boasts that it includes: "walking suits, carriage dresses, evening dresses, seasonal attire, hats and headdresses, and even a beautiful bridal gown", but it doesn't tell you what is what. Besides the blatantly obvious wedding gown, I can't tell carriage dresses from walking suits.
This is a nice paper doll set but it is more for display then anything else. With a little information about the dresses, it could have been the fascinating lesson of fashion history that it claimed to be on the back.
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