Boudoir Darlings

A few months ago I discovered, and became really interested in 1920s boudoir dolls. I love them because they had such a short run, just though the 20's and 30's, and are so perfectly frivolous!

For any one as late to the pary as me, boudoir dolls came about as part of the many crafts coming into Paris from Russia at that time. Relativly simple cloth bodies, painted faces, and at the time more Russian style costume. They became more and more popular and soon they were being made in fantastic18th century inspired costumes, as fashionable flappers and seedy undesirables. Women would drape them around their bedrooms and personal spaces. They represented the style of the times, and also the fantasies and daydreams of the young women holled up in these rooms. The dolls weren't only restricted to the house, some daring flappers would carry their dolls out for a night on the town. More than just a fashion doll, they were dolls as fashion accessories!

 You can spot them quite often in old movies, and they show up fairly regularly in photos of film stars and flappers through out the 20's and 30's.

I design clothing and accessories for a living, but also make and customize dolls pleasure, so these have so much appeal to me as dolls and as accessories.
 from cute but beat up to "I can't believe it stayed so clean for so long!" Trawling through listings and photos I found myself more and more wanting to make my own so that it could be just as personal as some of the dolls that appeared to be to their owners in the old photos like the one above.

It took a while, but after getting my hands covered in clay, and clothes whited out with dust, I finally managed to steal some time the other day to finish off my first boudoir doll! She looks like a Constance so that's what she's called.

She went from a creepy head on a stick to a (apparently still creepy) well dressed girl, swimming in ruffles, ribbons and art deco styling!

She has a little floss wig, picture dress, and lots of little ribbon trimmings, right down to mini knee level garters!

There's whole line of projects to work on using this doll, and it's got me started making old style dolls which is something I've been wanting to do for a while.

A few things I might do differently next time around, but over all she makes me smile, and a great starting point for bringing yet another new old thing into my life :) More photos over on Dolly Daydream (including the dolly garters!!!) along with a lot of the other dolls I've made and customized over the years.