Dolly Dress Discussion: new stuff for Denise

Every year around this time I get bitten by the American Girl bug and become obsessed with finding new things for Denise and my historical girls.  Usually the website has some nice things that catch my eye and this year is no exception...except that I usually find something there for Denise.  This year...not so much.  Felicity has a beautiful new meet gown available, which I probably will order for Christmas.  Seriously, it's been about eighteen years since Felicity got something new.  But usually my shopping sprees are focused on Denise, as she's a modern and thus easy to shop for.  Lo and behold, there's nothing there for Denise, nothing that sets my world aflame, anyway.  Denise is a modified Samantha and thus can get away with any style of clothing past 1900, but I usually stick her in modern threads.  AG's modern threads, with the exception of the new meet outfit and the cute new things for the Create Your Own line, are very "meh" this year...except for the separates.  Those kick butt...but the prices for one single sweater or skirt are insane.

Etsy and eBay to the rescue.  I got these for Denise this year.  There's this casual set, which consists of off-brand pieces...

...and the Hanukkah outfit, which is mostly brand-name.

Mostly brand-name.  I had to replace the tights as the original ones were MIA.

Regarding the casual outfit, the blouse came from one store and the jeans came from another, and both shipped at different times, but they ended up being delivered on the same day.  What are the odds of that?  Anyway, the top is from Sheeky Violets and it's very simple in design, but also quite eye-catching.

Denise's new top is a tent blouse in a bright floral print.  Since it IS a tent blouse in suspect that it'll fit Denise loosely, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Instead of opening in the back and closing with Velcro or buttons or snaps, this top has an elastic collar that should slip over Denise's head with very little fuss.  This also allows for some nice gathers at the neckline.

Rather than meeting in the back, the front and back panels are joined with seams at the sides, not unlike a human-sized garment.

According to the website, the material is one of my favorite materials:  cotton.  I assume that this particular cotton is intended for use as a quilt, but it made a good blouse too.  The print consists of large overlapping flowers in white, black, and shades of green, on a black background.

The blouse has short sleeves set in; these fall about two-thirds of the way to Denise's elbows.

The hems and seams are all serged, and I see very few foibles in stiching.  Oh, there are a few loose threads...

...but none of it shows in the outside.

Now the jeans.  I already have a pair of blue jeans for Denise, but there's no such thing as too many pairs of jeans so I got her another pair.  These came from Practicing Perfection.

They feel like real denim, but I'm not certain about that.  Denim is thick and can be stiff, but this stuff isn't.  It has all the details of a good pair of jeans, though; it's got two real hip pockets in the front, plus a fly with a snap.

Most of the jeans I've worn either had a fly that buttoned or a fake fly (I'm into elastic waistbands these days, LOL), but this one snaps.  I haven't worn a pair of jeans that snapped in years, and the last pair I wore (many, many, MANY years ago) had a snap that eventually broke.  I ended up losing my britches right in the front yard, an occurrence that we all found comical.  Let's hope that never happens to Denise!

The back has two bootie pockets (also functional), and these are extra cute.

See the little flowers?  That's the main reason why I got this particular pair of jeans; since the top is flowered, why not get blue jeans with flowers somewhere too?

Like the top, these jeans are hemmed everywhere, no loose threads or anything.  The cuffs are particularly nice; sometimes jean cuffs can be annoyingly problematic, wanting to ravel or turn wrong-side-out, but these don't do that.

Oh yes, I also got her some new shoes in preparation for this outfit.

Simple black and white Converse-style sneakers from Hobby Lobby.  I love Hobby Lobby's doll shoes; unlike Our Generation shoes, the shoes at Hobby Lobby fit everyone!

Here's what my bobbed brunette looks like in her new threads.

Sort of a modern-day interpretation of a flower child, I guess you could say.  I need to cobble together some jewelry maybe, so Denise's arms won't look so plain.  A top like this needs a few cute pieces of jewelry.  Otherwise the look and fit are almost perfect.  Almost...the jeans are a bit tight, enough so that I now have to prop Denise up when she sits, something that I didn't have to do when she was wearing a dress.  There are some very minor issues, as the top is also a little baggy in the back and it covers the cute flowers on Denise's back pockets.  Lastly, these jeans are clearly not bell-bottoms.  I thought by looking at the online picture that maybe they were, but they're straight legged.  Bell-bottoms would've looked cute with the quasi-hippie top, but can't have everything, I guess.  They're still nice jeans, perfect for the casual look that I had in mind.  The green looks fabulous with Denise's dark hair, too; normally I reserve green for redheads, but in this case I'll make an exception.  I love Felicity dearly, but I don't think she could've pulled this look off as well as Denise does.  This reminds me of a passage I read in a high school drama class textbook, a passage that said brunettes could get away with wearing almost any color, while blondes and redheads looked better in certain colors than in others.

Now to the Hanukkah set, also referred to as the "winter festival set."  I can't remember whether I've made this clear in the past, but I've chosen to make Denise a Jewish character, something that American Girl doesn't have too many of.  Lindsey and Rebecca are the only two I can name, and Lindsey was more Jewish in name only than anything (though she was still adorable).  Anyway, Jewish culture and holidays fascinate me, because unlike some folks (myself included) the Jews do their best to remember the meaning behind their holidays.  I've always loved this particular outfit anyway so here it is.  Folks normally associate the colors green and red with Christmas, while white and blue are commonly associated with Hanukkah.  This getup is thus the perfect color combo, being dark blue with shades of white and off-white, and a few touches of silver as well.  As with the casual outfit, I'll start with the top, which in this case happens to be an ivory-colored sweater.

Oh, if only I could capture texture in photographs!  I wish this sweater came in my size, it's so soft and cuddly.  I'm not sure if this fiber is synthetic or natural, though the wiki's entry insists that it's made of angora.  Maybe there's a tag inside that says for sure...<pauses to look>...yep, there is one, but unfortunately it says nothing about the makeup of this sweater.  It does warn the owner to hand wash and line dry the sweater if it gets grubby, so there's more evidence that the catalogue's description was truthful.

Angora is one of those fibers that I have no experience with, so I'll be doing some research on how to keep this sweater nice.  I sure as heck don't want moths!

Now back to the review.  The stitches on this sweater are small, small enough that they look in scale for a little garment like this.

The front of the sweater is decked out in little rhinestones, something else that I dig on sweaters.

The cuffs of the sleeves are subtly ribbed, as are the neckline and the waist.

Inexplicably, the back closes with Velcro.  Velcro which could potentially catch like mad on these delicate stitches.  I'll have to be extra careful that the hooked side doesn't flop around when I'm dressing Denise.

Now, the skirt.  The skirt is surprisingly very simple, being a circle skirt in dark blue velvet (one of my favorite fabrics).

The waistband is unsightly, unfortunately.  It's a black band of elastic and has nothing to cover it.  Hopefully it'll be hidden by the sweater.

No seams anywhere.  See?

The hem of the skirt is holding together, but I did have to trim a loose thread off of it last night.

It's also easy to see another big problem with the skirt:  being velvet, it catches lint like mad.

The shoes are plain little cream-colored pleather flats that will go with any number of dressy items.

The headband is made of this white coiled stuff with some tinsel added in.

It stretches, just like an old-timey phone cord, but I have my doubts about how this will fit Denise.  She's got a good-sized head, and when I stretch this band I get a lot of resistance, suggesting that it doesn't have a lot of give.

This ensemble once came with ribbed cream-colored tights, but they're missing in this case so I improvised with some similar tights from Etsy.

They don't match the sweater perfectly since the sweater is ivory and the tights are white, but they'll do.  I can't tell the difference in the pictures anyway.  Instead of being ribbed like the original tights, they have an open-knit diamond pattern.

Notice how narrow they are at the top.  When I first saw these I assumed that I'd have to either squeeze Denise into them or save them for a slimmer doll like Ana Ming.  As it turned out, these tights have a good amount of stretch and fit Denise's pudgy waist and legs without any problems.  They do fit her in a bizarre way, though.  Look how high the waist is!

Those are some high tights, folks!  Good thing Denise isn't a real child, because leaving the tights that high would be uncomfortable, and so would rolling them down to waist level.  I've had personal experience with that second scenario and believe me, it's not fun.  Much to my chagrin there's already a snag in these tights.

I can only assume that I got Denise too close to a cat, as I do not place her on rough surfaces.  Luckily the skirt covers that snag, and it's not a very serious one to begin with, so no major harm done.

Now here's how Denise looks in her Hanukkah finery.  I doubt those high-waisted tights will be much of a problem aesthetically.

Waiting for December just got harder.  Denise looks so cozy and pretty in this that I hate taking it off of her, but alas, it's not cold enough for this kind of garb yet...nor am I really ready for it to be.  I've never been a huge fan of winter, though I love Christmas, Hanukkah, and the new year dearly.  Anyway, I love how this looks on Denise.  The high-waisted tights are hidden, as are the pull in the tights and the black band on the skirt.  However, I wasn't happy with the way Denise's hair was styled in this first picture.  The headband is evidently supposed to go around the doll's head, but at first all I could manage was a Pebbles Flinstone-style ponytail.  The little model in the catalogue got the job done, so surely Denise can too.  I could just leave the band behind Denise's ears and not try to hold all the hair back, like this.

Yeah, that's much better.  Denise looks less Bedrock and more festive, like the doll in the catalogue but with short hair.  As an interesting little side note, the model in the catalogue is Just Like You #16, one of three dolls that American Girl has had available since they started the Truly Me line.  #13 and #19 are the other two.  #16 bears an uncanny resemblance to Samantha (and Denise), #13 bears a passing resemblance to Molly and to me (her eyes are the wrong color for both of us), and #19 has had a redesign during her stay at American Girl, possibly due to ongoing problems with silver eye.  Thus as far as I'm concerned she's #19 in name only, but still, that number has been filled from the beginning.

Tangent over, I've always been fond of American Girl's winter outfits, as they're not stuck in a red-and-green rut like Barbie appears to be.  Seriously, this year's Holiday Barbie is drop-dead gorgeous, but I think she's the fifth one I've seen wearing red.  American Girl has avoided this even into the Mattel years, with Just Like You outfits in dark blue, black, indigo, and purple, and they haven't all been dresses either!  But for some reason, a reason that I've yet to put my finger on, the Hanukkah set is special.  It's a beautiful outfit, no question, and it's a feast for anyone who relies heavily on tactile sensations.  The skirt drapes wonderfully, and the shoes can be worn with any other outfit without much fuss.  I can even pair them with Denise's flowered top and blue jeans without the resulting look being too bad...though I probably won't do that since these are dress shoes.  Pairing them with a play outfit just wouldn't be practical...but in a pinch I still could do it.

There's something else about the Hanukkah set though, something that takes me back to the days when Pleasant Company was at the helm and a ton of outfits were released each year.  Nowadays girls are lucky if they get ONE holiday-themed outfit.  Furthermore, American Girl's modern-day outfits are not specific to any particular holiday.  Most of the winter outfits nowadays are labeled in the all-inclusive "Holiday" category, which I find annoying since not everyone celebrates "HOLIDAY."  When I was very young American Girl releases specific outfits for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the Chinese New Year.  The Chinese New Year outfit proved to be inaccurate, but I digress.  It was nice to see a company going the extra mile for folks who celebrated a particular holiday and not just lumping them all together as a single holiday season.  But then again, making specific outfits with fabrics as diverse as velvet, brocade, and corduroy probably drove production costs up quite a bit.  Certain people may say "Oh, American Girl is just trying to include everyone by saying "holiday" instead of <fill in the blank>," but...no.  I just don't buy that, because when the Hanukkah outfit was being produced there was another set that was simply labelled "holiday bibs outfit," which would be perfect for all the winter shindigs, or just to wear during December!  THAT was all-inclusive.  A single dress for all holidays hints at more of Mattel cutting costs, though as far as I know the outfits are still well-made.  As far as I know, anyway.  This Christmas I'll be putting that to the test with some new things for Felicity...and maybe some earrings for Denise, if I can get brave with a drill.

Anyway, that's my new stuff for Denise...for now, anyway.  Since she's not a historical she's the easiest of my American Girls to buy for, but I'm still particularly pleased with these outfits.  The flowered top and jeans are the perfect everyday outfit for September (just around the corner), and the Hanukkah outfit transports me back to a time when looking through an AG catalogue was like turning a kid loose in a candy store.  Oh yes, it's also soft and pretty and...I just really like the Hanukkah outfit and I'm so happy to finally have it!  eBay is a godsend for those of us who missed out on cute doll clothes like this, and I'll be diving in there again fairly soon...hopefully for the modern dance outfit!

Best wishes,
RagingMoon1987