Little Red review (with a little help from Groovy Girls Skylar)

Twenty-one years ago today I was a gawky, slightly heavyset teenager with smooth brown braids and thick glasses and only the slightest taste of the world's cruelties.  Picture Molly McIntire, aged fourteen with about fifty pounds tacked on, and you've got me at that age.  My sister was a preteen and beginning to be gawky as well, though she didn't have to wear glasses 100% of the time like I did.  The weather was beautiful that morning and everyone was in good health, but I kid you not, Daddy was concerned about a dream he'd had the night before.  He'd dreamed that he was in a large metropolitan area, surrounded by smoke, rubble, and ashes, and people were roaming the streets with carts hollering "bring out your dead," like they did during plague outbreaks.  "I don't know what to make of it!"  he mused as we munched our toast or cereal or God-knows-what...I never have been fond of breakfast.  I wasn't at the age of fourteen and I'm not now.  Anyway, I too felt a twinge of anticipation (happier anticipation, mind y'all), as I lingered in the doorway to watch the beginning of CBS's national news before heading off to school.  I liked eighth grade, and I liked the intro that the news had then, with upbeat music, a view of the New York City skyline, and the date flashed up in big letters.  I'll always be glad I lingered, because the national news changed their intro after that.  I sadly can't prove that any of this happened, but I solemnly swear that that's the way September 11th, 2001 began for me.  It was a beautiful fall day, two days after my sister's tenth birthday and less than a month before the birthday my mother and I shared (and still share, LOL).  Everyone's spirits were high as a kite...and within a matter of hours all hell broke loose in New York City and nothing was ever quite the same, even for me in my rural adolescent bubble.  Never in my life would I have suspected it.

Where am I going with this, y'all ask?  I promise I have a point.  In 2001 I was already a well-established doll collector, but I had no idea that Sarah Ferguson, better known as "Fergie" or the Duchess of York, had a charity with a little doll as a mascot (indeed, I had no idea who Sarah Ferguson was).  Chances for Children ironically sprung from the forehead of another terror attack, and the mascot was a little red-haired rag doll, fittingly named "Little Red."  The offices of Chances for Children were located in the World Trade Center, on the 101st floor of the North Tower (shudder, I hate heights).  When one rescuer was scouring Ground Zero for victims after the World Trade Center collapsed, he found one of these Little Red dolls and feared that the poppet belonged to a child.  This was quickly revealed not to be the case.  Keep in mind that these dolls were cloth, and yet this one survived the fire AND the collapse relatively unscathed (she's dirty and missing most of her hair, but she still smiles).  Chances for Children is apparently no longer active, though it was not the terror attack that did it in.  Indeed, the Duchess expanded on Little Red's world with books in the years after 9/11.  Anyway, last September I wondered if this doll would be easy to find, twenty years after the fact, and the quick answer is...no, not really.  I found exactly ONE vendor on eBay who apparently had a number of these little dolls, and I was able to buy one.  This is her when she was fresh out of her package, with her hair disheveled and her dress wrinkled from her journey to the Bootheel from New Jersey.

Little Red is Fergie's alter-ego, being everything that the Duchess apparently wishes she had been as a child.  While obscure by today's standards, she was significant enough at one time to warrant inclusion on this Raggedy Ann and Andy site.  As I noted above she's a simple little rag doll, about twelve inches from head to toe.  Her hair is red like Fergie's (and Zlata's), and it's yarn like a Cabbage Patch Kid's or Raggedy Ann's or a Groovy Girl's (or Zlata's).

Indeed, a magazine article once joked that Little Red and Raggedy Ann have the same hairdresser, though I'll note that the styles aren't exactly the same.  Raggedy Ann's hair is usually loopy all over, while Little Red's hair is straight.

There's no defined style, really.  Little Red wears her hair to the shoulder, and she has a center part with bangs (or "fringe," as the Duchess would likely say) up front.

This fringe likes to stick up, so I'll need to find a hair ribbon of the appropriate length.  When I was wagging this doll around her hair parted at a spot where it probably shouldn't part, and I saw that her hair is glued to her scalp.  Usually this is the last way that I want doll hair to be attached, but the glue isn't super-obvious or extra-gommy.

The other two ways I can think of to root yarn hair are to sew it into the head (Cabbage Patch Kids, Groovy Girls) or to wig the doll (like I clumsily did with Zlata).  Neither of these methods are perfect either; you'd never be able to tell from looking at Zlata, but her wig is one of the kludgiest craft projects I've ever done.  My Groovy Girl, Skylar, has sewn hair, but most of her head is blue and bald.

Poor Skylar, pigtails are out of the question.  They're out of the question for Little Red too, but at least her scalp is covered.  Overall Little Red has low-maintenance, kid-friendly hair.  I love the color, of course.  It's not as interesting visually as Skylar's is, nor is it as soft and smooth, but at least it covers her noggin.

I have an ulterior motive for dragging Skylar into the review, as her face reminds me a little of Little Red's...or vice versa, take your pick.

Little Red also reminds me a bit of Ivy from the Ivy + Bean series, but I can't find those rag dolls to save my life.  It's not like I need any more anyway (LOL).  Anyway, Little Red has a simple face with embroidered eyebrows and beady little black eyes that are the teensiest bit uneven.  Pardon the cat hair; Adric has been where he doesn't belong.  Typical of kittens.

LOL, beady little eyes.  My mother is deathly afraid of mice, and when she talks about them there's always a reference to their "disgusting naked tails," their "beady little eyes," or both.  Regardless, Little Red has beady little eyes, plus a sculpted nose and a stitched watermelon smile.  Depending on the color, this mouth can look rose pink, or bubblegum pink, or baby pink.  Sometimes Little Red looks like she's got teeth showing, but she doesn't.

Little Red has very light blushing on her cheeks.  It's more obvious in real life.

Under her chin Little Red has a stitch visible.  I jokingly call it a birthmark.

I learned from my days collecting Beanie Babies that an under-the-chin stitch like this helps the face hold its shape.  Nearly all of the teddy bears in the Beanie Baby family had a stitch like this, and as a result they had a sort of "pug face."  Sometimes this stitch came undone, and the teddy bear had a longer face, sort of like the first wave Teddy (this longer face was called the"old face" by collectors).  My sister's Millennium Bear looked like that, for example.  Such stitches are also visible on Waldorf dolls, though my Zlata doesn't have any that I can see.  Skylar doesn't have such a stitch.

Little Red and Skylar have similar expressions, but that's about where the similarities end.  Skylar's eyes are flush with the fabric on her face, and they're stitched rather than beaded.  Skylar has blue eyes (eye colors on these dolls varied).

Skylar's nose is flat rather than sculpted, and her mouth is stitched in black thread in an expression similar to Little Red's.

One of my other Groovy Girls (Lana Ladybug) has visible teeth, like Little Red sometimes does (sometimes LOL).  My third Groovy Girl (Bailey) has a mouth like Skylar.  Since Groovy Girls have entirely stitched features their profiles are mostly flat.  Little Red has a visible nose and indentions where dimples would be.  Little Red also looks like she's got an underbite.

Note that Skylar has simple little ears and Little Red does not.  For the record, my Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls don't have ears either.  Nor do Zlata, or Lindsay, or Azure, whom I often forget I have.  

As is often the case with dolls I review, the body gets a little interesting.  I say a little, since there's not much to say about ragdoll bodies.  Indeed, since she IS a ragdoll Little Red can't hold too many poses.

In fact, she can't even sit that well, since her noggin is so big.  Little Red is clearly a doll meant for cuddling.

Probably the most interesting thing about Red's body is that it's made of different fabric from her head.  Her head is fuzzy and her body is not, though both materials catch lint like mad.

Some ragdolls are stuffed until they feel quite firm, like Lindsay and Zlata are, but Little Red is pleasantly squishy to the touch.  She even has a few creases in her arm.  Her hands are about par for the course, with stitch lines dividing the fingers and a mitten thumb.

One of the stitches on Red's left hand has come undone.  Easy fix.

Little Red's legs are no more shapely than her arms, and since they're loosely attached they flop around like ragdoll legs should.

The legs do have a little shaping along the backs of the knees, which is more than I can say for the arms.  The shaping isn't spectacular though, and the stitches look a little crude.

Red's feet are comically big and quite round.  Her socks and shoes are separate pieces, but do not come off.  I'm a little disappointed about that, but sewn-on shoes mean they'll never get lost so that's a plus.

Sticking out of her posterior is this tag, a relic of days gone by.  Apparently FAO Schwarz was the place to go if you wanted a Little Red doll.

About par for the course for a ragdoll body.  Nothing wham-bam, but nothing terribly bad either.  Clothes now...clothes are often a mixed bag for ragdolls.  Zlata's clothes come off with ease, as do my huge Raggedy Ann and Andy's clothes, but Azure's clothes do not come off.  So I wasn't really sure what to expect with Little Red.  To my delight, her dress does come off.

It's your simple little orange gingham number with long sleeves and a few pleats at the skirt.  The material unfortunately wrinkles like mad.

I wasn't expecting Nirvana in terms of sewing since this is a mass-produced doll, but the interior of Red's dress looks okay.  The seams are obvious when the dress is turned inside out, but they're tightly done and don't have any loose ends hanging out.

The dress closes with Velcro, but since neither Red's body nor clothes snag I can overlook this.

The sleeves are long and plain, with no frippery of any sort.

The only thing breaking up the gingham is this collar, which is white.  I have trouble getting it to lie flat sometimes

Plastic-tacked to Little Red's left sleeve is her sizeable hang tag.  If I were giving this doll to a child I'd have cut the tag off, but in this case I left it on.  The front of the tag has a cute illustration of Little Red, revealing that the actual character is fancy free just like the doll is.  I love that she's swinging; swinging was my favorite way to spend recess.

Inside the tag is some information about Sarah Ferguson's charity, plus a lovely photograph of the Duchess with the doll.  As an aside, Fergie is still a redhead after all these years.  I don't know if the color comes out of a bottle or not, but that's none of my beeswax anyway.

The back of the tag has some information about a little girl that Chances for Children was able to help.  Much of the story is unfortunately obscured by FAO Schwarz's stupid advertising tag.  

The advertising bit lists a price of sixteen bucks.  Typical of FAO Schwarz, charging a high price for a simple little doll.

So we've established that Little Red can be redressed, though just what she can wear is beyond me.  Zlata's clothes proved to be too big, as did Bitty Baby clothes.  Just for funzies, I tried Luciana's new hat on Little Red.  The results are...amusing. 

I like how the flowers are the same shade as her dress, but this hat is a hair too dignified for a little girl doll.  Maybe if I can find an appropriate black dress for Little Red then I'll let her wear this again.  

And that, ladies and germs, is my 9/11 doll!  She is, like all ragdolls, a simple little thing, made special by her ties to charity and royalty (ex-royalty?).  I recommend grabbing this little gal if you see her running about in the wild, because she's all but impossible to find now.  She'll never be a priceless collectible, but she's cute and innocent in a world that is increasingly...NOT cute and innocent.

Semper fi,
RagingMoon1987