Famosa Nancy review

I'm RagingMoon1987, and today's opener is going to be a quick little science lesson.  Y'all may or may not remember that I'm fond of ice halos, and earlier in the month there was a beautiful display in Milwaukee.  The picture was taken early on January 7th, and I think I see...<pauses to count>...TEN different halos in that picture.  A 22-degree halo, a 46-degree halo, part of a parhelic circle, a very nice supralateral arc, my beloved circumzenithal arc, an upper tangent arc, an upper sunvex Parry arc, two very faint Parry supralateral arcs (these are sometimes also called tape arcs), and a possible heliac arc, plus a sun pillar and two sundogs.  Oh, such an image is one that I dream of capturing myself one day!  The Parry arcs are fairly rare, as are the heliac arc, the 46-degree halo, and to a lesser extent the supralateral arc.  The others are fairly common, but no less beautiful.

Now to today's doll review.  I'm being unoriginal again with this one, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for anything that emulates Japanese street fashion, and this Nancy doll...well, she tries.  I'm not sure how authentic she is to Japanese fashion, but she sure is cute!

Miss Emily reviewed two Nancy dolls back in 2015...good grief, has it been five years already???  A semi-reliable source once said that time waits for no one (no, not even you), and the older I get the more I realize that that's true.  So much has changed in six years!  Anyway, Miss Emily reviewed a little blonde ballerina and a brunette Little Red Riding Hood, and while I wasn't terribly smitten with Nancy at the time I've since changed my mind.  The one that I originally wanted was Alice in Wonderland, from the same fairy tale-themed wave as Miss Emily's Little Red Riding Hood, but then my eyes got dazzled by this Tokyo-themed brunette with pink highlights, and that was the end of that.  Alice in Wonderland is still adorable though, as is this pink-themed pet with the Boston terrier on her shirt (Boston terriers rock), and this one that looks a lot like JoJo Siwa.  Heather at PennilessCaucasianRubbish also has a couple of cute Nancy dolls that are worth looking at, and she even customized this one!  The customized one reminds me a little of sherbet, with the soft but bright colors in her wig.  Mmmmm, sherbet...<drools like Homer Simpson>

Alrighty, I'm done bloviating and ready to start schooling.  To my considerable surprise Nancy is a fairly old entity, dating back to 1968.  Hey, she's only one year younger than Licca-chan!  As with Barbie, Licca-chan, and most long-lived dolls Nancy has changed in appearance over the years, with the older dolls looking like this.  Miss Emily thinks the older Nancy dolls look a bit like Madame Alexander dolls, and indeed, some of them do.  Some of the older ones also remind me a little of Lesney Ginny in the face.  At one time Nancy had a boyfriend named Lucas and a sister named Lesly, and she still appears to have Lucas by her side, though I don't think he's as cute now as he used to be.  Nancy's family appears to have expanded over the years, as her current website includes bios on Nancy's teacher Emily, new little sister Deedee, best friend Mitsuki, Tia Jane, pet hamster Ernesto, and stuffed friend/protector Gus, plus a little on Nancy herself.  Ernesto's bio made me laugh, as he's a very large pink hamster who thinks he's a dog!  The holding company is called Famosa, and that name has provided me with an unexpected source of comedy, as my tablet's autocorrect keeps wanting to change "Famosa Nancy" to "Fancy Nancy."  Fancy Nancy is a cute little doll in her own right, but she's pretty different from Famosa Nancy.

Famosa is a Spanish entity like Paola Reina is, and of course now I want to compare my Nancy to my Paola Reina doll, Abigail Witch.

I don't see much of a resemblance, but what do y'all think?  Could they be cousins, perhaps, or are they just friends?  Anyway, vintage Nancy dolls are not easy to find stateside since they weren't marketed here, but Nancy's modern incarnations ARE available in the U.S. if one knows where to look...I think.  Toys 'R' Us carried them before they went belly-up, but they're, well, belly-up!  Regarding size, Nancy is sixteen inches tall, putting her between Abigail (fourteen inches) and Ana Ming (eighteen inches) in height.

Sixteen inches!  That's new.  Most of the play dolls I'm familiar with are either Ana Ming's size or Abigail's, with Crissy and Patsy Joan being my two exceptions.  Nancy falls between them in size too.

Just for the sake of reference, here's how Nancy compares to Sachi (one of my Hot Looks dolls) and to Sasha, who gets her review next week if all goes right.  Nancy is shorter than the Hot Looks and taller than Sasha, and her head is bigger than both of theirs.

I'm a little surprised that Nancy is taller than Sasha, as sources suggest that Sasha is supposed to be the taller one.  Maybe my sources are outdated, or maybe my Sasha is a little smaller than usual.  As we'll soon find out, Sasha's sizes can vary somewhat.  Anyway, since I got my Nancy doll secondhand she's missing her accessories; she originally came with a pair of glasses, a cute purse, and some other odds and ends, but I'm not terribly bothered by that.  One of her items was a panda bear, which made me laugh because it reminded me of the flub-up in the lyrics to "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume:"

I've seen polar bears and seals
I've seen giant Antarctic eels
I've still not found what I'm looking for.
 

The passage above was addressed to Robert Falcon Scott, who led the ill-fated Tera Nova Expedition to the South Pole.  The line is significant because polar bears are Arctic creatures, not Antarctic.  Captain Scott would have probably known this, but apparently Ray Thomas did not (LOL).  In a similar vein, panda bears are Chinese rather than Japanese, and thus I find it a little absurd that Nancy would've had a panda bear when the rest of her items are loudly and proudly Japanese.  I'm sure that the Japanese love panda bears (who DOESN'T love panda bears?), but they're not native to Japan.  Maybe Nancy took a side trip to China while on that side of the planet???  That's what I would've pretended, but my doll didn't have that accessory so I need to just shut face and let that go.  Since Nancy is secondhand I'm not sure yet how nice this hair will be, but I do love the colors!

Black with bubblegum pink stripes!  The stripes look orange under the glare of my phone's camera, but IRL they're pink.  The style fairly simple; two bits are pulled back and held in place by a rubber band...

...and the rest is hanging loose, including one lock right beside her face.

The fibers are soft and shiny, and the few existing tangles combed out easily, but these fibers feel woolly and a little fine, kind of like cheap Barbie-clone hair.  This hair is not super-long hair, but it would be a nightmare if it got tangled.  Furthermore, if my particular doll needed a boil wash I'm not sure it could be done, as some synthetic hair shrivels up when it's put in boiling water.  I don't think all Nancy hair is like my doll's though, and I may be completely wrong about her hair being cheap.  My doll is secondhand and has been played with, so it's entirely possible that it's just a little frizzy from being brushed a lot.  Still, I'll try to avoid boil washing in my doll's case (she doesn't need one anyway, LOL).  The root job is okay, by the way; the plugs are nicely spaced and are thick.

As thick as these plugs are, one would think Nancy's hair would be ridiculously thick too, but it's not.  The thickness of her hair is...well, it's actually just right!  Not too thick or too thin.  Not bad hair overall, though it probably would've been nicer if it hadn't been played with.  I will note, by the way, that Nancy's hairline has some pretty big gaps between the plugs.  They're not as obvious as the gaps in the hairlines of some Zwergnase Junior dolls, but they're obvious enough that Nancy's swept-back bangs were necessary.  Many, but not all of the Nancy dolls I've seen have their hair swept back, which suggests to me that they all have this gappy hairline.

Nancy's face is pretty distinctive.  I can't think of too many dolls with a face like this.  Nancy's expression is more alert and worldly than the innocent (maybe a little blank?) faces of the American Girls.

Oh, those eyes!  Some Nancy dolls have green eyes or brown eyes, and since they all have inset eyes the placement can be a little wonky, but my doll's eyes are very straight and unabashedly blue.  When I introduced Courtney and Justine-Marie I mentioned that blue eyes can be a little monotonous...but in this case I'll make an exception.

Perhaps it's these hypnotic eyes that make me compare Nancy to Abigail.  Abigail's eyes are brown, but they're printed in a way similar to Nancy's.  Both have a slight metallic look.

Nancy's eyes are inset and fixed, and they look metallic from a distance (just like Abigail's do), but up close one can see that they're two-dimensional.  From this angle it's easy to see how long Nancy's eyelashes are, and it's also easy to see a little dirt in the corners that I haven't yet cleaned out, plus what I hope isn't a crack on the side of the left eye.

Yeah...I'm hoping that's just glue residue like some of my other dolls have, or some reflective quirk in the plastic.  I have little faith in my abilities to swap eyes for vinyl dolls, and these eyes are just too pretty, so let's hope that it's not a crack!  As an aside, the eyelashes got a little squished up during Nancy's journey from somewhere in Canada to here, but they snapped back into place with a little coaxing with my fingertip.  I didn't even have to moisten my fingertip to do it, LOL!  Regarding paint, Nancy's eyebrows are nondescript brown eyebrows that look like the streaks of paint that they are.  But they're not too dark or too light, so that helps.  As for the lips, I love the shape, but I'm on the fence about the color.

Okay, up close I don't love the color, but from a normal distance the paint looks fine.  It's a very delicate shade of pink, the kind of shade that runs the risk of looking washed out under photographs.  Indeed, some Nancy dolls DO look a little washed out under the camera's glare, but my doll avoids that and I'm glad.  Maybe I wish the lips had a little gloss, but that is a very small complaint, much smaller than the streak of God-knows-what on Nancy's left cheek.  That crud did not come off with a moistened fingertip, much to my chagrin.  To sum it up, I find it ironic that five years ago I found Nancy's face off-putting, but now I adore it.  My particular doll's paint may not be as eye-catching as the Boston terrier fan's paint, but this doll's outfit is so bright that garish face paint might've been too much.

Since I always make note of earrings if they're present, here are Nancy's.  They're simple black half-sphere studs.  Please ignore my spit; I tried to clean that dust out of her ear, but I have no Q-tips.

Not only are these permanently attached like Hot Looks studs, but they're also molded on.  I can't remember the last time I saw that on a doll.  

Body now.  Nancy's head and arms are made of semi-soft vinyl, and the rest of her is hard plastic.  She has a few points worth mentioning, but first let's look at the shape.  She has a semi-mature build, with visible breasts

Nancy's plastic is an unusual color.  She doesn't look Hispanic, like I'd expect from a doll made in Spain, but she doesn't look Caucasian either.  Miss Emily noted that both Sasha and her Euro Girl have an "ambiguous" skin tone, a point proven if one looks at Sasha closely.  Maybe that's what Famosa was going for, an "international" look for Nancy?  Regardless of the reasoning for Nancy's coloring, it does make for some interesting pictures, as she can look rather sallow in some lights and healthily tan in others.  She looks pretty normal when she's paired up with Sasha and Sachiko, though.  In fact, Sasha's the one who looks a little odd here.

I think the key is to not pair Nancy with a super-pale doll or a super-dark doll and she'll look fine.  Now that that's out of the way, posing varies a bit with Nancy dolls, as some have jointed knees and some do not.  My doll is of the non-jointed variety and thus has the five standard joints of a doll her type.  Her head turns a lot and tips a little.

Miss Emily noted that Nancy's head can come off, but I think I'll just link y'all to the pictures she took and move on.  Nancy has surprisingly short little arms that rotate at the shoulder but do not pivot.

Here's what the molding on her hands is like.  She's got knuckle creases and visible fingernails, so the molding is pretty good.

Nancy's right hand is molded in a gripping position, meaning that she likely could hold the handle of her missing suitcase.  She might be able to grip some other small things too, like this fork that came with some tacos I got off Etsy.

And maybe she can't, not the best, anyway.  She does a better job than the American Girls do, though.  I'd have to rubberband that fork to Justine-Marie's hand if I wanted her to hold it.

Nancy's legs are straight, with a little bit of molding at the knees and a lot of molding on the feet.  

Indeed, Nancy has rather sizeable feet, and it looks like she might have some sort of deformity on her left middle toe.  Got claw toes, girlfriend?  I feel your pain.  Same toe, even.  LOL

With sizeable feet like that y'all might think that standing Nancy is a cinch, but in truth I have a considerable amount of trouble getting her to stand.  I have to lean her forward a little like I do some of my other dolls, and this is true whether she's wearing shoes or not.

I don't enjoy sitting Nancy down either, as her legs splay out a lot.  Her skirt is narrow and prohibits her sitting.  Usually if I want her to look like she's sitting I prop her up against something and leave it at that.

My Nancy does not have the aforementioned jointed knees, but she does have a right wrist that rotates, so that's kinda nice.  Y'all may have seen this joint when I discussed the molding of Nancy's hands earlier.

Now...Nancy's ensemble is a strange mix of complex and simple, in that it looks complex but is really a very simple getup.

That cute little top and skirt?  It's actually a dress that looks like a top and skirt.

I hate it when doll companies do this!  I mean, I can understand it with smaller dolls like Sparkle Girlz, but with a larger doll separate pieces shouldn't be that hard to make.  I do love the blouse part, though.  It's got mismatched sleeves and a flowered motif with a cartoonized girl on the front.

I thought at first that she looked like a manga character, but now she looks more like a modern kokeshi doll.  Either one would've been fitting.  The skirt portion of the dress has three tiers of varying colors and fabrics.

The top tier is this "belt," which consists of a red strip of fabric and a cute blue bow with POLKA DOTS!!!

I say "belt" in quotes because it's not really a belt.  It's sewn into the skirt on the sides and the back.

The second tier is plain denim, nothing to see, and the third tier is pleated plaid.  I like this because it reminds me a little of burberry plaid.  I think this frill is supposed to pay tribute to the skirts that Japanese schoolgirls wear, and if so then that's a cute touch.

This hodge-podge outfit is all tied together with red thread.  All the seams and hems have this.

The back fastens with our old buddy, Velcro.  It too is attached with red thread.

Pretty simple little garment, cute and well-made, but simple.  The accessories are what makes a simple little dress a little less simple.  My favorite accessory is this scarf.

I like this because it's soft to the touch and can be draped in a few different ways.  It has that cute white bow button on the end of it, but that's just a decoration.  The scarf really fastens with a snap (like I wish the dress did).

Of course this scarf isn't perfect.  The yarn is eyelash yarn, and it likes to snag on my unkempt fingernails, or on the Velcro on Nancy's dress (as was the case here).

On her head Nancy wears this little headband, made of red ribbon and black felt.  I like to joke that Nancy made a stop at Tokyo Disneyland, since these ears remind me a little of Mickey Mouse ears.

Unfortunately this part of the outfit shows the most signs of age, with some loose threads hanging off.  Luckily I can trim those off.

Underneath the dress Nancy wears plain little white britches, with the addition of more red thread.

As is customary in Japanese street fashion, Nancy's shoes are fancy, cute, and a little on the stompy side.  Her socks are black lace with little bear faces on the front, meaning that the ears on her headband are probably bear ears rather than mouse ears.

The backs of these socks are seamed, but the seam is hard to photograph.

Here's a closer look at one of the bear faces.  These are made of this plasticky-feeling material and are looking a little worse for wear.

In addition to the bears the tops of the socks are trimmed with black lace ruffles.

Nancy's boots are aqua vinyl and come up halfway to her knee.  The laces and seams are all painted.

Unfortunately these boots have some stains, and the paint is sloppy in places.

The bottoms have even more stains, making me wonder what this doll has been standing on.  Her logo is stamped into the soles.

These shoes close in an unusual manner, at least for doll shoes.  They have slits up the back, and the slits are held closed with...y'all ready for this?  Strips of Velcro.

Cute outfit, though it seems a bit tame for Japanese street fashion.  Nancy's accessories included two hair clips and a pair of glasses, but even that is a little tame considering the wild extremes that some stylish Japanese folks go to.  But Nancy's clothes are well-constructed and are holding up well, so I really should just shut face.

Regarding clothes sharing, I think my best candidates are Crissy, Sachi, and Sasha.  They're all slender enough in the body that Nancy might be able to get into their clothes...except for shoes.  Nancy's big ol' feet are TOO big for the smaller shoes of the other dolls, but I still wanna try Crissy's green dress on her.

The sleeves of Crissy's dress are too long for Nancy, but otherwise the green dress fits fine.  I'm willing to bet that Crissy's short-sleeved outfits would fit just fine, but I don't have any at the moment so that's that.  I had a hard time getting Nancy's dress on Crissy because the black sleeve is lined, presumably to keep Nancy's arm from staining.  This lining caught on Crissy's splayed fingers, making it very hard to pull that sleeve up.  I got the job done though, and Crissy looks cute.  I doubt Crissy could wear any jeans or pants that Nancy has since her rear is a little wide, but in this case clothes swapping was a suucess.

I have high hopes for Sasha's white dress since Nancy's hands are smaller than Sasha's big paws.

In fact Sasha's dress is a little too big all over!  I was able to adjust the fit with the sash.  The tights look alright, but in truth they're about an inch too short.

Since I'm looking at Sasha clothes I may as well discuss the other outfits I have for her.  The green A Girl For All Time jumpsuit is big all over and doesn't look the most flattering, but the shoes fit (surprise, surprise).  The cardigan that I knitted for Sasha last summer also fits nicely over Nancy's shorter arms.

This dress is too big, with or without the sash.

Lastly, the jeans and T-shirt combo.  The shirt is a little loose, but not ridiculously so. 

Sasha can't get Nancy's dress past her hips.  I had my doubts about her hands and those sleeves anyway.

Finally, Sachi's getup.  Since Sachi is Japanese this outfit might suit Nancy.

Sachi's getup is too big on Nancy for the most part, though the odd Hot Looks piece might fit.  Nancy's clothes fit Sachi like a dream except for the ear headband.

Just for the heckuvit I tried this Wellie Wisher dress on Nancy.  It's tight across the chest, tight enough that a dress with sleeves probably would not fit Nancy. 

Very well!  Time to wrap it up.

BAD
*Her body is pretty stiff.  That's about the worst critique I can muster.  Some of these dolls have bendable knees, but even they have awkward hips.
*Lip color isn't the greatest, but do-able.
*Can't wear many other dolls' shoes.

GOOD
*I was pleasantly surprised by Nancy's quality!  Her body is mostly hard plastic, but it's nice and thick.  The clothes are well-made for the most part too, and the hair is smooth.
*OMG, those eyes are gorgeous!
*Can wear a surprising array of clothes.  Short-sleeved Crissy clothes, some Sasha items, and the odd Hot Looks and Wellie Wisher piece will work. 

Not much else to say!  Nancy is a perfectly fine little play doll, and she's nice enough to be a doll for collectors too.  Some may be initially put off by her face (like I was), but she can grow on you!  There's a lot of variation in the outfits too, from casual to dressy to fantasy.  I can only speak for my doll, but the outfit is easy to deal with...except for the socks.  I'm afraid those will snag on the Velcro of my doll's socks.

Sasha's turn is coming up next!

Much love,
RagingMoon1987