Sunday Randomness: Cissette and Elise move in

Greetings, comrades.  Looks like my AG Spotlights aren't the most popular things, since no one comments on them, LOL.  If you're not a fan, all I can say is buckle up because I've got plenty more to do.  Lindsey's personality hasn't been the easiest to put together, I must admit (she's my next doll).  But today I'm gonna swig some water and do something I haven't done in awhile.  I haven't done a post on Madame Alexander dolls since heck was a pup, and since two new-to-me dolls just moved into the house I figured I'd show 'em off now.  This little one is Cissette.  

In the time since I took the above photo both of Cissette's cute little shoes have disappeared.  Shoes or no, one of Cissette's sisters made a cameo appearance here many moons ago, but she belonged to the lady who owned and later gave me Mary Jane.  This Cissette is mine.  She's MINE, MINE, MINE!!!  LOL, pardon my excitement, but I've always had a fondness for Cissette, who has all of Cissy's beauty packed into a smaller frame and a smaller price.  I don't think my doll is vintage like my friend's doll is, but oh well, she's just as good.  Here's how she compares in size to my decrepit old Cissy doll, Peaches...

...and because I love Little Miss Revlon, here's how Cissette compares in size to Wendy.

I'm hoping but doubting that these two can share clothes since their measurements are a hair different.  Anyway, older Cissette dolls date from 1957 to 1963 (the line was apparently felled by Barbie).  Like her larger companion Cissette has been a ballerina, and she's also worn bridal garb, Southern belle costumes, and other frilly stuff like that.  Some dolls have knee joints and some don't, with my doll being in the "have" category.  Notice that she's also got little nylons.

Ugh...I have a love-hate relationship with this type of knee.  It bends to a nice sharp angle, but it's also hard to bend and bad to break if treated roughly.  Peaches has a broken knee, for example.

I need to bite the bullet and send Peaches to a real dolly doctor.  I don't have what it takes to return her to her former glory.  Now...I said that Cissette was discontinued in 1963.  That being said, Madame Alexander still makes her from time to time.  She's not as ubiquitous as Wendy, the little girl doll that everyone seems to love, but she still exists, most recently as Clara, from The Nutcracker.

Speaking of ballet, here's a better look at Elise.  Ugh, those reflecty Madame Alexander eyes!  Cissette doesn't look too bad, but Elise looks like she could be dangerous!

Elise is a bigger doll at seventeen inches.  She's thus closer in size to Peaches, though not quite her size.

According to a fellow blogger Elise became Madame Alexander's "tall doll" of sorts after Cissy was retired.  After her release Elise enjoyed about three decades of production, and it should be no surprise that she came in other costumes besides ballet costumes, though there are plenty that ARE dressed like ballerinas!  I've even seen one that looks like Maria Tallchief, red dress and all.  As far as I know Elise is no longer being made, with her run ending in 1992.  Also as far as I know Elise does not see modern-day revivals like Cissette does, but never say never, right?  By the way, Elise's joints are your standard joints that only pivot, meaning that though she's dressed as a ballerina Elise can't strike many ballet poses.  For want of a stand I had to hold her in this position, so pardon my fat white lump of a hand.  This is about as ballet a pose as I can get Elise to strike, stand or no stand. 

Compare that to Aida, my Valentine ballerina.  Valentine did a lot of ballerinas, some more jointed than Aida is.  I wonder if Aida's name is supposed to be pronounced "aid-uh," or if it's "eye-EED-uh" like the opera and the broadway show?  I guess I could do either one.  Regardless, Aida outposes Elise by a fair margin.

Oh well, Elise looks the part, right?  I always thought it was funny, by the way, that Madame Alexander dolls sometimes wear pointe shoes, but their feet are clearly NOT in the proper position!

Now this, I can explain, since Cissy and Cissette and Elise were all meant to be undressed and redressed if the owner so chose.  Or I assume that, since Beatrice Alexander wanted her dolls to be played with to some degree.  Sharply pointed feet would mean the doll couldn't wear regular shoes, whereas high-heeled feet mean that she COULD wear regular shoes.  So this part, I get.  It still makes me giggle, though!  I guess it makes sense though, since ballerinas don't live en pointe.  Indeed, just looking at a doll like Aida makes my legs and feet tingle, as she's eternally on her toes.  How painful would that be???  Not all Valentine ballerinas have feet frozen en pointe, but Aida does.

Elise looks more comfortable, though I doubt she could be super-comfortable in all that scratchy tulle.  Maybe she's waiting to go onstage, or she's milling about at a dress rehearsal like some of Edgar Degas's subjects were.  Either one works.

So that's a much-needed break from American Girl blather!  Don't get comfy, because next Thursday is cobalt-haired Lark's turn. 

Cheers and pirouettes,
RagingMoon1987

Throwback Thursday review: not another Little Miss Revlon clone!

Yep!  Meet Suzette, by Uneeda.

Uneeda is probably best known for the highly-articulated Miss Dollikin, whom I covet greatly, and for Tiny Teens (I'll admit that I like those too), but another of their dolls was this elusive Barbie clone named Miss Suzette.  The Suzette dolls that collectors seem to love the most look like this, though they can also bear a passing resemblance to my wonky-eyed Mariclare.  According to Atelier Mandaline, this doll is also Suzette, and indeed the mint-in-box dolls show this name on the front of the box.  Oddly, dolls like this also come in boxes entitled "Tiny Teen," though the Tiny Teens I'm thinking of are Liddle Kiddle-sized.  Apparently the monikers "Tiny Teen" and "Suzette" were used interchangeably, as dolls under different names had no other visible differences.  Some packages labeled Suzette as "Suzy's Teen-Age Sister," but I can't find any evidence of a smaller Uneeda doll named Suzy, or a larger one either, for that matter.  Though I was not able to locate this elusive sister, Suzette did have a like-sized boyfriend named Bob.  According to DollReference Suzette and Bob had as many outfits to choose from as Barbie and Ken did, and I'm willing to wager that they could wear Little Miss Revlon clothes too...though I wouldn't put Bob in a dress if I had him, LOL.  Indeed, Suzette is very close in size to the dolls she's supposed to emulate, Little Miss Revlon and the Circle P doll ("Wendy" and "Belle," respectively).

Even though I did this during Belle's review, here's Suzette with Barbie anyway, just for the sake of reference (and because I love my mom's old Barbie).

Before I go further, I should probably note that the Suzette everyone loves is hard to find, and when found she is expensive, even if nude.  Thus I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I found this poseable little poppet on Etsy for a Jackson.  She matches one of the dolls on Atelier Mandaline's blog post very closely, and her moody visage bears a passing resemblance to Suzette's, but some research proved that this doll is a small version of Miss Dollikin!

Poor Miss Dollikin is nude for now, but I'll soon fix that.  But if you're looking for a Suzette doll be sure to do your homework!  I like Miss Dollikin, but not everyone does.  Again for the sake of reference, here's what Suzette and Miss Dollikin look like together.  Their measurements are pretty different.

Alrighty, this is Suzette's moment to shine!  Since she's so similar to Wendy and Belle they'll be popping in a lot.  Suzette's hair is blonde like Wendy's is, and it's rooted like Wendy's is, AND it's a little unruly like Wendy's is.  Unlike Wendy's it's long enough to be put in a ponytail, and unlike Wendy Suzette sports bangs.

Some of these Suzette dolls have longer hair in a Barbie-style ponytail, some have shorter hair, and hair color varies.  Suzette's hair is longer than Belle's and shorter than Wendy's, and the color is a brighter shade of blonde than Wendy's.  The rooting is about the same, though.  There are some thin spots here and there, and they're concealed by a tightly rooted hairline.

Look, I remembered to paint my nails this time!  LOL, I'm not sure about the fibers, but they feel softer and woolier than Wendy's hair fibers, suggesting to me that the quality isn't quite as good.

But then again, this hair snapped right back into obedience after I brushed it, so maybe it's not bad hair after all.  Maybe it just needs a little love, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree did.

A nice ribbon wouldn't hurt either.  Hair bows always look nice on dolls like this.

To the front of the head we go.  Suzette has a pretty little face, with red lips and silver eyes.

She looks more like a Little Miss Revlon doll than the Circle P doll does.

To my great amusement, Suzette's eyebrows are off-kilter like Wendy's are.  Hers are skewed ever so slightly to the left, rather than to the right for Wendy.  Like Wendy and Belle, Suzette has painted eyelashes as well as molded ones, and her paint extends to the eye socket (Belle's does not).

The eye color apparently doesn't vary much, as all three of my LMR-style dolls have silver eyes.  Wendy's have unfortunately clouded over, but Suzette's remain bright.  The right eye drops a little, but not terribly so.

Like most dolls of this type, her eyes sleep.

The lower part of Suzette's face is pretty much the same as Wendy's and Belle's.  Red rosebud lips and blushed, full cheeks.  My doll also has a speck of something under her lip; hopefully that'll come off with a moistened fingertip.

Suzette has pierced ears like Wendy does and Belle does not, and as far as I can tell there is minimal greening (Wendy has a little green around her ears).

Sometimes clone dolls have facepaint that's kinda iffy, as some of my Barbie clones show, but Suzette holds her own pretty well against Wendy and Belle.  Indeed, I like Suzette's expression better than Belle's, as Belle always looks slightly irked.

Like most Uneeda dolls, Suzette's head is marked with the company name.  This is the only marking she has.

The body is where things get interesting, as Suzette's body changed at least once during her rather brief existence.  Notice that my particular doll has a jointed waist and a visible neck.

For comparison's sake, here's how she compares to Wendy and Belle.  To my great surprise Suzette is a teensy bit smaller than her companions. 

Suzette dolls from 1959 or later did not have jointed waists, and their necks were so short that they're called "no-neck" dolls.  My doll would thus probably date from 1957 or '58, and the no-neck dolls look rather uncomfortable so I'm glad I got an older model.  However, there are two other things of note.  The first is this.

The waist joint is uneven, and so are the hips.  Some of the larger Miss Revlon dolls have one leg longer than the other so they can be put in a walking position, and I assume that this is the case with my Suzette, as walking comes naturally for her.

The other thing of note is the staining.  Suzette's dress has stained her breasts, stomach, and knees red, and the rest of her looks jaundiced.  I washed Suzette with both soap and a Clorox wipe, but this treatment did nothing to help with the staining.  However, Suzette was also sticky to the touch and the washing removed that.  I'll try doctoring her with a magic eraser and see if that doesn't help the staining.  With that out of the way, Suzette's posing is par for the course for a Revlon-type doll.  She can sit, stand, and be posed in the aforementioned walking pose, and she can raise her arms, turn her head, and twist her waist.

She sits about as well as Wendy does, though I shouldn't complain since Belle can't sit at all.

Suzette's fingers and toes are nicely molded, but the paint on her nails is not very precise.  In fact, it's all but missing on her left foot.

Since Suzette is so similar to Wendy and Belle clothes discussion will be relatively easy, but first I gotta go over what Suzette came in!  Sometimes I like to buy vintage dolls nude and dress them myself, like I did with Dawn and Glori, and like I plan to do for Miss Dollikin.  But in this case Suzette is wearing a lovely dress and that sealed the deal for me.  I don't know what fabric, exactly, but it's red and it's shiny.  The fabric feels similar to the taffeta utilized by Ideal for Look Around Crissy, so maybe that's what this is.

It certainly is aging the way Crissy's dress is, but we'll get to that.  Suzette's dress is...exactly that, a red dress!  It does have a well-worn pair of flowers on the bodice (these look better when the dress is actually being worn).

The back closes with my old friends, snaps.  Half of the top snap needs to be resewn, but I can do that with no fuss.

The most obvious signs of age are on the sleeves and the back of the skirt, where a few loose ends can be seen.  As I stated above, this was the most obvious problem with my Crissy's dress.  I can always trim these so they won't look so raggy.

Underneath her dress Suzette wears a pair of ecru-colored satin panties.  These are simple little panties, made a bit fancier with some nice finishing at the hem.  The legs and waist are elasticized, and the legs still have a little stretch in them.

Like Suzette herself the dress and panties were sticky, stinky, and discolored, so I washed them with the same hand soap that I used on Suzette.  The dress is more wrinkled now, but it shines more than it did and it smells nice.

The water turned yellow when I dunked the clothes in, making me wonder what this poor doll has been subjected to in the past!  It's not cigarettes, because Suzette didn't smell like cigarettes.  Thank God she didn't, because I HATE the smell of cigarettes!  Whatever that crap was, it came out of Suzette's clothes, giving me hope for her body.

Little Miss Revlon had an extensive wardrobe, and since Suzette is so much like Wendy she should be able to wear everything that Wendy wears.  But oh my Lordy, do I hate taking this dress off Wendy!  It's so hard to get her sash straight again!  Suck it up, Moon Girl.  You're doing this for the sake of reference.

To my great surprise both Wendy's dress and Belle's dress are a tiny bit big on Suzette.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised since Suzette is a little bit smaller than Wendy and Belle, but I was.  Wendy's green dress is a little bit adjustable due to that sash, but with Belle's dress what you see is what you get.  Belle's shoes are also loose on Suzette's feet, suggesting that her feet are imperceptibly smaller than Belle's.  The sizing issue is not a tremendous one, though, and Suzette should have no problem wearing Little Miss Revlon dresses as long as one doesn't lose shoes.

Instead of my usual good stuff/bad stuff section I'm going to end this review by saying that Suzette is just as good as Wendy.  She has the same hiccups with paint and with posing, and while her hair may not be as nice as Wendy's her waist joint is better.  Little Miss Revlon clothes do fit a smidge loosely on Suzette's slightly smaller frame, but not enough to be a problem.  Overall if I'd been a little fifties kid who wanted Little Miss Revlon but got Uneeda Suzette instead, I'd have been pretty pleased.  She's a fine little doll.  I just hope I can rectify those stains!  Those are Suzette's main flaw, and that is the fault of age, not the doll.

Love,
RagingMoon1987