This is Blythe : Book

Product Description

Crafter finds niche selling handmade Blythe doll dresses online

As a young girl, Morgan Doane spent many hours crafting with her mom and styling Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake dolls.

"I was a doll maniac," she said. "I had 7 million Barbies."

Fast forward two decades and Doane, 27, of Grand Rapids, still is crafting and playing with dolls. The difference is she makes money at it. A lifetime of experience is paying off in the form of a crafty side business -- selling handmade doll dresses online.

After a day of work as the youth librarian in the Walker branch of the Kent District Library, Doane heads to her sewing room to make party dresses for the popular Blythe dolls many adult women clamor for on the Internet.

Doane's dresses, many made from Japanese prints, sell quickly for $10 to $15 each. She has made more than 200 dresses since opening her online shop in April and has shipped them to Blythe fans around the globe.

It all started last year when Doane noticed several craft blogs featured the large-eyed Blythe dolls dressed in handmade clothes. The most distinctive feature of the popular 12-inch dolls is their eyes, which change color at the pull of a string at the back of their heads.

"I found Blythe by happenstance, just looking at crafters' blogs," Doane said. "And so many crafters had these dolls, and they were doing so many cool things with her -- making clothes for her and making doll houses -- and I thought, 'I really want one.'"

Doane, who grew up in Charlotte, bought her first Blythe doll online in March and ordered a second doll before the first arrived.

She found a free dress pattern online and started sewing dresses for the dolls right away. She made a few modifications to the pattern to make it her own and to simplify the dress construction.

She posted photos of Blythe wearing her creations on the photo-sharing Web site Flickr. The positive response inspired her to open an Etsy shop (morganannie.etsy.com) and start selling the dresses.

Doane now sews every day to keep up with orders.

"I never thought in my wildest dreams ... like Saturday, I sold six dresses," Doane said, smiling.

First produced in 1972 by designer Allison Katzman, Blythe dolls were made by the now-defunct U.S. toy company, Kenner. The dolls bombed and production stopped after a year.

The Blythe craze was ignited more than 30 years later when Gina Garan, a New York TV and video producer, was given a Blythe by a friend. Garan took the doll along on her travels and used it as a model for her photography. She published a collection of her photos in the book, "This is Blythe" (2000, Chronicle Books).

That year, Japanese toy maker Takara secured a license from Hasbro to produce a new edition of Blythe, which became an instant sensation.

Ashton Drake Galleries began to produce Blythe replica dolls in the United States in 2004, but many American collectors pay hefty shipping fees to buy the Takara Blythe dolls from sellers overseas. The dolls retail for $60 to several hundred dollars. Some of the original, 1972 Kenner models sell for more than $1,000.

Doane has owned six Blythe dolls, but has three now. She displays them high in her sewing room so Foster, her 3-year-old Yorkie/Maltese mix doesn't strike again.

"He was under the bed with her, and he was eating a stump of her hand," she said. "I was very mad, but it could have been worse."

Doane was able to get a new body for the Blythe, and the mauling is undetectable.

When she reached her 100th dress sale, Doane celebrated by buying $100 worth of dog and cat supplies and donated them to the Kent County Humane Society.

"It's not paying as much as my first job, but it's fun," Doane said.

E-mail Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood: jackerman@grpress.com

A BRIEF HISTORY OF BLYTHE AND HER REINCARNATION

Manufactured by Kenner in 1972, the original Blythe was designed by Marvin Glass & Associates, one of the world's foremost toy design studios. When the Toy Industry Hall of Fame was established in 1984, Marvin Glass was in the first group inducted (which coincidently also included Merrrill L. Hassenfeld of Hasbro, Inc.), ten years after his death. Kenner was bought out by Tonka Toys, which in turn was bought out by Hasbro in the mid-1980s. And that is how Hasbro has come to own the Blythe property.

In 1972, children found the large eyes that changed from green to pink to blue to orange with the pull of the drawstring at the back of Blythe's head a bit on the scary side. Blythe was produced for only one year, but it is now apparent that she was ahead of her time. For many years, Blythe was a curiosity that only doll collectors were interested in. Then in 1997, a friend introduced Gina Garan to Blythe, thinking that Gina looked like the doll. Gina had just been given an old camera and she needed to test it. Her first photos using that camera were of Blythe. Gina, who works as a video and TV producer, started carrying at least one of her Blythes wherever she went on her travels around the world and took many photos.

In December 1999, at the opening of an exhibition for the CWC International artists in Soho, New York, Gina showed her photos to Junko Wong. Junko took these photos to Parco and made a presentation for an exhibition and as a "virtual model" for Parco's innovative sales promotions. In the summer of 2000, This is Blythe, photos by Gina Garan, was published by Chronicle Books. The Christmas 2000 Parco campaign featured Blythe in a TV commercial and print media and Blythe took off in Japan. On eBay, vintage Blythes jumped in price from $35 to $350. Blythe continued as Parco's "image girl" through the spring and into the summer of 2001. The price for vintage Blythes jumped to thousands of dollars U.S. on eBay. Even the Neo-Blythes are sold for up to four times their retail price on the Yahoo auction site in Japan.


The Parco Limited Edition (1000 dolls), sold out in less than an hour, was followed by the Mondrian, and then Rosie Red, Holly Wood, All Gold In One, Kozy Kape Inspired, Aztec Arrival Inspired, Sunday Best, and in conjunction with the first year anniversary of the neo-Blythes in Japan, Miss Anniversary Blythe. The first year anniversary was marked by a series of Blythe events in Tokyo, which included an exhibition and charity fashion show at the Spiral Hall in Aoyama and exhibitions at the Rocket and CWC Galleries, and at IMS in Fukuoka, Kyushu. The exhibition featured photos by Gina Garan and dolls styled by artists, fashion designers, and Blythe fans. The fashion show featured couture for Blythe by such internationally known designers as: Issey Miyake, Chisato Tsumori, and Hysteric Glamour.