Victorian Gibson Girl

I have a bunch of old porcelain reproduction dolls I'm ready to part with. The dolls themselves no longer have any appeal, but they have some great costumes. So, instead of trying to sell the dolls as they are for mere peanuts, I'm going to rework their clothes to fit a BJD, and then possibly sell those. The first to undergo a reworking will be this old Gibson Girl in her Victorian dress....

The doll itself is a reproduction, from a porcelain doll making class I took many years ago. We had to clean the greenware, then paint it between firings. Cleaning the greenware was no fun at all, and the porcelain dust made me all itchy, and I had a really hard time getting the glaze on smoothly - worst was trying to apply a nicely blended cheek blush. Painting dolls had never been my strong suite, and this only reinforced that.  I guess I couldn't be skilled at everything.  But I think part of the problem was that we were expected to apply blush using liquid glaze with a brush. Now, when I see how BJDs are blushed these days, with powder instead of liquid paint, that would have probably worked far better. But it doesn't matter. To me the doll was only the vehicle to support the costume.

I really enjoyed making her clothes. The Victorian period had always been one of my favourites. The satin ribbon pleating has faded some, and there's stains here and there, so it will need a good wash. I just hope the pleats can withstand being washed. I definitely don't want to rework them.

So, after I finish the shirts I'm working on, this outfit will get picked apart. I tried it on my Leona and it will need some modifications. The skirt needs to be a little longer, and I know how I'm going to do that. The jacket will need major modification. Fortunately, I still have a bit of the grey stripe fabric, enough that I could probably make a whole new jacket from scratch. I don't relish the idea of redoing all that black braid work, but I think starting over would make a better fit - especially the sleeves, which wouldn't fit over Leona's (an older JID's) hands. There's no way at all they'd fit over the new JID hands. So I'm probably better off just picking off the reusable stuff, and starting over.

I'll reuse the lace at the neck, the pink bow, the black bead 'buttons', and the lace on the cuffs. Maybe reworking this dress will inspire me to make a couple more Victorian gowns.   Maybe.
It could definitely make for some interesting new period photo possibilities, so I'll see.