Holly Dolly — Doll makers use new technology

by Amy
(Ontario)

Article found in the Sault Star

Holly Dolly — Doll makers use new technology
Posted By Michael Purvis
Posted 4 months ago


It takes close inspection to tell the babies in Charlene Barber’s Queen Street shop aren’t legit.

A seam around a neck, eyelashes a little too thick to be real, and vinyl skin that is hard to the touch, are the tells.

It’s because of that the lifelike dolls almost always elicit a strong reaction from folks who walk into Chornyj’s Hadke, said Barber.

“Either they love the doll and it’s great, or they’re spooked by it because it’s so real looking,” she said.

The dolls, commonly known as reborns, are increasingly popular, even if some of their makers find the term reborn distasteful.

Many are made at home and sold by their makers online, some for thousands of dollars.

Others, like the Ashton-Drake models at Chornyj’s, are mass produced, and can cost much less.

Kathy Schopp has been making and selling reborns in her Sault Ste. Marie home for about a year.

One of her dolls was so real a border guard once “reprimanded me for not having my baby in a car seat,” said Schopp.

To make a doll so realistic is a grueling process that starts with a bare doll kit and involves as many as 12 layers of paint, a painstaking attention to detail, and a knack for presentation, said Schopp.

Then there’s the effort it takes to sell the dolls on Ebay.

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Schopp has sold seven of them so far, one of them selling for US $525.

She said one women she knows online is able to fetch upwards of $3,000 for her dolls because of the attention to detail she takes.

“The buyers want them to look like they’re in a natural setting, so I had to buy a cradle and a second-hand stroller,” Schopp said.

Schopp is part of an online group of reborn doll makers that trades tips and chats about the process.

She said the term reborn is a pet peeve of many group members, herself included.

The term comes from the way the craft emerged from the practice of reviving discarded or run-of-the-mill toy dolls and enhancing their features, thus making them reborn.

It’s an unfortunate term that only aids in the perception that collectors of reborns have an unhealthy attachment to their dolls, said Schopp.

“A lot of the problem is that the term reborn sounds terrible,” said Schopp.

She said many doll crafters don’t like the way media attention has focused on “that one per cent” of doll collectors who buy the reborns as a replacement for a real child.

“It’s not a myth, it’s true you get some people (with a strange attachment to the dolls), but in the whole year I’ve been doing this I haven’t met one person who is like that,” said Schopp.

Nonetheless, doll makers are forced to advertise the dolls as reborns on sites like Ebay, and to refer to sales as ‘adoptions,’ or risk obscurity, she said.

Despite the buzz, buyers of reborns are the same women who spend thousands collecting porcelain dolls, said Schopp.

The depiction of genuine baby features has always been the aim of doll making, it’s just that technology has allowed the craft to reach another level, she said.

“The history of doll making is forever, this is just the latest evolution of it,” said Schopp.
Article ID# 1382546