Does clothing or shoe availability affect your doll purchasing decisions?

I’d rather have interesting variety in sculpts and have to make or commission clothes, eyes, and wigs myself. I’ve found that I’m just not really interested in most ordinary human sculpts or modern style clothing, preferring fantasy sculpts in historical or fantastical outfits, so I entered the hobby knowing that dressing my dolls was likely always going to be a struggle. That’s been true, but it just encourages me to keep working on my sewing and crafting skills.

 

For better or worse, every single one of my dolls has ended up being a fantasy sculpt or something with very unusual proportions so i have never had purchased clothing or shoes as much of an option. I do sometimes underestimate how long it will take me to make everything to "finish" the dolls though so increasingly it does at least cross my mind when making a purchase...

I think a big issue for me is a lot of the doll clothing seems to fall into only a few categories - super sexy, historical uniforms, lolita, or somewhat bland regular type clothing - and none of it ever really grabs me enough to wish I had dolls it would fit?
I have been increasingly impressed with some of the outfits i see coming out for 1/3 size dolls, but 1/4 and 1/6 scale clothing hasn't caught up, maybe understandably because its a lot smaller, but i guess until that happens not being able to buy much off the rack doesn't affect how i feel when buying a doll.

 

If I can’t clothe a doll with what I already own as of now, I won’t buy it.

 

I can sew well enough to modify existing patterns to fit non-standard bodies but I’m a horrible cobbler so if I can’t buy shoes that doll is not getting any!

The 75 cm DF-H body has massive feet that don’t fit the vast majority of 75 cm/uncle sized shoes I can find so I’ve ordered a pair of smaller secondhand feet to swap them out. They’re the completely wrong color but it won’t matter with socks and shoes on…

 

I happen to be very picky about the sculpt of a doll and the clothes it wears. My dolls are intended to be fantasy styled oc's and it is hard to find apparel that matches my design for them and fits. When I started this hobby I was always expecting to have to make clothes for them and it's one of the reasons I got my first doll. But it can be tedious and I can be very lazy, so if I can find something I like I will usually buy it, especially if gives them something to wear. Unfortunately, a lot of the clothes I find that look fantastic are only for 65cm+ and most all my dolls are MSD.

But I do enjoy every type of art and this includes learning how to do face-ups and make resin eyes. If I didn't like doing any of those things I would not enjoy my dolls as much and would likely focus only on full-set dolls.

 

I cannot sew and do not have the time or patience or money to learn how, so I will only buy bodies for dolls I can buy clothes or shoes for in some way. It's why I stopped buying MSDs over 45cm.

 

I've never avoided odd shaped dolls as long as I know I can get at least one outfit that fits starting out. I wish that the companies that made them offered more clothing options, though. Much of the time they are a special limited release with a new doll and may even only be offered as a full set with that certain doll. If it is offered a la carte, they are often time limited. I have a Leeke B-type girl, a Doll Chateau kid, and an Imda 2.2. All oddball sizes that you have to be creative to find ready-made clothes for, but sometimes I enjoy the hunt.

 

I gave three contradictory answers so I'll elaborate:
I do make my own patterns and enjoy sewing clothes so odd sizes and shapes of bodies do not deter me, however, it's also nice to be able to buy something occasionally, so I weigh it against what I think I want them to wear and if any of it is stuff I really don't want to make.
Now, I will make primitive shoes too, but I get pretty severely agitated and bummed about not being able to find shoes that fit so that can really deter me.
But lastly, I'm not beyond some dolls being prone to barefooted life as a character thing, in which case it's really not a problem.

 

I have some odd sized dolls, like my plus size girl and my in-between-sizes boy, but I really don't mind. I can make or commission most anything I want, and sometimes I get lucky that premade things work. Feet are harder if they're an odd size, but that's not so bad either--I can just buy feet from a different company and swap them out.

 

I'm the most basic of basic doll collectors -- bog standard 1/3 humans at 57-65cm height -- and I already get stressed about clothing and shoeing them due to natural variations in their body shapes and heights. (Well, not stressed per se, but I do tend to obsess over researching, measuring and re-measuring my dolls, window-shopping everywhere... and eventually start second-guessing everything and doubting my choices.) I enjoy my dolls less if I can't get the right clothes/shoes for them, or I buy something and it doesn't fit, although I've gotten around this by styling my dolls a certain way to avoid poor fitting, and making that style a part of their personality or worldbuilding. I also don't like leaving a doll naked and eye/hairless for too long: they need to wear something even if it's temporary.

If I hadn't learnt how to sew, availability of clothes/shoes would absolutely influence my doll buying choices and my enjoyment of the hobby. Now that I've started learning and have some sewing skills, I'm more willing to buy dolls in non-standard size. I don't think I would've ordered a 51cm Dream Valley mini if I wasn't confident I could make some simple clothes for him before he arrived. I'm also less hung up about buying pre-made clothes now, because I have some skills to hem and adjust them. I doubt I'd ever learn shoemaking , but I'm happy to deal with the research/window-shop/obsess/second-guess-myself spiral for shoes it since clothes are no longer a source of that worry.

 

I cannot sew or make shoes or make eyes or make wigs or do face ups. I will gladly commission someone or buy it. I have been very lucky that my taste for fantasy is broad enough that my dolls have cooler outfits than I do. I also tend to like pretty standard sized sculpts.

The only sculpt I have that isn't standard is an artist made doll I got second hand. I still think she is lovely but I am not sure how to go about clothing her. She's literally pear shaped. So she's a bit of a project and is currently borrowing an outfit that sorta works but not really (and honestly doesn't suit her but she hasn't really told me who she wants to be besides CUTE).

My Elrond spent months blank and in a bathrobe but that's because I knew I wanted custom everything for him. He is the only one who had to wait. Glorfindel technically had to wait for an outfit but he got to borrow clothes.

 

I was chasing odd sizes in my first year but I’m glad I didn’t get many of them because clothing them can be frustrating so I definitely shop for dolls that I can find clothes for. I have a huge collection of things for 15-17cm size at this point so I don’t really shop for other sizes anymore. I keep an eye out for yosd as well but I don’t find as many dolls or outfits I like in that size.

 

I answered that I “don’t mind my dolls being naked for a little while”, and while that’s true… I realize that I’m mostly drawn to standard sized MSDs and that I’ve never had a hard time looking for clothes to fit them. Now, clothing that looks *proportionate* is another story lol

Though I did bring home my first “short” SD boy in 2022 (56cm) and so far it has been a little annoying to see standard sized clothes look way too baggy on him when they fit my average SDs very well. My strategy for MSDs is basically “just own a bunch of clothes and see who fits better in what” Not the best strategy for those with specific characters or distinctive styles, but it works for my crew who are more or less just regular human kids.

I *can* sew, technically. Not particularly well but passable. This year I’m challenging myself to create an entire fantasy outfit (including shoes!) for a 1/5 scale doll based on The Dark Crystal. I’m giving myself a lot of wiggle room and I’m not aiming for perfection, but after I start working in that odd size I might have a change of heart about my answer to your poll

 

Absolutely. The main reason is because I can't sew myself. If there was someone who could offer commissions for that particular doll, of course I wpuld not mind. If not, I better find another option.

 

Clothes or shoes availability doesn’t affect me at all. Thats said, most of the expensive and nice clothes I buy are for my volks, since the size is almost always available for stuff I like.
You don’t want to buy fancy clothes and find out they won’t fit your doll.

 

I learned to sew as a very young teenage girl during the Mod era (I lived in a small town the midwest USA and no “ fab” clothes were available there, so I learned to make them myself.) I‘ve been sewing and costuming for my own needs ever since. When I discovered these dolls later in life, I was pretty much past wanting to wear uncomfortable trendy and fun stuff for myself, but I still enjoyed the creativity of fashion…so these dolls became my perfect fashion models. I’ve had so much fun developing characters for them while exploring all sorts of fascinating fashion trends. So obviously I won’t hesitate to bring home a doll that’s hard to clothe because that just adds to the challenge and fun for me. Today my collection contains everything from teeny-tiny realpukis to 65cm, and every body type in between. They inhabit a fantasy world of my imagination, which has given me the freedom to explore any type of fashion that my heart desires. I don’t particularly worry about shoes, because in a fantasy world they always have the option of going barefoot. And if I find something interesting by another designer to add a bit of diversity to their wardrobes, I’ll happily add it to their growing fashion hoard.

 

I don't sew, so the harder a doll is to find clothes for the less likely I am to want to own them. For some people it's easy to just commission a wardrobe for a uniquely-shaped doll, but not me.

 

I used to say that no, it didn't affect me. But as I've gotten older and I realize how much time I don't have, I've come to value clothing availability a lot more now.

 

Absolutely. Near all of my dolls are a "standard" size with readily available clothes. I'm very reluctant to purchase dolls that are an unusual size, even if I love them! I have a couple of exceptions, but even then, I find that I don't play with or dote on them as much because they don't have as many clothes/accessories.

 

My latest love is Botodolls. I have two a boy Pao and a Girl Bao. The company sells at very reasonable prices clothes & shoes for these dolls as well as other dolls in certain sizes. ( Still experimenting on what really works for the Botodolls as well as others here. ) But I love this. Rest of my dolls are lucky to fit into TTYA stuff. But one has been hard to find clothes for so he has enough to at least be cool in summer and warm in winter.