Doll Fashion Trends?

I have to agree with JN here - I have at least ten pairs of sneakers for my guys, most in solids, some in checkerboard patterns (Shuichi must have fun shoes) and I have quite a few flat-soled boots, too. I don't purchase platform boots/shoes or anything (shoes, clothes, accessories) with skulls or crosses. Yes, I CAN still find things. Well, sometimes a Another Space outfit has a skull on it, but I cover it with a button/pin of something happy.

I'm dressing 17 dolls with 17 different styles, but they all have blue jeans and teeshirts for their basics. I have Loli, Steampunk, pink and stupid, bad fashion sense, JPop, professional suits, hippy-dippy flower power, and everything in-between - and they all demand flat shoes.

You just have to spend the time to shop different sites, learn how to use ebay searches effectively and be a little patient if you can't find something immediately.

 

Since I tend to be way older than the average collector on this group, I have to say that I have my preferences, but usually the doll just screams what style suites them best. I tend to have many more tinies too, so that eliminates some styles. Sometimes I just what to change the doll to a different style and that usually means new wig and eyes too. What I am trying to say is, this is the beauty of BJDs, being able to change them to suit one's mood. Right now I am trying to get them all dressed for Halloween, my favorite holiday!

 

I like the Victorian look. The frilly poet blouses for the boys...and the nickers! I think that looks cute! Not to mention my boy is supposed to be a vampire from the Victorian era.

 

Not buying things that are in style, merely because they are in style, is a trend in and of itself =)

There are too many of us to escape the masses, I figure might as well embrace what you find you like and go with it instead of trying to fight the current. Because the current always wins

 

I've never been crazy about the dolly trends out there, but hey, if your doll is screaming to be a "emo crossdressing goth lolita" listen to 'em. Personally, I'm just going to buy or make whatever looks good on my dolls.

 

Well, I got two boys.

One is the embodiment of a character who's the world's biggest fashionista Mr. Metrosexualo, despite being a "kid".... So he wears the stuff that's been trendy with guys haute couture this past year - semi-formal vests, shirts, tighter pants, v-necks... girly shoes. Things that make the male form look good and is a relief to sore eyes of real world men in track suits as their first choice in outerwear.

The second... As per his character, dresses to shock. Look good, still, of course, but more... screaming bright shoes, boots... Strange clothing combinations. Stuff like that. I guess he doesn't follow any particular trend, except for maybe "Look at me! I'm better than you."

To be honest, I'm really tired of frills and bows and historical clothing from the typically picked-on eras. Especially since fashion is so rich, and most people just take a tiny sampling and draw variations on it. I do have a weak spot for pre-victorian/victorian fashion, since that was the age of dandies and otherwise well-dressed men (though early victorian female fashion - yuck!). I don't see much of it around. Most of the things aren't really "Victorian", at least in northern europe sense.

 

It's interesting to me that people are tired enough of "girly" and "punk/emo" dolls to complain about it. I suppose that's generally what doll companies release as far as clothes and wigs. That is what's popular in Asia after all why collect Asian ball jointed dolls if that's the case?

I love all sorts of fashion but I don't even dress myself in a plain tee and jeans with flipflops. Needless to say my dolls look like little fashion ads most of the time. They aren't the average joe types (though my favorite doll that isn't my own is and he's adorable!) so their style reflects this.

 

Isn't part of the fun of it dressing them different ways different days? Trends are interesting but they shouldn't dictate what you want to do!

 

I really don't care about trends for my doll. I dress him in what ever he looks good in, but I do seem to pick simple things for my doll like jeans and a shirt or just pajamas all day.

 

When I first got into bjd I was *very much* into the gothic vampire schtick, but I got tired of that. Then I got into the medieval/fantasy/elf thing, but am pretty much through with that, too. Then I went through an insane "everything handsewn historically correct European 18th century and earlier" phase. I'm kind of out of that now, too, thank goodness (way too much work, for one thing)!

Right now I'm having a sort of retro 1940's-50's Japan Bunka-dolly fixation, though I'm not seeing much out there to buy, as that trend happened a few years ago for everyone else! XD

I like looking at lots of different kinds of things, though... the JRocker minimee boys are quite amazing, the Volks Lolitas are always dreamy... and I adore the scruffy Fruits/Decora kids.

The only thing I'm really NOT into is Western fashion diva types. ^^;;

But I guess variety is the spice of life and I'm glad a little bit of everything is allowed. If I get tired of seeing a particular trend there are plenty of other things to look at!
Raven

 

I am also probably way older than the average DoA'er. Since I only have one mini BJD (so far), I can only guess how future ones will be dressed. This one that I have is very clear on what she wants to wear. She doesn't dress at all like me, but tends to be conservative, with a twist. She wants a lolita for halloween and I'm not sure how to get one made for her in time - so fussy and frilly! I think she will be spoiled soon

 

: / I honestly have a hard time seeing a trend, there's so many different styles if you look at all the various shops online. Although I guess if I looked at more gallery photos I'd see what people are buying.... but I can't say I'm sick of seeing too much of one thing or another.

My poor Laurie only has his fullset outfit, I keep looking around for something he could wear but I guess I'm just too picky! and too lazy to sew...

 

Are there really even fashion trends? It's not as though there is a BJD fashion season - it seems like there are quite a number of popular styles across the board and those styles/companies might come out with new designs or specialize in one design or another but even so, looking at the gallery it just seems like doll fashion is as diverse and widespread as the doll face-ups, shapes, sculpts and sizes themselves.

 

I don't have a problem with the way people dress their dolls because it's their vision.

I do have a problem when I'm looking for clothes for my doll and all I can find is gothic or street clothes and shoes. My taste in clothing is very specific and highly unusual, so finding that look that I feel embodies my characters well is very hard for me. It really does push me to get better at sewing so i won't have to rely on market trends for my doll clothes, but dammit, I'm lazy! XD

 

i just purchased my first doll and because he decided to be a french aristocrat in the 17th century, finding clothes that fit that period has a been a pain.

i've found some, but like stated previously, its outrageously expensive and other times, its already sold out.

so that's why i asked for a sewing machine for christmas. i'm gonna look at all these wonderful clothes that i really can't afford right now and try making them myself. thankfully, a lot of doll companies tend to put TONS of pictures up

i can see why the goth/rock/monochormatic look would be annoying after a while (especially since i don't want a modern look at all). but i think this whole movement got started out of that kind of fashion (goth/loli/nouveau punk). but i hope that that trend will soon start shifting to other fashion trends (like historical, or international, etc.).

 

That's backwards-- Western dolls have been traditionally clad in historical or international garb. When I was a kid in the 70s there were Madame Alexander girls in frilly period costumes, and Barbies in costumes from around-the-world (even if she always came out looking like Barbie no matter what she wore XD), and everybody's mother collected porcelain dolls that all had the same victorian ruffles, white kid baby shoes or ladies' boots, & a parasol. If there were boy dolls, it was always sailor suits, Oliver Twist, or Disco Inferno Ken.

That whole ironclad trend of Dolls = Childhood And/Or Femininity, with no deviation, was what turned me off of dolls completely-- from about 1980 to 2005. At which point I laid eyes on a BJD (Volks Shiro) who wore a leather jacket and boots and jeans and black eyeliner, and it was "Wow! Finally, something different! I want one!"

All of a sudden, dolls became palatable, because they represented something different from the Same Old. I'd never seen a 21st-century-schoolboy-urchin doll in a biker jacket before. It was an eye-opener. The word "doll" no longer had to equal just decorative babies & ladies, it could now represent people in today's world. (Mind you, this revelation came before I saw any of the rest of Volks's repertoire; they sure DO love their traditional frills and sailor suits and victorian boots and international garb and bigtitty bimboes, all right! XD)

These days, I see all trends up in here: There are still tons of baby frills and Little Women, but now that's balanced by tons of black-boots-and-eyeliner, AND everything-in-between. There's fairies and ravers and elves and ghosts and sci-fi and cowboys and Regular Slob Guys and pirates and robots and punks and samurai and old-wave and new-wave and zombies and FRUiTS and hippies and vampires and Edwardians and Renaissance Venetians and headbangers and goths and fetishists and jocks and gods and mythology, and there is lots of WTF. The sheer variety of styles on this one forum alone, it's dizzying. Anyone still thinks there's any 1 dominating doll style here, you clearly haven't been looking.

 

I've seen a dizzying array of fashion trends on these dolls, it's crazy at how many different trends there are.

I personally like either punk, loli, ME, or victorian. Me would be of course, what I like to wear.. but not alot, the only thing I will have for my dolls in this style are skinny jeans and hoodies :3

 

let me clarify a little what i meant. of course i know of barbie and madam alexander and others and their different styles of fashion. but i when said doll, i meant abjd (go figure, this is a bjd forum). i was referring specifically to the goth/loli fashion/anime/bjd movements. all of those types of movements fed and still feed into each other.

i was also referring specifically to my experience researching clothes for the doll i just ordered. in all the places i've looked, for his size, and for what i was looking for, i did see an alarming amount of the same thing (goth/punk/street).

i've only been in the bjd scene for just over a month now and even i have noticed these companies pretty much only feature those types of clothes. if they do have what i was specifically looking for, its too expensive, on a le, or out of stock.

believe me, i've looked.

 

The fashion trends don't bother me so much as sometimes the people who follow them (either for themselves or their dolls).

I like dressing my girls in cute, frilly, girly clothing. Sometimes I wish there was more of a variety of really nice lolita dresses for MSDs (like the BTSSB dresses, usually only for SD's) and from that standpoint, following a more unpopular fashion can have a downside. It doesn't have to specifically be lolita, as it's really the little Victorian girl look that I like the most and these can be hard to find to due limitations in production, or that it's sold out.

Styles that are goth/emo/offshoots of these fashions definitely seem to be the most popular. Sometimes I'll see around a half to two thirds of dolls dressed this way at meets. While I'm not a fan of them for my own dolls, I don't dislike that entirely. However, it is frustrating to go to a meet-up and to sort of be excluded from certain groups within the meet-up because my dolls are not dressed the way theirs are. Also, this wasn't just happening to me, but pretty much anyone who had a doll that wasn't goth/emo/etc. Somewhat frustrating really since we're all in this hobby which frequently gets a lot of questionable comments/looks/stares/and so on, and despite that, people will act the same way towards other doll owners.

I'm not saying that all people who dress their dolls like this act this way, for certainly it could go the other way around in other areas. Just using that as an example.

As for dolly fashions that I'd like to see but can almost never find:
Regular clothes in colours other than black or pink. Where are the soft greens and browns and reds?
Urban Outfitters-styled clothes for regular clothes (including typical colours or patterns). Not specifically from that store of course, but clothes that are like those sold there.

 

Check out the independent Korean clothes makers, they offer a lot of contemporary street looks that are also usually well fitted, like Mio, Nine9 Style, and Sadol. I dress most of my dolls this way, and I have to say that for me, the most frustrating doll I own to dress is my in love frills and fripperies EGL/kodona SD10 boy. There's one BtSSB set with pants and the outfit just released by Volks for Michele....and that is about all I have ever been able to find.

Actually, SD10 sized boys in general are difficult to dress because it's a size that is often ignored by companies. Please allow me to insert my usual rant about how I hate the taller always = better trend and there are people who would love to see some attention bestowed on the 56cm boys too.