If you had not started collecting BJD would you still be a doll collector?

I actually got super into rag dolls at one point, after feeling super dejected seeing the prices of BJDs for the first time! I love my girl and I even got the faceup experience embroidering her face on her head. I still love her even after I got my first BJD!

(Also if anyone was wondering, almost all rag doll sellers on Etsy are Eastern or Central European, which I found really interesting lol)

 

I only ever sold mine via word of mouth so never got to redress the balance in favour of the UK, but I hadn't thought to mention that in addition tot he tother non-BJD dolls I bought (including rag dolls) I'd have been adding my own rag dolls to the collection as well.

Dolly One-Leg (the first rag doll I made for myself rather than for someone else) is still the leader of all my dolls and bears to this day. Art one staage she had a fan group who demanded i bring her along to historical reenactment events.

Teddy

 

Absolutely! BJDs aren’t even my main focus, really – I’m mostly an antique doll collector. And I’ve been into dolls my whole life, from the play dolls of my childhood like American girl and Barbie to the collectibles I have now. What sets BJDs apart for me is how easily I can take them out and do things with them compared to the other dolls in my collection. They are fragile and expensive, yes, but I won’t be destroying an irreplaceable 150 year old piece of art if something happens to them.

(although two out of my four BJDs are porcelain right now, so I guess I have to be a bit more careful with those than the resin ones. But since they are off-topic, I won’t dwell on the subject!)

 

Not at all. I hadn't touched a doll in 20+ years when I got my first BJD. They really opened me up to collecting other things too.

 

Before I got into bjds, I collected Barbies, so I would probably still be getting those! I had always wanted a silkstone back then, and honestly I still think it would be cool to have one now. I also want to complete the star wars line still!

 

Probably not. I've had, or rather tried, other types of dolls over the years since getting into bjds but I've never been that interested in any and ultimately they either end up in storage forgotten or sold. Even if I might like them visually I just don't enjoy them like bjds.
Before bjds I was not much of a doll person at all, not even as a child. So if I was not into bjds I would maybe have had a couple of dolls or a few figures because they're cute but I wouldn't be collecting or enough into them to call it a hobby.

 

Yes, even if I had not gotten into BJD's, I would still been a doll collector. I started collecting Barbies, and after I outgrew playing with them, I didn't have the heart to discard them, leading me down the path to collecting vintage Barbies from the 1960s, the Golden Age of Barbie. At this time, researching vintage Barbies led me to collect vintage dolls from the 1950s to the 1970s. My interest then went further back in time to collecting German / French dolls that were made pre-1914. This interest in bisque-headed dolls with composition ball-joined bodies from the late Victorian period routed me to the porcelain dolls of Enchanted Doll by Marina Bychkova. When ED released a line of resin dolls, I was intrigued by the durability of resin and started to look at comparable dolls. This led me to find Angel Egg dolls by Marmite Sue, which had a similar aesthetic, and I started collecting fashion BJDs. After all these years, I feel that I have come full circle.

 

Hmm, probably not! I love monster high customs, but they're normally not my personal style. I'm happy just following artists who create them.

 

I don’t think so, I’ve had plastic fashion dolls as an adult but I lost interest in them

 

I collected other dolls and figures before bjds and still have other collections. Many of us collect other types of dolls now as can be seen in the brigadoon section show us your off topic dolls. I would likely have some other doll collection still if I did not get into bjds. Probably have more money too!

 

BJDs are very unique for me.

With my other dolls I’m usually one-and-done: I own one Disney designer doll (my favorite princess!) and one limited edition Barbie (a collab with my favorite movie series).
I am really into collecting anime figures as well, although I don’t interact with them in the same way as my BJDs

What’s so appealing to me about BJDs is I LOVE making characters and dressing them up. My dolls rarely share clothes because they all have unique styles and personalities for their wardrobes/hair/eyes. I’ve worn lolita fashion for close to ten years and I think my love of dressing up myself definitely extends to my dolls— I can put them in different, niche street fashions and outfits I wouldn’t necessarily wear myself.

Without BJDs I know I wouldn’t be as much of a doll collector (unless there was another type of doll I found equally appealing, but I haven’t found it yet )

 

I probably would've kept collecting plushies and articulated anime figures (which are basically dolls anyways), and then likely bought some of the obitsu 20-30 cm figures to build my own characters. I actually cancelled a preorder on an Edward Elric action figure (the one that had real fabric clothes and tons of little details) to order my first BJD.

 

Yes! I've always been a doll collector of various types and I'll pretty much try anything once to see if the doll is a good fit. Getting into BJDs was a no-brainer for me, yet I also wouldn't give up collecting other dolls either. Different types of dolls fill different roles for me.

 

I have collected action figures for a long time and so even if I didn’t collect BJDs I would likely still collect action figures. Although my interest in BJDs slightly took over from those figures and I sold a bunch of them on to make room for my growing BJD collection. I have several other collecting hobbies aside from these things so I would absolutely always be a collector of something

 

I got my very first little doll when I was 7 years old, it was an inexpensive rubber doll, I love him to death. I took him everywhere even to school, almost lost him, he stayed home ever since. He had lots of wear and scratches.
Throughout his life, I found him a wife, 3 children and home made out of cardboard box.
Since then I have gotten through many different kinds of dolls, I have discover BJD in 2008.
He is the start of doll collecting journey.

 

Yes. I still collect other kinds of dolls besides BJDs. The BJD collection is bigger now than my 16" fashion dolls. It used to be the other way around but I still love them and will buy one if I get a sweet deal on an old doll. Most of my BJDs are minis so often they share clothes so it works out fine.

 

Nope! I’m not a ‘doll person’, actually disliked them as a child. I am however a sculptor and artist BJDs are what got me into dolls at the older age of 34.

 

Yes, I collected playline fashion dolls as a kid then I started collecting the disney limited edition dolls for awhile before getting into the bjd hobby. I think if I wasn't collecting bjd's I would probably be collecting other dolls like monster high, disney, etc.

 

No. Other dolls just don’t scratch the itch. As a little kid l had 3 mine dolls and 1 very old and very beautiful from 1930ies that my mom had second hand in her childhood. But they all were babies or toddlers. Not much you can do with them. Put a bottle to their lips, shake them a little, wrap them to sleep. Barbie dolls exist since 1950ies but they came to my country only around mid 1990ies, my daughter was more or less growing out of active doll age already. At first l was amazed that finally there’s a doll that is not a baby. But quite soon realized that the size puts a lot of limitations to the clothes that can be made for Barbie. 55-75 cm tall dolls that can be customized, hold positions, that’s a dream come true.

 

Probably not, there are some other dolls I like, and I've gotten other various dolls here and there, but it doesn't spark anything in me as far as "this is a hobby"

I could see myself having a pullip or an azone or something if BJDs were just not a thing, or maybe having some kind of mannequin monster, but overall, no, I like BJDs, not just whatever random fashion dolls are out there.