Playing With Dolls

Yes, this is how it all began...

Back in 2000, I realised that almost every costume and fashion designer I knew had started by playing with dolls. I never did, as my costume adventures began with the Rocky Horror crowd. So I decided it was high time I did a doll.

Now, you know me. I'm not going to do something sweet. I took my inspiration from beheaded queens and did two of these dolls. Catherine Howard and Marie Antoinette. (I'll snap a photo of the first Marie later.)

This one shown on the left was Catherine Howard, and someone actually bought her from me years ago. But I still have Marie, and it was looking at her on the fireplace mantle one day that inspired Garith and I to start the Headless Historicals dolls.

The rest, of course, is history... You can see the whole collection on the website.

www.headlesshistoricals.com

Marie Antoinette

Vlad Dracula

Madame Elizabeth

Jayne Mansfield

Just for fun, I whipped up some dolls of Duckie, Garith, and myself.

But Headless Historicals wasn't the first time I'd ever played with dolls. But back when I made the doll that inspired the Headless project, I also had a few other naked little fashion dolls to play with and so I dressed them up as well.

So these are some dolls I did back in 2000, just to see what I could come up with. All of these have since been sold.

Alchemist's Daughter

Vampiress

Kali

Lilith

"Celeste" was a mannequin that I used frequently to display new costumes while I worked at the Terror on Church Street attraction.

When the attraction was about to close, someone rescued her for me after she'd suffered some severe head trauma.

I decided that since Celeste knew all my sewing secrets from watching over me for so long, she was practically a part of me. So I fixed her up like a cynobite and she became my evil twin.