NYTF16: Madame Alexander

As usual, Madame Alexander had a gorgeous booth at Toy Fair. If they gave out awards for best thought out booth, Madame Alexander would win hands down! They had a ton on display. This is another booth where I highly recommend you watch the video presentation, linked at the bottom of the post. In this post, I’ll cover some of my favorite pieces in the showroom!

There were three bride dolls on display in the Madame Alexander booth. All were very pretty in their own unique way. My favorite was the Renaissance bride. She’s so pretty! Unfortunately, it sounds like she’ll be very limited and super pricey. They quoted these as being around (wait for it) $1,000 US dollars. A crazy price, in my opinion, but there’s no denying it– this doll is beautiful. It looks like she’ll be joining the long (and ever growing) list of Madame Alexander dolls I will most likely never own.

Another nice call back to their past are these three new releases, the Mystery Portrait Dolls. There’s a lot of back story with the 1951 Mystery Portrait Dolls, done way back when the company was still under the direction of Madame Alexander herself. They were created to reinvigorate the New York doll industry and were very, very limited. They weren’t even listed in the Madame Alexander catalogs! She went above and beyond to make these dolls super special, using the finest fabrics to create their outfits. Their 1951 faces are all hand painted and have quite a uniqueness to them. This video, linked below, is a great reference on the Mystery Portrait Dolls. You should check it out.

2016’s Mystery Portrait dolls are smaller recreations of the original 1951 series. They were very high up on the shelves in the booth, so it was hard to photograph them well, but here’s a shot of all three dolls we’ll be seeing this year. What I love about these three is their inspiration. Being a collector of the vintage composition and hard plastic dolls from Madame Alexander, I love that they are being influenced by their companies past.

There were many 18″ dolls on display. The two below are part of a new partnership with NASCAR.

Also on display in 18″ form were Disney princesses! Anna and Elsa were paired together and look so pretty!

Belle, Cinderella, Ariel and Rapunzel were showcased, as well. Each doll comes dressed in an iconic movie look. Beyond that, you can buy other movie inspired outfits for them to wear. For example, Belle comes dressed in her fancy yellow dress, but sold separately will be her winter outfit. I hope we see more movie inspired looks for these girls released over the years. It would also be nice to see them expand into more of the other princesses, like Pocahontas or Mulan (who I realize isn’t a princess, per say, but she’s awesome).

The Middleton Baby doll line is expanding with a more budget friendly price point for kids and collectors who want a little more realism in their baby doll sculpts. They really are very pretty. If I were a baby doll collector, I would find it hard to not have one or two of these!

Just look at that cute little face!

Are you a Gone with the Wind fan? If you are, you have something in common with the great Madame Alexander. She was a fan, too. In fact, the Madame Alexander company was the first company to make a Scarlett O’Hara doll. Rumor has it, Madame Alexander sent her doll to the producers of the epic movie prior to casting and that that doll had some influence on who they chose to play Scarlett (Vivien Leigh)! This new 2016 release is as stunning as ever, I think.

I’m not big on DC comics. I’ve always been a Marvel girl, myself. (Besides The Flash, which is must watch TV in my book!) There must be a huge DC market out there, though, because Madame Alexander (and other companies) had more than one DC themed release on display. On display were three ‘high fashion’ villains, like Harley Quinn, Joker and Penguin. They’re decked out in looks that are ready for the runway!