Mini American Girl Josefina

I first got started on AG 6 inch minis when some of the dolls got clearanced down to $10. I originally picked Caroline, and rapidly worked my way up to seven minis! Today, I'm going to highlight Josefina, because I think she is my favorite of the minis that I own. My next mini AG post might just show the rest of the dolls that I have. This one focuses a bit on body type and poseability as well.

This Josefina is part of the AG 25th anniversary special-edition series of mini-dolls. Each historical main character doll was produced in a new outfit, generally the holiday dress of each doll. If you want to see all of the dolls together, Doll Diaries has a good post on the whole set. It also looks like each doll came with a mini book of her holiday story, where applicable. So Josefina is wearing the dress from her Christmas story, along with her lace mantilla. The only differences are that mini Josefina has no hair comb, and her pantaloons are simply pull-on drawers as opposed to the 18" version, where the pantaloons are attached to an undershirt type garment.

While I am an amateur student of historical fashion, the Regency period is not my favorite (Josefina's style is late Regency.) From extant examples of girls' fashions from this time period that I have seen, though, Josefina's dress is wonderfully perfect for her era. From the fabric print and color, to the high waist, to the slight puff to the upper sleeve, it's very stylish. Josefina's mantilla adds the touch of her Spanish heritage to her costume. Lastly, she has gold hoop earrings just like her 18" counterpart.

Her face also looks nice in profile.

Her hair feels silky soft. I'm not planning on ever taking the braid out, because I doubt I'd rebraid it this nicely again.

Here she is without the dress. Fortunately the huge tags lie nicely under the dress and don't show. Her mantilla is tacked onto the front of her head with a few stitches of black thread, so that is staying on, at least for now.

Her white socks go almost up to her knees. The pantaloon legs are so tight, that it was a bit of work to get the socks pulled up nicely again once I pulled the pantaloon leg back down.

The mini AGs have a cloth torso, like the 18" ones do, down to the tie at the back of the neck.

Her dress is very nicely finished on the inside. I'm impressed that they were able to serge the armseye of such a small sleeve, or it might just be a fancy overlock stitch. I neeeed a sewing machine with a better finishing stitch than a zigzag.

The cloth torso does have its drawbacks, but the way her legs are attached allows Josefina to sit in a fairly ladylike manner.

She also has what I consider a fairly good range of arm motion for such a small doll. Her arms can also be spread out facing forward, but not very far, or they can be raised up over her head.

Although I understand that AG was trying to cycle out the older dolls before they introduce the new line, I wonder if it was a mistake clearancing them from $24 to $10. They're worth more than $10, but now I'm not sure that they are worth $24, having gotten some so cheaply. They're probably worth close enough to that amount, though, that I wouldn't hesitate to buy one if you like it. Honesty compels me to add that I have gotten most of mine from eBay and I don't think I've paid full price for any of them, including Christmas Josefina. These dolls are a great and well-made addition to any collection of small dolls or American Girls.