Madame Alexander Hollywood Cissy, a Modern Doll Rocking Vintage Glamour

Don't tell Cissy, but I thought this doll was a lot older than she actually is! Turns out Hollywood Cissy is only from 1999/2000. I bought this doll second-hand, and there is not a lot of information on the internet about her anymore. I have her original box, and probably her certificate of origin, but that box is buried under some other stuff, and I didn't consider it worth digging out.

Madame Alexander originally produced Cissy dolls in the mid-to-late 1950s. At that time Cissy had a resemblance, in my eyes, to the Miss Revlon or Toni dolls. She was the same height as now, 20-21", with a lady doll figure, and high-heeled feet.

Cissy came back with a makeover and a vengeance in the late 1990s. She was an extreme diva, and her most fervent collectors called themselves "Cissy Swine," as Cissy was a demanding dolly and always needed another outfit or more jewelry. Cissy is still produced, but the changes have turned off many diehard collectors. For one thing, the price has doubled or tripled; Cissy now is around $1000 at retail. New Cissy has bending elbows, but word is the vinyl is not as high quality as the earlier dolls. She also has a different face mold, that can appear "mean" or unhappy. As so often happen with doll lines, Madame Alexander changed the Cissy doll and got rid of lot of the things that drew in previous collectors. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on doll sales in the end, and I don't have those numbers. One more note, Hollywood Cissy also came with an African-American skintone, and black hair in the same style as my doll.

It's amazing what taking photographs can do for your appreciation of a doll. Cissy is on a shelf in my bedroom, so I see her every day, but when I put her in front of the camera, she really came to life.

She came wearing everything that you see in the pictures, and more that you will see below the fold. I think her wig is mohair, judging by the texture. Her eyes are sleep eyes. She has movement at her head, arms at the shoulder, waist, hips and knees, and can strike some nice poses, as you can see above.

Where I Keep My Doll Accessories

D7ana encouraged me to share my pictures of where I keep my little doll treasures, after she showed us where she keeps some of her doll bits and bobs. I ended up really enjoying taking these pictures, as I realized how blessed I am with the extras I have for my doll residents. I'll start with the biggest piece of storage furniture, a dresser. When we bought a second-hand bedroom set for Daughter Number 2, the Dancer, we had an "extra" dresser, that now stores my clothes. My personal dresser with the mirror became a place to display and store dolls; sometime I will show the top of the dresser.

Top drawer:

Extra clothes for my 16" doll world, plus accessories

A box with compartments containing important stuff like shoes, purses and jewelry

Middle drawer:

Extra Barbie clothes, extra Cissy clothes, and a few things for my 18" Miss America dolls

 Bottom drawer:

I have more space in this drawer than I remembered. Barbie hats, Stacie size doll stands, We Three Friends

I also have some similar Sterilite boxes stored under the overhang of our platform bed. But that's not very picture-worthy.

One of my oldest places to store things is a small, basic plastic three-drawer unit. It is useful for storage; what is an issue is finding the flat space to keep it.

Barbie size shoes

Baby items and toys for babies in the Barbie universe

Kelly dolls, and Barbie's baby sister Krissy. I didn't want her in the higher drawer all alone. :-(

Last in the Barbie storage category is a large compartmentalized case. Again, this is a great place to store things, but I like to leave it flat, and it's too tall to slide under most furniture, and too big to use up that oh so elusive flat space. It also sticks out too much to put it under the platform bed. I struggle with where to keep it.

If Barbie gets hungry or needs a glass of wine, she knows where to go

For the 16" dolls, I also have a wardrobe case. It was made for the vinyl Josephine doll series produced by the Franklin Mint. I got it straight from the Franklin Mint, and I'm glad I did, as FM wardrobe cases run a lot on the secondary market. It's holding one Josephine doll that's not on display, plus a dress, a couple of hats, and some FM accessories.

Since I like having my dolls displayed in dioramas with furniture and props, I've tried to stock up on doll sized armoires for their display bedrooms, and I want them to actually store clothes and things like hats and shoes. I have almost all the armoires/wardrobes that I need; now I need to invest in hangers. Here's one example: a plastic wardrobe from the 8" Madeline doll line, produced by Eden and based on the children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans. Extra Madeline outfits came with hangers, but I don't have any extra clothes at the moment for these girls! However, I do have their hats and some gloves, socks, and shoes.

For my American Girl Samantha, I have a human-sized (on the small side) cedar chest for her clothes, dishes, extra shoes and stockings, etc. The chest itself is not very elaborately built, and probably cost less originally than Josephine's wardrobe case. But it does give Samantha's things a lovely cedar scent.

If you have the dolly money and a little bit of time, sometimes it's good just to scroll through interesting doll categories on eBay and see what you come up with. It's how I found that dresser for my Mary Englebreit dolls (which does store things like Ann's glasses), and also how I found this last piece, which stores jewelry for my 21" Cissy dolls, and other little items (Coca-Cola Cissy comes with a Coke bottle, for example.) This furniture item stands about 21" tall and has a real glass mirror, and two drawers lined with velvet. It was bought from a seller right here in the greater Cleveland area and the seller allowed Mr. BTEG to pick it up. Not only did it save me a lot on shipping, but it was a relief to the seller not to have to worry about packing it up safely enough for the mail. I vaguely remember it being made for some sort of doll club gathering, and it was made by someone who lived at the time only about 10 miles from my current home, going by the writing on the bottom of the chest. But there's so little information that I haven't been able to track down any other furniture this person might have made. Too bad, as this is beautifully made, like a human sized piece of furniture quality.

The main thing you can see in the mirror is my bookcase, with my dolly Christmas tree on top

My family will tell you that I adore buying all sorts of things to use for storage, from rolling carts to little plastic boxes like what you see above. Someday I'd love to go on a shopping spree in a Container Store. I'm always looking to store the maximum amount in a minimum space. Unless I bought another rolling cart (that I don't have floor space for) and filled it with trays for things like my Barbie shoes, Kelly dolls, etc., I think my storage system is about as good as could be, except I ought to get some of my doll clothes out of the plastic storage. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little tour. Do you have any clever storage tricks?

18" Miss America by Tonner

Since I've been too busy to post very much, or at all, this is going to be a two-for-one post. I'm going to introduce my two 18" Miss Americas, and I'm also going to show the one doll wearing a dress that I made from a Dale Rae Designs pattern. I'll be going into more detail about the dress on my doll sewing blog, which I've neglected horribly since I haven't done sewing for a while.

Tonner's 18" Miss America dolls were not on the market very long; they were produced in the early 2000s. Tonner produced a redhead, blond and brunette, and they came in a swimsuit version and a formal wear version. The brunette also came in ballet wear, presumably for the talent competition. There were a couple of outfits produced as well, one which I remember included a Miss America ball cap and casual wear. Miss America shared a body with Tonner's Kitty Collier dolls. Kitty Collier's story was that she owned a dress shop in... the late fifties, early sixties, taking a stab at it by the clothing style. There were several dressed Kitty dolls produced, and several separate outfits. 10" Tiny Kitty and her friend Simone proved more popular with doll buyers, although I remember reading that 18" Kitty is one of Tonner's favorite dolls.

I've considered selling the two dolls I own off. They aren't super articulated; their arms are jointed only at the shoulders, although their knees bend. And I don't know anyone else who owns these. But... I love their faces. I find them hauntingly beautiful.

Wearing her original tiara

Wearing a tiara produced by an independent artist

We'll start with redhead Miss America, wearing formal dress. She came with a tiara, scepter, and Miss America sash, for her triumphant turn down the runway. I still have the tiara as above, and the scepter.

This Miss America wears a beaded brocade dress, with a column underskirt and train-like overskirt. She also has gloves, earrings, necklace, and matching brocade shoes. The necklace annoys me slightly because it is just that little bit too short so that the weight of the clasp is the heaviest part and pulls the necklace down in back.

The shoes can be difficult to get on, since you have to twist the elastic just right.

The other doll I have is the blond Miss America who came in bathing suit, earrings, and slip-on heels. I think she had the sash too. She was essentially basic Miss America.

The sole of one shoe has yellowed pretty badly. Probably the glue underneath.

She's been wanting to wear something besides the bathing suit for years, so I bought the Dale Rae pattern, which includes the pieces for the dress she is wearing, and directions on making a stuffed cloth mannequin for more doll fitting, or to display clothes. The dress is extremely basic, and fits her closely, so it can be used to make pattern modifications for different looks.

I didn't bother finishing some of this. It was basically a test dress.

Her pumps were bought separately.

Miss America next to Barbie for a size comparison

Here she is next to her 16" inch cousin, Tonner's Sydney Chase

Lastly, she stands next to American Girl Samantha, who matches her in height

I really do love these dolls, and I don't have to have a high degree of doll articulation, so in truth I will probably keep these girls for a long time, and add a brunette to the mix at some point. The one issue I have with them is that they all have the same hazel eye color. I find them gorgeous, and fun to display.