Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Remember Euro Girl?

 I wrote the main part of this last week. By now my blister has gone away and my bruised palm is better, but it's been raining so much I've still not been able to mow my yard! Now...
 I'm taking a break from the monumental task that is mowing my yard, since pushing my little non motorized mower with a broken handle has caused me to develop a blister on the palm of my left hand. So while I have this chance I'm finally getting to my birthday presents. For one thing, I got the Asian Made to Move Barbie.I knew I was getting her because Ken bought her when we found her at Target before my birthday. He made me wait until my birthday to open her though. As everybody knows by now the MTM dolls pose beautifully and very realistically.
  My other doll gift was a Euro Girl doll, which I photographed on one nice day we had recently. Does anybody remember these dolls?





They were discontinued a while back. They were originally sold in 2003 as part of 'The Diana Collection', by Doll Factory. I've seen a very fair skin toned doll with this same sculpt being sold by Aliexpress.
The amaryllis is still blooming.

They were designed by Spanish doll artist Jose Andres Martinez.

She is 18" tall, all vinyl, with just the standard articulation at neck, shoulders, and hips.
She comes with a plastic medallion attached to her wrist with a stretchy band. Unfortunately, the stretchy band had stained her wrist. I would recommend removing it if you get a Euro Girl.
She wasn't very easy to get to stand up unaided. Her balance seemed strange.
She has a cute grin with teeth! Love dolls with teeth!


Carmen Miranda, eat your heart out!

Her eyes are inset and have 'real' lashes.
This is when my lilacs were not even finished blooming. Now they're almost gone.

She has eyebrows made of separate strokes rather than one swipe.


Her hair is wigged, not rooted. It's nice quality hair, and pretty thick.


She has such a cute toddler type face. Her body is thinner though, more like a slightly older child.

She has a sun tanned skin tone. I'm not sure if all the Euro Girls had this skin tone though.


These dolls came in a few different hair colours. The blonde may have had paler skin.

She has nicely done little hands with just a hint of nail colour.
 
She came in this polka dot dress.

The head band has a clip in it to help it stay in place, which is a great idea, although maybe a pain for little hands.


My doll also had one of her extra outfits with her.


The sandals came with her original outfit though.


There were a lot of outfits made for the Euro Girls, which brings me to a point: I have seen a lot of the Euro Girls clothes being sold on Ebay for Magic Attic and Carpathina dolls, since Euro Girl is slim like they are.


The problem is, the dress has left stains on various parts of this doll's body. For example,she has red marks where the trim at the bottom of her dress was against her legs.

I don't know if this outfit would stain though, since all of her stains correspond to the red trim on the dress.


So I might not recommend the clothing if you plan to leave it on your doll for long periods of time.
  And now here are some more shots of Euro Girl's cuteness.

That's garlic she's standing in. It's going crazy.







9 comments:

  1. Yes I remember the Euro Girl doll very well, I had one too and just like yours mine came stained from the red parts of the spotted dress. She had staining all around her shoulders but none on her legs.
    I eventually made my girl into a boy by cutting her hair into a short boyish style, she really made a great boy!
    I think your girl has a very cute face :)

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    1. I think she would make a great boy! and there was that cute Euro Girl outfit with the striped shirt and bibbed overalls.That would be so cute.

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  2. Is she supposed to have a lazy eye?

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  3. What a beatiful doll. I normally dont like dolls that have a smile showing teeth, but I really like this dolls adorable smile. Maybe its because she really does remind me, of a little happy girl. I allso really like her coloring.

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    1. She does have a very realistic child's face.

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  4. słodka dziewczynka w ładnych ciuszkach!

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    1. Thanks. You won't believe this, but the Google translator translated everything but the last word. For you other readers, that was "Sweet little girl in a pretty ciuszkach", which I assume is 'dress'. Stupid Google translator.

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  5. I have 2 or 3 Euro Girl dolls packed away somewhere, including one like yours. They were great when new, but the quality and facial molds of the later ones declined. The ugly faces of the later dolls didn't match the original ads and the defective vinyl darkened with age. The US importer in Florida was impossible to reach, so they couldn't be returned.

    There was a wonderful Euro Girls Yahoo Group whose members made show-quality clothes for their dolls. All of them had the pretty original versions.

    However, as quality control problems with the dolls increased and the line went out of production with no warning, upset buyers were left high and dry.

    The importer who acted like a total thug viciously attacked the Yahoo Group and threatened it with legal action for posting complaints, so the once-happy group disbanded in disgust. I hope he's out of business.

    A sad situation because the Euro Girls were much prettier and more realistic than the chunky, overpriced American Girl dolls. If they'd been properly made, they would have become just as popular, especially with people who enjoy making designer-quality dolls clothing.

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Thanks in advance for your comments.