Saturday, April 12, 2014

Mattel sneaks from Linda Kyaw

Above is a hot off the press Barbie Look Red Carpet doll, due out this fall. One of our table mates received this doll this afternoon.

Mattel designer Linda Kyaw talked about the unsung heroes of design this morning: the sample and pattern makers--especially when it comes to some of her favorites, the OOAK designs. She featured photos from some of her personal favorites:

Mini-Me of Ralph Lauren
Mini-Me of Karl Lagerfeld
The gorgeous Italian doll convention OOAK, Masquerade

It happens sometimes, that you might like a OOAK so much that a production doll is born. To our delight and astonishment, Linda announced a surprise for later this year, and sneaked a few photos of a gorgeous Barbie Collector doll, to be released later this year. This one will be in black and gold, but similar to the Italian Masquerade convention, she will have blonde hair, and a gorgeous gown with amazing details.  I believe she uses the goddess sculpt, but I'm not sure. I also didn't catch the name of this doll.

Next, there are a few more questions I can go over in the next post! 

6 comments:

  1. Hello Alison! I just discovered your site recently and subscribed--I love the information and photos I found here. Thank you! I am also a huge Ralph Lauren fan and have made my own custom dolls. I was shocked to find out that Linda Kyaw made a prototype doll of him with outfits. Do you have a link to the photos of this doll that were given out as gifts at the 2012 Kenvention? Thanks again, Margie

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    1. Hi Margie, attendees were asked not to take photos during the Mattel presentations, so unfortunately, I don't! But those dolls were absolutely AMAZING. I so wish they'd go into production. Her presentation was really cute, too!

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    2. Oh wait--maybe I'm thinking of a different doll. I know Linda made a OOAK doll that looked just like Ralph Lauren as a gift for him. But I didn't know that there were photos given out to the conventioneers of the Kenvention! I'll see what I can find out! I'll ask around. Sorry--my mistake. :)

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    3. Hello Alison! Thank you so much for your reply. After reading about the Ralph Mini Me on your blog, I did some research and found this link at "hesadoll.com", Linda talked about a Ralph doll and a Karl Lagerfeld doll that were never produced (how sad!). The link said "Linda showed us some pictures of Ken® dolls that were meant to be but never materialized. There was an amazing Ralph Lauren doll with outfits that was the spitting image of the famous designer, as well as an equally cool Karl Lagerfeld doll. Ken®ventioneers were treated to photos of the dolls to take as gifts." I could not find anyone who posted these photos or maybe I am reading too much into that statement and maybe the "gift" was just seeing the photos but I assumed that "to take as gifts" meant they received actual photos to take with them. ?? I would just love to see what these dolls looked like. :) Here is the link I read: http://www.hesadoll.com/had_fall_2012_feature_1.html Thanks again, Margie

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    4. Again, I didn't attend this convention, Margie, so I don't know. Also, I don't know anyone who did, and I've never received photos from Mattel as a gift for any other convention, either, but as part of the Grant A Wish convention, Linda did refer to these as OOAK dolls. She asked us not to take photos, as Mattel always does during their presentations. My guess is that something similar happened at the Kenvention as well, so the chances of you seeing these dolls is fairly slim, I'd guess, unfortunately--unless someone broke the rule.

      Mattel does this as a special treat to convention attendees--like previewing upcoming dolls, viewing behind-the-scenes factory photos, etc.--and to encourage attendees to pay the money to attend the conventions next year. I think if we didn't follow the rules, Mattel would stop allow their designers to attend these conventions (which actually aren't put on by Mattel, believe it or not).

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    5. I thought it was odd if they did distribute the photos but at other conventions Mattel (Robert Best actually) gave out fashion sketches of dolls not produced as a table gift. I thought maybe this was a similar-type thing, especially since this was a large Ken doll convention. But it is fun to know that ooak Ralph and Karl dolls exist! Thank you again for your time and I look forward to your future posts. Take care!

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