Claudie Doll & Meet Outfit
Aug 28, 2022 7:40:14 GMT -5
Post by bingandnelsonfan on Aug 28, 2022 7:40:14 GMT -5
We went down on Claudie's release day to American Girl Place in Easton (Columbus, Ohio), arriving about two hours after the store opened. There were a lot of new Claudie dolls on the shelves, and we looked at every doll in every box!
Claudie definitely has a new, unique face mold. In fact, when you’re holding her with other dolls, she looks a little bit like practically every AG-doll face mold all rolled into one. Weird but true. Also, I’ve never seen another AG doll that looks so different from each angle as you rotate her in your hands. Her skin tone is dark, like TM #80, #85, #91, Makena and Anniversary Addy. (It’s the #35 tone option in the CYO creator.) This is a very difficult skin tone to photograph and show in its true color (as mentioned by mamared in the great review above). Most of the pictures I’ve seen posted online so far have her very overlit, almost appearing to have the lighter classic dark tone of dolls like Melody, Gabriela and TM #58. This is absolutely not the case! The photo below is pretty true to her real coloring and look when seen in real life.
And here's a picture showing her standing with a variety of Addy-mold dolls from different eras and in different vinyl tones. (Taken without camera flash, but it's still a little overlit for true color.)
Above left to right: TM #58 (c. 2010), TM #85, Claudie, custom Anniversary Addy, Pleasant Company Addy (1995).
As for buying a Claudie doll, I would really recommend ordering through one of AG’s personal shoppers or picking her out in person. There was a lot of variation from doll to doll, though the head shape itself was unusually consistent. Off-center lip paint is certainly her biggest issue. It’s all over the place, with a tendency to move too far to the right (the doll’s left). It was very hard to find four dolls that had well-centered (but not perfect) lips — out of about forty stocked dolls. The other issue that was quite prevalent was a “flat” bottom of the vinyl eye-socket rim; and it didn’t seem to happen to one side more than the other, showing up on the left and the right. Hard to explain, but a LOT of the dolls had one eye socket where the bottom “lid” area (edge of the opening) was not curved correctly and looked like a horizontal line. This meant that you could sometimes see more eyeball parts than you should. Her eyes are the brown decal style from Samantha and Ivy. Yea! I love them! And they’re the regular 18mm eye size (rather than the larger 20mm eyes used in GOTY Corinne), so they should be interchangeable with other American Girl doll eyes.
Claudie’s wig has black curly hair, exactly like the wig on TM #85, just trimmed a bit shorter. It’s a beautiful, soft wig that falls just below the shoulders. The ends aren’t all fried looking, either, like some of the earlier options. If you’re comfortable with the curly hair, then I can’t recommend this enough. Definitely would NOT be great for young girls or anyone who wants to brush their doll’s hair.
Before moving on to her Meet Outfit review, I’d like to comment on the appearance of her ears and head. They look large compared to other AG dolls. It’s the first thing all three of us noticed when we walked up to the case in the store. Her body and limbs are the same size as other 18″ AG dolls. Her ears are large, with almost no sculpted detail to them (similar to Sonali).
To illustrate the visual difference, here’s a picture showing her with several dolls with a variety of face molds.
Face molds, left to right: Classic, Josefina, Claudie, Sonali, Jess and Corinne.
There are also photos comparing Claudie to almost all previous AG face molds in this thread: agplaythings.proboards.com/thread/140782/comparing-claudie-ag-face-molds
MEET OUTFIT
This is a really cute outfit, though I would, personally, have chosen something with a little more color for a dark doll like Claudie. But that's just personal preference. It's a cute outfit!
DRESS
Short-sleeved, blue-gingham dress is cute on the doll in an old-fashioned way. Has back Velcro closure (buttons don’t work). Similar cotton to Love Shack Fancy clothes. Good for under the sweater. Only piece of the Meet Outfit with the AG plastic tag.
SWEATER & BOW
Mint-green knit sweater has rib knit at the sleeves and around the neck/front opening. Does not close. The bow is a piece of satin ribbon tied into a handful of hair for a princess and would have to be retied if you removed it.
SOCKS, SHOES & BLOOMERS
Bloomers are typical white cotton like Samantha or Kit. Socks are the usual white stretch knee socks. Shoes very simple black (black with a deep blue sort of cast but not navy) vinyl with Velcro closure.
Claudie definitely has a new, unique face mold. In fact, when you’re holding her with other dolls, she looks a little bit like practically every AG-doll face mold all rolled into one. Weird but true. Also, I’ve never seen another AG doll that looks so different from each angle as you rotate her in your hands. Her skin tone is dark, like TM #80, #85, #91, Makena and Anniversary Addy. (It’s the #35 tone option in the CYO creator.) This is a very difficult skin tone to photograph and show in its true color (as mentioned by mamared in the great review above). Most of the pictures I’ve seen posted online so far have her very overlit, almost appearing to have the lighter classic dark tone of dolls like Melody, Gabriela and TM #58. This is absolutely not the case! The photo below is pretty true to her real coloring and look when seen in real life.
And here's a picture showing her standing with a variety of Addy-mold dolls from different eras and in different vinyl tones. (Taken without camera flash, but it's still a little overlit for true color.)
Above left to right: TM #58 (c. 2010), TM #85, Claudie, custom Anniversary Addy, Pleasant Company Addy (1995).
As for buying a Claudie doll, I would really recommend ordering through one of AG’s personal shoppers or picking her out in person. There was a lot of variation from doll to doll, though the head shape itself was unusually consistent. Off-center lip paint is certainly her biggest issue. It’s all over the place, with a tendency to move too far to the right (the doll’s left). It was very hard to find four dolls that had well-centered (but not perfect) lips — out of about forty stocked dolls. The other issue that was quite prevalent was a “flat” bottom of the vinyl eye-socket rim; and it didn’t seem to happen to one side more than the other, showing up on the left and the right. Hard to explain, but a LOT of the dolls had one eye socket where the bottom “lid” area (edge of the opening) was not curved correctly and looked like a horizontal line. This meant that you could sometimes see more eyeball parts than you should. Her eyes are the brown decal style from Samantha and Ivy. Yea! I love them! And they’re the regular 18mm eye size (rather than the larger 20mm eyes used in GOTY Corinne), so they should be interchangeable with other American Girl doll eyes.
Claudie’s wig has black curly hair, exactly like the wig on TM #85, just trimmed a bit shorter. It’s a beautiful, soft wig that falls just below the shoulders. The ends aren’t all fried looking, either, like some of the earlier options. If you’re comfortable with the curly hair, then I can’t recommend this enough. Definitely would NOT be great for young girls or anyone who wants to brush their doll’s hair.
Before moving on to her Meet Outfit review, I’d like to comment on the appearance of her ears and head. They look large compared to other AG dolls. It’s the first thing all three of us noticed when we walked up to the case in the store. Her body and limbs are the same size as other 18″ AG dolls. Her ears are large, with almost no sculpted detail to them (similar to Sonali).
To illustrate the visual difference, here’s a picture showing her with several dolls with a variety of face molds.
Face molds, left to right: Classic, Josefina, Claudie, Sonali, Jess and Corinne.
There are also photos comparing Claudie to almost all previous AG face molds in this thread: agplaythings.proboards.com/thread/140782/comparing-claudie-ag-face-molds
MEET OUTFIT
This is a really cute outfit, though I would, personally, have chosen something with a little more color for a dark doll like Claudie. But that's just personal preference. It's a cute outfit!
DRESS
Short-sleeved, blue-gingham dress is cute on the doll in an old-fashioned way. Has back Velcro closure (buttons don’t work). Similar cotton to Love Shack Fancy clothes. Good for under the sweater. Only piece of the Meet Outfit with the AG plastic tag.
SWEATER & BOW
Mint-green knit sweater has rib knit at the sleeves and around the neck/front opening. Does not close. The bow is a piece of satin ribbon tied into a handful of hair for a princess and would have to be retied if you removed it.
SOCKS, SHOES & BLOOMERS
Bloomers are typical white cotton like Samantha or Kit. Socks are the usual white stretch knee socks. Shoes very simple black (black with a deep blue sort of cast but not navy) vinyl with Velcro closure.