Welcome to the Hobby Haven.
Alright, so as all of you probably remember, I have been babbling about how much I wanted Mattel to make a basic doll for my favorite Ever After High Royal character, Duchess Swan. I first got into the fandom in March of 2014, and waited months and months, hoping beyond hope that they would get around to it. And then they announced it--joy of joys!--and gave a release window. And then the release window went by, no Duchess. And then she finally went up online, but it seemed that some fans were finding her in Target stores. Yet when I tried to find her in my local stores, I came up empty-handed time after time. Eventually, I got frustrated enough that I decided it wasn't worth my time and gas money to look for her on errand shopping days, and got her online.
It's been a long road to this point, is what I'm saying.
I have her now, though, and that's all that matters. So let's get down to reviewing her, what we've been waiting for all along!
Let's start with the nitty gritty. She was originally supposed to be released in January, but she wasn't available online until February. As of this moment, she is available online at Amazon and at Mattel's website. My researches haven't turned her up anywhere else, so if you want her, it will have to be online only (for now). Amazon has her for $21.99, and Mattel is $2 cheaper, so it depends on which website works best for you. I ordered her along with a few other items I needed, so I got free shipping, and it was delivered within 5 days.
Mattel redesigned the EAH boxes so that they are smaller, and no longer have unique colors. This is a crying shame in my opinion, since they look far less attractive now. This will make it especially annoying for collectors who display the boxes, since they won't match now. I'm wondering what they will do the next time they release some of the "premium" dolls (like the Thronecoming line), since the space in the box is pretty tight. Not much room for those fancy big dresses, yo.
But the main thing that needs to be discussed is her redesign. All of the EAH characters have two character designs. There is the design that you see in the web series, and the design that is used on official merchandise. The latter design is what the dolls' appearances are crafted after. Now, most of the characters' designs are the same for both the web series and their dolls. Not so with Duchess. Her web series appearance is very detailed, and I guess that Mattel deemed that it would be too hard--and probably too expensive--to make a basic doll with that much detail. So they made a new design for her that is a lot simpler. It is, in my opinion, less attractive, and feels lazy and cheap on their part.
This is the biggest problem that I have with the doll. Looking at her, you can tell that it's Duchess, but she really does not look much like her web series appearance. A lot of fans, myself included, are voicing their dislike for this. And many are taking it upon themselves to give her a DIY makeover to give her the appearance that she should have been given. (I will be doing this in the future, so please keep an eye out for future posts about this!)
I'm especially angry with Mattel for changing her skin color. Duchess has skin with yellow undertones (the exact shade depends on the webisode and what lighting is used). This leaves her sort of racially ambiguous, and some fans have suggested that her appearance means she could possibly be of Asian descent. I really, really like the idea of having a diverse range of race and ethnicity represented amongst the characters. No matter what you look like or where you come from, there will be a Royal or Rebel who looks like you. And I feel that's important. So this is why I'm really unhappy that Mattel changed Duchess to have a very porcelain-white skin tone. (It's pretty close to Apple's, in fact.) Come on, Mattel! That is not cool.
Her hair was also changed from mostly white with black and mauve highlights to mostly black with white highlights, Mattel also changed all of her accessories, so the list goes on. I will leave both character designs here, so you can easily see the differences for yourself.
To the left, Duchess' character art used for official merchandise.
To the right, Duchess' appearance in the web series.
With that being said, I'm going to move on and review the doll itself. I will do my best to refrain from saying, "She looks like this, but should look like that."
Here is Duchess' box. The new EAH boxes are an off-ivory, with the book "spine" on the front instead of the side. The plastic on top and on the one side is ridged, mimicking the pages of a book. Duchess' color seems to be a deep indigo-purple, to distinguish her from Raven's more medium purple. I think that a lavender or mauve would suit her more, though.
And here we have her bio on the back, plus some pictures of the newest dolls: Kitty, Lizzie, and Ginger. Duchess' best friend is apparently Faybelle Thorn (the Evil Fairy from Sleeping Beauty), who is an upcoming Royal doll. We haven't seen her in the show yet, though.
You can see the background a bit more clearly here...it's a lake. With a swan. How clever. The box isn't too hard to open, but removing the dolls from their plastic prison is a surgical procedure as always. I take that back--surgery might be much easier. MATTEL! *shakes fist*
(Pardon the flash here, folks.) But with some perseverance, voila! Duchess Swan is freed! At first glance, she looks nothing like a ballerina, and everything like a Moulin Rouge can-can dancer. MATTEL! *shakes fist again*
Duchess' skin tone is a very cool porcelain, as noted above, with large hazel-colored eyes. She's got some warm pink eyeshadow and fuschia lipstick going on here. Her hair has been swept back into a curly ponytail with one long curled tendril to the side of her face. Her headband is rubber-banded on to ensure that not even a hurricane could move it. Her silver feather earrings are removable.
Her headband is really clunky and ugly. You've got the main band, which is black, with a strand of black beads across the front. Then clumped together to one side is this cluster of feathers and what I'm guessing are different types of flowers. They're all the same shade of plastic and it just looks cheap, cheap, cheap.
Besides the earrings, Duchess has quite a few pieces of jewelry. On her right hand is a ring (it stayed on pretty well, unlike Cerise's which kept falling off) and on her left arm (obscured in this picture) is a silver bangle bracelet. Both have a crowned swan on them. Her bag is white and lavender and absolutely smothered in ruffles. It also has the same crowned swan design, and it feels really lazy, like Mattel had no idea how to get her fairy tale across without smacking us in the face with symbolism. (Also, the bag does not open.) The black necklace is the only piece of jewelry without a bird motif, and is just a chunky chandelier-type statement necklace, nothing special.
The dress is fairly close to her webisode design, which shocked me. You have the bodice with a swirly lacy white pattern, and little whisps of mauve ruffles on her shoulder straps and at her waist. The skirt is actually in two parts, if you look closely. There is a bottom layer that has a black grid-type pattern on a silvery-purple fabric (very soft), and a tulle layer printed with feather and stars overtop it. The top layer is surprisingly soft! I really feel that there should be some more volume or at least another petticoat going on here.
And for whatever reason, Duchess is wearing a corset. It snaps together in the back, and is open on the sides so that you can easily clip her into her stand.
To finish the ensemble are black fishnet stockings and some high-heeled ballet-type shoes. I can't really figure out how to describe them, honestly. These have the same type of swirling pattern printed on them as her dress' bodice. The shoes have lavender ribbons and are slit up the back for easy removal. Also included with Duchess are a silver brush and a stand with a silver base and a clear pole. Mattel can't seem to make up its mind what color stands the basic dolls should get.
I included this shot of the back of her head so you can get an idea of how her hair is rooted. It's primarily black, but there is a thin layer of white and mauve on top. It almost looks like she got that top layer of her hair bleached and streaked.
My takeaway is this: as a "Duchess Swan" doll, she's meh. As an "Ever After High" doll, she's okay. A lot of the detail work is lacking, and feels lazy (reusing the same crowned swan motif in the jewelry, making the headband all one solid-colored blob) and cheap. My guess is that Mattel wanted to play up her "black swan/white swan" personality by making her doll design very black-and-white monochromatic, which would be easier to manufacture. But all of this doesn't make her very ballerina-princess-like, it makes her look like a Goth-y can-can dancer with a bird fetish. Her design just doesn't work.
I'm going to be giving my doll a DIY makeover to get her to look closer to what I think she should look like. But it stings that I have to in the first place. It's a catch-22 here: if you don't buy the dolls, Mattel will claim that there isn't enough demand for the character, and won't make more dolls, thus decreasing the chance we'll get a doll that looks closer to what we want. But if Mattel doesn't make dolls that look accurate, there won't be any demand for them! It's tricky. I've always felt that you should support what you love in encouragement of the creators making more. But at the same time, consumers shouldn't feel obligated to buy a product they don't love in hopes that they will get something that they love.
I will be keeping a close eye on any future Duchess Swan dolls that Mattel offers. Depending on whether they listen to fan feedback or not, I may or may not purchase any future dolls...we shall see.
Miss Scarlett suggests: An okay addition to an Ever After High collection, although Duchess fans may be disappointed.
