You have remembered me announcing earlier that Ever After High had released a "Fairest on Ice" winter/ice-skating themed line of dolls featuring Ashlynn Ella (that girl is in everything!), Poppy O'Hair, aaaand my girl Duchess Swan! I temporarily put off getting her at the time because I had other priorities (Pfffft), and fully intended to just get her when I could. And that, my friends, was pretty dumb of me. It looks like Mattel didn't make many of these, because I quickly found that they weren't sold online from retailers, and the stores in our area just never had them. Angry and frustrated, I just resigned myself to never getting Duchess.
And then I got a lucky break; my good friend Miss Momo, who goes toy-hunting a few times a month, stumbled across her at Wal-Mart by complete chance. (It figures, right?) So she snagged it for me, and generously gave her to me for Christmas. I feel very lucky to have such a good friend. :) So here is my review of her, for all of you EAH fans! You can read all the details after the cut.
So to quickly reiterate, Fairest on Ice was a Wal-Mart exclusive, with the dolls retailing for the average EAH price of $19.99. These don't appear to be sold anymore, so if you're desperately craving one of them, your best bet is eBay; but understand that these will be way more than MSRP if the resellers have their way with it. Momo completely lucked out and found one at her local Wal-Mart; and this is after a few months of weekly visits. And given that they aren't even listed on Wal-Mart's website anymore, it's almost impossible to track down a doll in stores.
This is one of the last lines they released with the old box, and I have got to say that looking at this only reinforces how much I hate the new boxes. Look at this! Look at that beautiful color palette, look at that cute background. This robin's-egg-blue is the perfect choice. It's a little hard to see from this angle, but the background has a frozen pond with a snowflake cutout. It's very simply drawn, but it's pretty cute.
The back depicts a school bulletin board, with all types of winter activities being announced, including Duchess' ice dancing performance. You can see her official character art for this line; you'll see in the pictures further down that Mattel doesn't have the design exactly match the outfit, which always annoys me.
Let's all have a moment of silence to appreciate the fact that she's here and she's gorgeous.
Okay, so the pose is dorky, but it shows off the whole package.
Excuse me while I weep a moment. SHE'S SO BEAUTIFUL.
Duchess normally rocks a very bold and dramatic makeup palette, but this wintertime iteration of our favorite ballerina is glittery and ethereal and I approve. I'm getting serious Sugarplum Fairy vibes from her, given her frosty, glimmering white-and-lavender outfit. Her makeup here is soft and pastel; subtle is the keyword here. Her pale skin is especially dramatic when paired with her black hair, which feels like it's framing her face. Frosted lavender eyeshadow and pale, pale pink lipstick this time around. There's also a little baby-blue snowflake design painted under one cheek. I'll admit that I do like it when Mattel gives the dolls "face paint," so to speak.
I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the earrings. They're made of this translucent lavender plastic, and are snowflakes...with feathers attached. Huh. I don't really like this; it's one instance where "Why not both?" is NOT acceptable.
I couldn't get a decent close-up of the crown, but it's basic translucent white plastic here. It's got large snowflakes joined together to form the tines, with loops of beads around the base. (The beads remind me a little of the headdress she normally wears.) I think it's kinda dumb, honestly. A headband, sure, that makes sense, but who wears a crown to go ice-skating? What's the point? C'mon, Mattel.
This outfit is crazy glitz. Like, to levels of insanity. To begin with the dress itself, you've got a silver bodice that reminds me a bit of lamé. This connects to a really simple white underskirt made of that cheap, stiff fabric I hate so much, but overtop of that is utter wintertime insanity. You've got a kind of dispirited-looking layer of thin, scratchy white tulle, and a much fuller skirt of purple tulle with white and silver glittery snowflakes and sparkles.
Now...the rest of this stuff is kind of weird and hard to describe. It looks like...snowflake armor? It's the best way that I can describe it, since it seems to serve no purpose. It's like she's coated in ice or something. There's a piece that's maybe a belt that has icicles dripping down...maybe to keep her skirt in place? It's sort of the same material used for her crown, but sparklier. The piece Duchess is wearing on her chest is like...a chest plate, sleeves, and a necklace all rolled into one. It's...uh...interesting.
Oh, and she has some type of snowflake-themed wrist guard on her right arm. But not the left! You have to pull her hand out in order to take it off.
The ice skates, though, are simply beautiful. The toe portion is made of silver molded feathers; the rest of the shoe is made of translucent lavender wings, with an elegant scrollwork skate blade. These are just so beautiful, I want to star at them all day.
I've got to stop here for a moment and express my dissatisfaction with her hair. Mattel, please get it through your heads that Duchess' hair is black and white, not black with white highlights. I mean, different characters will get hair dyed in certain colors to match their outfits (like Rosabella and Cedar's Birthday Ball dolls), so why not Duchess? Making her hair white and lavender would have worked beautifully for this line. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
The fastenings for her clothes are in the back; pretty standard velcro for the dress, snaps for the armor. You can see that her skirt is asymmetrical, being longer in the back than the front.
A portion of her white-streaked hair has been pulled to the side to make a mini ponytail, and I'm kinf of neutral on it. Mini side ponytails are sort of silly, but having the white highlights pulled to the side does look nice.
Here's what the underskirt portion looks like. Kind of like a haute couture wedding dress. If the wedding took place on a frozen pond and the bride was a princess. But I digress!
A closer look at the...gauntlet? Wrist protector? Don't know what point it serves.
A very artsy shot of Duchess in three-quarters view.
Oh yeah, besides the standard brush and stand, she has a purse, because OF COURSE girls take their purse ice skating. (??????) It looks like Mattel gave up, because now the purse is just a swan. With a snowflake on the handle. (No really, WHERE do these girls go shopping?)
It's made of the same type of plastic as her crown, and surprisingly, the purse opens! It's too small to really put anything in there, though.
"Fairest on Ice" seems to be a wintertime exercise in excess, and oddly reminds me a bit of MH's Sweet Screams. I think that if you look at the doll as a whole, the result is charming, but when you narrow in on her piece-by-piece, it starts to look a little bizarre. If it was more readily available, I'd urge EAH fans to go for it. But given that it isn't available from retailers anymore, I'd hesitate to tell people to grab these from scalpers. If you can find it in stores, or online for not too much over MSRP, you're getting a good deal.
Miss Scarlett suggests: The Fairest on Ice dolls are beautiful, but difficult to find and not worth scalpers' secondhand prices. This might be one time to just "let it go."
