AYAL ARMON
ARTIST
Dolls
I like dolls.
As young boy I liked dolls, but growing up in a society that boys playing with dolls was not the acceptable norm, I envied my cousin who had Barbies and other dolls.
I did get dolls, and used to dress them and make clothes for them with whatever know how I had at the time. Yet there was much shame involved with the practice and the whole dolls playing was kind of closeted.
Grown up I gave up on dolls and went on to study fashion design. I worked as a fashion designer and had my own company where I designed my lines and produced the outfits and would sell to private customers.
I got back to dolls about 15 years ago. I saw a doll at Toys R Us, that were different than barbie, this was an Elle doll and she was in a proportion of a fashion model. I got few of those dolls and planned on making outfits for them.
As it turned out I did not. I had them sitting around for a while, in the meantime I got my first Tonner doll, repainted her and from then on started making fashion for the 16" dolls.
The venture expanded to 22" dolls when Tonner came out with them, and as it is said is history.
I expanded my production to other 16" dolls and to some extent to 12".
I like fashion dolls. I make mini collections for them. I approach my fashion as a fashion house that create one of a kind fashion for the dolls collectors that dress their dolls. I try to make at least three main collection in a year in a limited editions and small groups.
I also repaint the dolls. I remove their factory face paint and give them a new look that I like and prefer, thus give each doll her unique look and make up and hair style. The hair style cahges according to the fashion.
In the next two pages you'll see some samples of my fashion and doll's repaints.