Why Baby Dolls? Part 1: Baby Doll Person

I’ve collected dolls since 2008, but I only recently became interested in baby dolls. I got my first baby doll, a Corolle Mon Premier Bébé Calin Maria, in February 2018. I named her Coral. She was the first of what would become a new and exciting doll interest for me.

I was never into baby dolls at all until I fell for a photo of an American Girl collector’s small Bitty Baby collection. Something about the way this person had photographed their babies and the way they talked about them in the caption captivated me: the relationship between this person and their baby dolls seemed so sweet and comforting. At this point I realized I was interested in other people’s baby dolls, but I thought baby dolls weren’t for me. Then I made an Instagram account and got to know another American Girl collector who was just getting into baby dolls: she bought her first Paradise Galleries doll and got her first artist-made reborn doll shortly thereafter. Her enthusiasm for those dolls was contagious, and I found myself looking at her photos of them over and over again. I still thought I would never want a baby doll of my own, though.

The turning point was a visit from my mom in January 2018. I took her to my favorite little local toy store, where I occasionally browsed the board games and Calico Critters. My mom wanted to see the whole store, so I found myself wandering past shelves of toys I usually didn’t notice. She admired a 12”  Corolle baby doll, which was noteworthy as my mom is not a doll person and doesn’t usually express interest in collections of any kind. The way she saw value in the little doll helped me see those Corolle babies in an entirely new way. After that visit to the toy store, I wanted one. I held out for about a month, and in February 2018 I bought Coral. She was joined soon after by Iris and Stella, two more 12” Corolle babies, and I was firmly on my way to being a “baby doll person.”

I learned a lot about the online doll community when I started sharing photos of Coral. It’s split into groups that don’t have a lot of overlap, and within those groups are hierarchies. Resin ball-jointed dolls and vinyl Smart Doll seem to be appreciated by everybody, even people who don’t collect them. American Girl is wildly popular, although most BJD collectors aren’t interested in AG. Not all 18” dolls like American Girl are created equal: many AG collectors look down on collections that feature Maplelea, Our Generation, or other similar dolls. (People used to refer to non-AG 18” dolls as “off-brand,” but thankfully that usage seems to have died down.) Blythe and Pullip are fairly popular, and the most popular accounts only feature unique custom dolls redesigned by artists. If you think the amount of respect a doll collection gets on Instagram is tied to how much it costs and how hard it is to acquire, you’re right.

Most people who collect American Girl, Blythe, or BJDs have no interest in baby dolls. It was clear from the low number of likes my photos of Coral got—and a couple weird comments, too—that my doll friends were not loving my new doll interest. Baby dolls, it turns out, are in their own category. I needed to find a separate doll community if I wanted to connect with other people who liked baby dolls.

The baby doll community is, more accurately, the reborn community. Reborn dolls are life-sized, realistic vinyl or silicone baby dolls painted by artists to look just like real babies. They’re the most popular type of baby doll among collectors. Within the baby doll category, there’s a hierarchy, of course: reborn dolls are at the top, especially ones painted by popular artists. Then there are dolls like the ones Paradise Galleries makes: life-sized and realistic, but not hand-painted with the kind of detail that would make them look truly real. Many reborn collectors consider these dolls “playborns” or “starter reborns.” It’s often assumed that someone has them because they can’t afford a “real” reborn. Small playline baby dolls like Coral are at the bottom, to the extent that they don’t even really register on the hierarchy. I know very few doll collectors who have Corolle dolls! They’re mostly viewed as children’s toys with no collection value. That doesn’t affect how much I enjoy my Corolle dolls, though. I love their tiny size and expressive faces.

As I began to share photos of my Corolle babies, I realized that I would actually also be interested in having a larger, more realistic baby doll. It wasn’t long before I was browsing the MacPherson and Bountiful Baby websites, trying to figure out my dream reborn babies. I decided which artist I’d love to have paint them, and since her beautiful work doesn’t come cheap, I started saving my money. I’m still working on that. In the meantime, though, I was also looking at Paradise Galleries. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try owning a realistic baby doll that wasn’t so expensive, just to see how I liked it. One day in April 2019, Paradise Galleries had a big sale and I made a quick decision: a tiny, sleeping newborn Paradise Galleries baby was coming home. I named her Tabitha.

I love Tabitha. I didn’t realize this until I got her, but having a life-sized baby doll is an entirely different experience from having miniature baby dolls. I’ll talk about that experience in my next post, where I think hard about what really makes baby dolls fun. Does baby doll play have the power to transform the world? Maybe! Stay tuned for Part 2!