Review: Corolle Rainbow Dolls Iris

In February of this year, Corolle debuted a new line of dolls at the American International Toy Fair. The Rainbow Dolls are a collection of four 16” dolls with vinyl heads and hands, cloth bodies, kawaii unicorn-themed outfits, and brightly-coloured hair.

The dolls became available to the public in June, and I bought one in July as soon as I found them for sale at Club Jouet. Céleste has yellow hair and green eyes, Praline has light pink hair and bright blue eyes, Néphélie has hot pink hair and grey-blue eyes, and Iris has lilac hair and brown eyes. I chose Iris, naturally: dolls with purple hair and brown eyes have a special place in my heart.

I had no idea what the Rainbow Dolls packaging looked like, so I was looking forward to seeing it. Turns out there was a reason I hadn’t seen it online: there is none. Iris arrived loose in a shipping box with some brown paper to protect her. She had a small cardboard hangtag around her wrist and a plastic hook in her head so she could be hung up in a store. And that’s it! I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it’s practically zero waste. That’s awesome! On the other hand, it’s easy for these dolls to get dirty or damaged. Iris arrived with a black mark on her ear, which I was able to remove with Magic Eraser, and a small scratch on her eye, which cannot be fixed. Minimalist packaging is not new for Corolle: many of the Les Minis dolls are sold this way as well. This seems to work out okay for Les Minis. Rainbow Dolls seem less durable than Les Minis, though, so I wonder how well this approach will work for them.

Iris is basically a rag doll: she has a floppy cloth body, a vinyl head with rooted hair, and vinyl hands and boots. Her body is soft, squishy, and lightweight; it’s not weighted like the Corolle Calin 12” baby dolls. I wish it were, because I think that would make her more cuddly. She smells of vanilla like all Corolle dolls, but the scent is faint.

She has brown eyes, dark freckles across her cheeks and nose, and slightly parted bright coral lips turned up in a smile. Her eyes are beautiful: they’re a cool shade of brown with a lot of depth and sparkle. They complement her lilac hair perfectly. Her top lip has a vertical dent in the centre, which I thought was a defect in my doll, but it’s not: all the dolls have this, which means it’s a feature/flaw in the mould. I don’t think it detracts from her face at all.

Iris’s tag says 2020, which makes sense since the Rainbow Dolls debuted this year. Interestingly, though, the Rainbow Dolls are not totally original: they are based on a Corolle line from the early 2000s called Les Dollies Trendies. Les Dollies Trendies were very similar to Rainbow Dolls: they were rag dolls with vinyl heads and hands and colourful rooted hair. They had huge, chunky cloth shoes instead of vinyl boots (2000s doll design, am I right?!) and their outfits incorporated lots of clashing prints in bright colours. There were at least 11 different Les Dollies Trendies. Four of them were similar to the four Rainbow Dolls, and there were others with red, orange, sky blue, and white hair who all shared the face mould and light skin tone of the contemporary Rainbow Dolls. There was also a doll with this face mould who had a dark skin tone and light blonde hair. The Les Dollies Trendies line included two more dolls of colour with different face moulds: one with a dark skin tone, dark curly hair, and the Calin Naïma mould; and one with a light skin tone, black hair with pink highlights, and an Asian face mould I have not seen on any other Corolle doll. You can see most of Les Dollies Trendies here. The four debut Rainbow Dolls all have the same face mould and light skin tone, but I hope the line does well and Corolle expands it to include dolls of colour (I suspect they will).

Iris’s outfit includes yellow-and-white striped “tights,” a pink “shirt” with white polka dots, and a lavender jumper with a unicorn and rainbow print. The “tights” and “shirt” are actually her cloth body. All four Rainbow Dolls are dressed in the same outfit with the prints and colours combined in different ways. My favourite is Céleste’s, but they’re all cute. The jumper has straps that cross in the back. It’s removable, but it doesn’t have back closures and it’s a bit difficult to get off.  The “shirt” and the jumper are both made of a crisp, slippery fabric. The “tights” are softer; they almost feel like nylon stockings. I don’t love either fabric texture. The slippery fabric makes Iris hard to cuddle: she feels like she’s going to slide right out of my arms. And the softer, nylon-like material seems vulnerable to snagging. I’m not convinced that either fabric would hold up well to adventures with a little kid. The prints are adorable, though; Corolle consistently wins at prints. I don’t love unicorn-themed stuff but I’m a fan of Iris’s adorable outfit anyway. (Check out this video where I gush over a bear print by Corolle despite not liking bear-themed stuff either!) I can’t really speak to what’s cool to kids these days, but the Rainbow Dolls’ kawaii look seems right on trend.

With her jumper off, you can see how Iris is constructed. Each piece of her body is sewed and stuffed separately, so the connections between her limbs and torso are flat. Her arms are attached at an angle so they hang down naturally. Her legs each have a big stitch through the middle to shape her knees. Her boots and hands are inset into her cloth limbs, but her head is not inset into her torso: the cut edge of her neck vinyl is visible. This doesn’t look great, especially because the edge is wobbly-looking and asymmetrical. My Corolle baby dolls are constructed the same way, but their neck edges are much neater and they’re all hidden beneath their outfits, anyway. Iris can turn her head side to side. Her head is the heaviest part of her body, and since her body is so floppy and lightweight, she doesn’t pose especially well. She definitely can’t stand on her own. She does a surprisingly decent job sitting up when propped against something, though.

Iris’s boots are really cute. They’re such a big improvement over the Les Dollies Trendies shoes! They are light pink vinyl with painted white soles. They have moulded bows at the back. They are hollow and a bit squishy.

The back of Iris’s head is marked “Corolle: X 95-11 F14.” I suspect this means that the face mould was created in 1995, but I’m not sure what everything else means. All my Corolle babies have similar markings; I’ll have to look closely and see if I can discern a pattern. Newer marks are printed; older marks, like Iris’s, were clearly added to the original sculpture by hand.

Of course, Iris’s most striking feature is her lilac hair! As I said, I’m no expert on what kids these days like, but I suspect that dolls with “unicorn hair” are likely to sell well; American Girl also released dolls with fantasy hair this year. Iris’s hair is play doll quality: it’s a single shade of lilac, the ends are uneven, and it’s fairly sparsely rooted. I don’t really have a problem with this; she’s a play doll, after all. It’s a pretty colour and it feels soft. It’s styled in a single ponytail, held in place by a clear rubber band and decorated with a fuzzy hair tie that’s identical to some of the ones I had as a kid in the ‘90s. I redid her ponytail to fix some flyaways but I didn’t actually let it down; I suspect it wouldn’t look great in any style other than the default.

Iris’s bangs were uneven when she arrived. I gave them a bit of a trim. I’m still brushing tiny bits of hair off her face, but I think I did a pretty good job.

I figure it might be helpful to do a pros/cons breakdown at this point.

Pros:

• Outfit design: it represents the kawaii pastel unicorn trend at its finest.
• Face: her expression is sweet and her paint is impeccable.
• Eyes: lovely colour, lots of depth and sparkle.
• Hair: she has high-quality play doll hair with a nice colour and texture.
• Super eco-friendly packaging.

Cons:

• Not very cuddly. Her body is too lightweight and slippery to be satisfying to hold.
• Fabrics seem less than durable.
• Visible and somewhat sloppy-looking neck joint.
• Potential for damage due to total lack of packaging.
• Lack of diversity in the current lineup.

So, would I recommend Rainbow Dolls to fellow play doll collectors? Yes! I will say that I was ever-so-slightly disappointed by Iris, but I think that’s because my expectations were too high. The 12” Corolle baby dolls are higher quality, but the difference in price points reflects this and I’m not torn up about it. Iris’s expression is enchanting, her kawaii look is fun, and she has that magical something that makes me feel like a kid: I kind of just want to stow her in my bag and take her on adventures. I just hope she holds up on me, and that the Rainbow Dolls in general hold up on the little kids that love them.

I will keep my eyes peeled and report on any updates to the Rainbow Dolls line. I have my fingers crossed for some Black dolls: maybe one with turquoise afro puffs? And other dolls of colour: I’d love to see Corolle bring back the Asian face mould they used in the Les Dollies Trendies line and add a couple dolls with Calin Maria’s skin tone. In the meantime, expect to see more of Iris, whom I’ve named Florence. A Corolle-brand doll with purple hair and brown eyes is pretty much the perfect avatar for me as a doll collector, so she’s bound to show up in future posts!