Study On The Development Of Fashion Dolls

The object of this study is the Fashion Doll, which has been the carrier of western fashion information for centuries. As Antonia Fraser written in his book, Dolls Pleasures and Treasures, “Fashion Dolls are dolls primarily designed to be dressed to reflect fashion trends”. If we take the word “fashion” away for just a moment, only the word “doll” has already had a great deal of meanings. If basing on different materials, such as clay, porcelain, wood, paper, fabric, metal, rubber or plastic, dolls can be classified with different history, background and culture. Moreover, if we sort dolls by other elements, like region, religion, function, etc., the concept of “doll” will be much more sophisticated and wider. Therefore, we need to understand the concept of “doll” from both the broad and narrow senses. In the broad sense, dolls are the imitation or distortion of people, animals or some other objects; however, in the narrow sense, dolls refers specifically to the imitation of human beings. As the substitution for human, dolls will be equipped with special spiritual connotation and symbolism. In this thesis, the studying object, Fashion Dolls, was researched by referring to the narrow sense of the word “doll”, which is aimed at researching the detailed function of western Fashion Dolls throughout centuries and studying the artistic characteristic and cultural connotation they have accumulated during these years. Meanwhile, this thesis also means to analyze the underlying connection among fashion dolls, fashion design and clothing display and predict fashion dolls? development trend in the future. In addition to that, the other goal of this thesis is to comb and summarize the history of western Fashion Dolls and help more people to have a clearer understanding of Fashion Dolls? special function and importance to the western fashion history.There has been 150 years since the West started using real persons as fashion models. However, since as early as the late 14 th century, Fashion Dolls, the ancestor of fashion models, have already been used as a way of showing off fashionable couture in the French court. Soon after that, Fashion Dolls have been more and more popular among the western royals and nobles. Not until the mid-19 th century, with the appearance of model, did Fashion Dolls? function change from being the carrier of fashion information to children?s toys. With the lapse of time, ?Vintage? becomes the new topic of fashion world. After the aesthetic fatigue which is caused by excessive fashion blockbusters and supermodels, fashion designers divert their attention to Fashion Dolls again and use them to invigorate new vitality to the fashion field.