R&D Collectibles--Fashion Dolls Find a Home in Taiwan

R&D Collectibles, a tiny shop on Yunkang Street occupying perhaps 50 square meters of floor space, is easy to overlook. But the store has a huge variety of dolls. Just three years old, it's the only store of its kind in Taiwan, and it has already become the main clearinghouse of information for fashion doll collectors in Taiwan.

Pursuing a dream

A Mr. Chou, who lives near R&D Collectibles, says that when the shop first opened up he didn't notice it for a while because of its small size. Eventually though, he did notice customers streaming in and out, and his curiosity was piqued.

"I started recognizing the faces of repeat customers, most of whom were busy-looking career girls. They would go in there with these incredibly happy and excited expressions on their faces," says Mr. Chou with a chuckle. When he finally ventured into the shop himself, he soon understood how the customers felt.

Hundreds of dolls are on display at R&D Collectibles. Far more are held in stock and in the personal collections of Wu and Teruel.

Barbie dolls occupy an entire wall of display space. Barbie and Ken wear outfits based on a variety of themes. There are Barbie princesses from all over the world: the Incan civilization, India, China, France, Egypt, Ireland. . . . In each case, she wears the traditional garb of that particular culture. Taken together, all the different Barbie princesses make for an impressive international gathering.

Next to the princess Barbies is the Coca-Cola Collection, in which Barbie is a typical American girl of the 1950s. In one case she wears a waitress uniform, and in another she is dressed in a cheerleader's uniform, both printed with the Coke logo. Looking at Coca-Cola Barbie, you can practically hear strains of old '50s rock and roll tunes. In the Hollywood Movie Star Collection, Barbie shows up at movie premieres, press conferences and the poolside. She's actually more beautiful than a real-life Hollywood starlet.

Doll party

In addition to Barbie, R&D Collectibles also carries Jenny, a fashion doll from Japan. Jenny's face is done very much in the Japanese manga style, and her clothing is also very exaggerated and cute.

Candi is designed by Taiwan-born Jason Wu, now a United States citizen. Candi wears fashions that closely reflect the types of clothing that are popular on the streets today.

Tyler dolls present an image of a woman with fairly high social status, and the designer always works out a scenario to complement her outfits.

Momoko dolls feature vivid facial expressions, and present a different look depending on what angle you view them from. Momoko dresses in extravagant styles that only the most daring would even think of wearing out in public.

Gene dolls, modeled upon the Hollywood starlet Gene Tierney, feature the narrow, high-waisted skirts that were so popular in America back in the 1940s and 50s.

It takes something close to an hour to look over all the dolls in the little shop. While there you frequently overhear other customers exclaiming in delight at all the little marvels they come across. The powerful charm of fashion dolls is quite clear to see.

According to David Wu, the fashion doll craze was sparked by Barbie. In addition to Barbie, some of the better known dolls include Jenny, Gene, and Candi. Fashion dolls are all either 11.5 or 16 inches tall (with the 11.5-inch type being more common), and have bendable joints which allow them to be dressed in many different outfits. Another feature of fashion dolls is that their clothing reflects how popular fashions have changed over the years. Barbie, for example, dresses like a typical American girl, while Jenny shows how fashion-conscioius young Japanese girls like to "doll" themselves up.

Barbie's past

Up until the late 1980s, the only two really famous fashion dolls were Barbie and Jenny. Then in 1988, Mattel introduced 1988 Holiday Barbie. A limited edition featuring lovingly crafted clothing, 1988 Holiday Barbie was the first Barbie doll targeted specifically toward collectors. Prices rose, and the number of fashion doll collectors throughout the world rose sharply. Then the market shifted into still higher gear three years ago thanks to the growing popularity of the Internet, which provided convenient shopping and easy access to information. The appearance of a big new segment of potential customers spurred many toy makers to join the market and produce fashion dolls in large quantities. Suddenly a dozen or more well known fashion doll brands were available, including Barbie, Jenny, Candi, and Tyler.

Explains David Wu, "Unlike other dolls, which were mainly produced for young girls, this new market was created by collectors." As a result, the dolls coming out today feature a very different style, and are intended to satisfy the tastes of many different kinds of collectors.

David Wu was first turned on to fashion dolls by his friend Rudi Teruel, a native of the Philippines. Teruel is well known among international fashion doll traders for his intimate familiarity with fashion doll distribution channels and a unique sense of taste. Listening to him describe the dolls, the world of each one comes strikingly to life.

The most famous fashion doll of all, Barbie, was born in 1959. Her face reflects how American girls of that time period liked to look-tapered eyebrows, a slight upward tweak to the nose, and sexy lips. Barbie was named after Barbara Handler, daughter of Ruth Handler, founder of Mattel Company (which makes Barbie).

Better than real life

At the beginning, young girls were Barbie's main market, but things began changing after the 1977 publication of The Encyclopedia of Barbie Collectibles and the decision taken in the mid-1980s to start allowing Barbie dolls to be entered right alongside very pricey antique dolls at conferences held by the United Federation of Doll Collectors. Barbie's value as a collector's item rose sharply, and the trend received a further fillip with the introduction of a collector's edition of Barbie in 1988. The doll by this time had established herself as a new arrival on the collector's scene.

Barbie has a large "supporting cast" of friends and relatives. In addition to different versions of Barbie herself that have been introduced over the years, there is also her younger sister Skipper, cousin Francie from England, best friend Midge, boyfriend Ken, Midge's boyfriend Allan, and many more, totaling several dozen in all. All these different characters flesh out Barbie's world, and add a lot of variation to the mix.

Barbie's measurements (39-18-33, with the head equal to one-ninth of her height) reveal the American ideal for feminine beauty. In terms of facial features, figure, clothing, and personal relationships, every single Barbie doll ever made has always presented an image of perfection that doesn't exist in the real world. Says Teruel, "That's why many Barbie collectors can't even bring themselves to open the box. It has a clear plastic front, so they just leave her inside and display her like that. It's as though they were collecting some unreachable dream."

Jenny, born in 1980 in Japan, is just the opposite, for she is the embodiment of the average Japanese girl.

Designed in Asia

Jenny looks a lot like the whimsically drawn girls that appear in Japanese comics. According to a customer named Juliana, who got interested through Rudi in collecting Jenny dolls, "Jenny is the kind of doll that you can take out of the box to change her outfits and whatnot."

Following Barbie's lead, Jenny has dozens of friends and relatives. One of the most notable things about Jenny is how quickly the company comes out with new versions of her, and the way she keeps in close step with the latest fashions. Says Teruel, "A few years ago, platform shoes were really popular with fashion-conscious Japanese girls, and Jenny came out almost immediately wearing many different types of platform shoes and shoes with big, exaggerated front ends." Teruel points out that collectors have a lot of fun dressing their Jenny dolls in many different outfits.

Candi, designed by Taiwan-born Jason Wu, is a newer favorite among collectors.

A student of fashion design at the Parson School of Design in New York, Wu was hired still short of his 20th birthday to design Candi after he took top honors in a string of contests for the design of fashion doll outfits. Because he comes from Asia, Wu's dolls exhibit the aesthetic preferences of many different peoples. Candi dolls come in African, Asian, American, and European versions, with physical features designed accordingly. One of the Asian Candi dolls is a dead ringer for Chinese-American Hollywood starlet Lucy Liu, and she proved immediately popular in East Asia following her release.

Newbie ways

Because of Jason Wu's formal training in fashion design, he goes to great lengths to achieve realism with his precise tailoring of Candi's outfits, and the overall feeling of Candi dolls is one of very high quality. Candi has a big fan in a certain Mr. Liu, who says, "Buying an outfit for Candi is like buying an outfit for myself."

Fashion dolls modeled on real people tend to be especially popular with novice collectors. The best known dolls of this sort are Barbie's Celebrity Collection, which includes Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and many more. Everyone is always delighted by the two different outfits modeled after ones worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (a character played by Vivien Leigh). One is a white-and-green dress and bonnet worn to a ball early in the movie, before the outbreak of the Civil War. The other is the green velvet dress, sewn from a curtain, that Scarlett wore when she went to borrow money from Rhett Butler after the war.

Hong Kong movies have also spawned a fair number of celebrity dolls, including ones modeled on Ekin Cheng (for his role in A Man Called Hero), Aaron Kwok (in China Strike Force) Leehom Wang, and Norika Fujiwara. But because the producer, Dragon Company, specializes in making toy soldiers, dolls from Hong Kong have generally been based on action flicks.

Standard fashion dolls generally sell for anything from several hundred to over a thousand New Taiwan Dollars. Celebrity dolls run between two and three thousand, thus the expense is not so great, but the number of dolls available is vast, and novice collectors often make the mistake of buying indiscriminately. For shoppers with an urge to buy, Teruel advises that they think first about the characteristics that they like in the dolls they've already got, or consider what their collections are missing, so that they can develop unique critical expertise in a particular area.

Doll collectors R us

Under the guiding influence of Teruel and Wu, Taiwan's community of fashion doll collectors continues to grow. They conservatively estimate that about a hundred people keep in frequent contact with them and actively collect dolls. Juliana says that Mattel has established a club in Taiwan for Barbie enthusiasts, and the company has issued dolls that are available only to club members, but there is little interaction among club members. For some reason, Teruel and Wu are the ones that collectors prefer to talk shop with.

According to Wu, most of the collectors who contact them frequently are adults, and in fact many of their customers regard their dolls as works of art.

Because most fashion dolls are only produced in limited quantities, they are sold out quickly by the manufacturer. Collectors must then work through a complex trading network to find what they're looking for. Juliana, for example, once asked R&D Collectibles to help her find dolls named Juliana, a task which would have been difficult for anyone lacking professional expertise.

According to Teruel, "There are a lot of buyers who snap up limited edition dolls in large numbers as soon as they are released, then wait for the price to rise before re-selling them for several times what they originally paid." This is a risky gamble, however, for the expected appreciation does not always happen, and many have had to sell their stocks at a loss. Just like the market for other types of art objects, most fashion dolls are traded second hand, and prices vary depending on the condition of the doll. Many collectors display their dolls in the original boxes to preserve their resale value.

Two guys

When Juliana looks for dolls named Juliana, she is perhaps pursuing a dream, or seeking some kind of fulfillment. Similarly, Taiwan's leading doll experts Teruel and Wu both agree that it was a chance friendship and the pursuit of a dream that led them to collect fashion dolls, start acting as dealers, and finally open up a shop of their own in Taiwan.

In 1989, while studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco, Rudi Teruel decided to do a research project on Barbie dolls. Over the course of a semester, the dolls captured his imagination, and he became a serious Barbie fan. A few years later, David Wu left Taiwan and headed for San Francisco to study mass communications. There he met Teruel, through whom he also became interested in collecting fashion dolls.

Teruel was running a fashion doll shop in San Francisco, but he harbored a dream of introducing his passion to art collectors in Asia. His friend Wu eventually graduated and returned to Taiwan. After switching jobs several times, Wu decided to invite Teruel to come to Taiwan and open up a shop together.

Says Teruel, "Taiwan is just the first step. A truly unique collecting culture has not yet taken shape here, but we have managed to get a lot of people started. We'd like to branch out from here to Shanghai and the Philippines, and get people in other places interested in collecting."

Pushing the dream

There are not nearly so many collectors in Taiwan as in the United States or Japan, but thanks to the extensive contacts of Wu and Teruel with other doll collectors, the R&D Collectibles website has turned Taipei into a key trading center for fashion dolls in East Asia. Japan's Pet-WORKs has recently developed a new doll called Momoko, and is actively seeking the help of R&D Collectibles to introduce Momoko to collectors.

Part of the secret of their success lies in price competitiveness, as Wu explains: "A lot of people think they ought to be able to get the best prices in the United States and Japan, since that's where the fashion doll manufacturers are located. What they don't realize is that doll makers set different prices for different markets, and that's why so many collectors from all over the world are willing to order from us online. Even when you add the cost of shipping, we can still give them a better deal." R&D Collectibles sell more than twice as much online as they do to walk-in customers. They pay the high rent for their store space just because they want to create a "home base" for fashion doll collectors in Taiwan.

To have a dream in life is a wonderful thing. To be able to use one's career to pursue that dream is perhaps the greatest happiness one can know. How fortunate for us all that David Wu and Rudi Teruel have opened a shop on Yungkang Street to share their dreams with us in Taiwan!

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1. Taiwan-born designer Jason Wu already won a string of fashion doll design contests before his 20th birthday. Shown here is one of his award-winning dolls.

2. There's a distinctively Oriental look to his Asian version of Candi on vacation.

3. Delphine, part of the Barbie Fashion Model Series, has a style all her own.

4. Angel Barbie has a beautiful other-worldly air about her.

5. With the doll named Black Hair Lingerie, doll enthusiasts can redo Barbie's hairstyle in countless different ways.

6. This Gene doll wears a stunningly glamorous evening gown.

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Fashions designed for the 11.5-inch Jenny can also be worn by dolls from different manufacturers.

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Licca Castle Jenny comes in many different styles, with gorgeous outfits.

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Rudi Teruel (left) and David Wu (right) prove by running a fashion doll shop that dolls aren't just for girls.

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These dolls are modeled after real-life stars Lucy Liu (left), Aaron Kwok (center), and Ekin Cheng. They're not terribly expensive, but are still highly valued because all were limited editions.

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Jenny's friends Tomoki (left) and Sayaka (right) are very highly sought by collectors.

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Nana is one of the seven Standard Super Dorphie dolls made by Volks, Inc. Her eyes, hair, arms, and legs are detachable, allowing buyers to customize as they like.

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The captivating Momoko faithfully reflects the look of Japanese fashions.

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Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Westlife, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Aaron Kwok, and Ekin Cheng are just a few of the stars represented by these celebrity dolls. How many do you recognize?