VIRTUAL STYLE | Online, paper dolls are having a high-fashion moment

It’s hip to be square. It’s trendy to be untrendy. Or retro. Whatever you want to call it, at the moment, there’s no avoiding one simple fact: Everything that’s out is in again.

Vintage Dottie Dimple paper doll set, 1870.

But it’s one thing to see a kitschy revival of a movie like the Stepford Wives – a film that attempts to turn conventional female stereotypes on their heads – and another to see a resurgence in the popularity of something as démodé as paper dolls.

You remember those, don’t you? With their perfectly perforated edges and full skirts, paper dolls were a favourite gift of grannies, oh, about 30 years ago.

The earliest mass-produced versions of paper dolls appeared in the late 1800s.

They came with names like Dottie Dimple and Pansy Blossom. By the 1970s, the whole Barbie clan could be cut and dressed (including Skipper, Midge, and even Ken). [A not-bad history of paper dolls is here.]

But despite massive changes over the years, one thing about paper dolls stayed the same: they were almost exclusively marketed to girls.

It’s odd really, particularly when you consider that so many of the historically notable fashion designers and stylists (Christian Dior, Thierry Hermes, and Hubert de Givenchy to name a few) have been men, but the childhood occupation of dressing and styling paper dolls has always been uniquely female.

But if you log on to www.paperdollheaven.com, a Finnish website, you’ll discover virtual paper dolls.

Designed for paper-doll lovers, male or female, it’s become a hit with celebrity-hound kids, and is being talked about on high-style bulletin boards like luxe.com, where fashionistas trade information on couture.

Finnish artist Liisa Wrang is behind the site, which gets up to 100,000 hits a day.

In an e-mail interview from her home, she explains that visitors to the site can choose from a variety of celebrity paper dolls (hold the paper) and dress them in a range of outfits, all drawn by Wrang herself.

The painterly illustrations have a striking pop-art-influenced quality.

Playing with the dolls is a click and drag activity. It’s environmentally friendly, free, and a fresh alternative to solitaire. It’s also a non-violent computer game that is as relevant to pop culture junkies as it is to kids. (Who wouldn’t want to see Becks in his underwear and dress him up?)

As a child, Wrang regularly made paper dolls for her sister, at one point discovering that she’d made more than 200. After discovering how easy it is to draw with software and posting her first virtual doll online, she began receiving letters asking her to do more.

Conan

Paris

Gerard

“And here I am,” she says. “Doing more.”

Though she insists it’s just a hobby, these virtual paper dolls obviously taken a huge amount of time.

And already a busy mother of five, Liisa admits the site’s popularity has taken its toll in recently months.

“The maintenance is costing more and more due to the high visiting rates. I’ll have to start thinking about having some kind of content-related advertisement to cover the costs,” she says. “The stats are growing all the time.”

While it may be difficult, maintaining the free-for-users nature of the site is important to Wrang. A few years ago she noticed that computer games and activities seemed primarily dominated by and marketed to boys. (Shoot-em-up and male-dominated sports games are still some of the industry’s top sellers.)

“I thought there must be something more positive and harmless for girls [to do online] … and I was thinking that girls haven’t changed that much. They love clothes.”

Paperdollheaven caters primarily to girls aged six to 18, and their feedback helps drive the site’s content.

“If there are a hundred requests for Orlando Bloom, it’s not that hard to decide on what doll to make next. Sadly, there’s not enough time to make every doll that’s being requested.”

At the moment, the site features all the hottest young Hollywood stars and couples. Mary Kate and Ashley are there, as are David and Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham, for example, but not all the dolls are so mainstream. Calista Flockhart and Eliza Dushku are both available, as is former newscaster, Crown Princess Letizia of Spain. Even Dame Edna is in attendance, complete with bejewelled spectacles in a variety of colours.

“It’s funny and silly and terrible all at the same time,” says 23-year old user Patricia Ambrogi. “Mostly funny, though.”

That said, it’s not something she’s addicted to. “It sort of makes me feel like a kid again, but it’s not really something I’m going to do [a lot of] in my spare time – visit the site and dress up J.Lo or whatever … it would be better if I could dress up a virtual version of myself.”

And who knows. That might be next.

“Everyone seems to have their own favourite celebrities,” Wrang says.

As to what choosing a particularly celebrity might say about you, she won’t postulate, but what is certain is that “96 percent of the [site’s] visitors come from North America.” Contemporary North American kids seem obsessed with celebrities and fashion – and the popularity of the site is an expression of that trend.

It’s also an expression of the retro invasion. But since paper dolls have never really been out of fashion, it isn’t as much of a surprise as, say, the reappearance of leg warmers. And while it may seem like a juvenile pastime, and it may be girly, it’s also fun. Just ask granny.

“Play dressup with virtual paper dolls” was originally published in the Vancouver Sun, August 3, 2004 with the headline “Playing dressup”. See below.

More culture and trends pieces can be found here.

Published August 3, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun, 1/2.

Published August 3, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun, 2/2.