Italian Doll Convention 2018 - Day II: the Gala night

June 18, 2018

Saturday is the busiest day of IDC: seminars, presentations, the fashion show and the gala dinner! For most of us It begun early in the morning, as we had to go and get the extra blond version of the convention doll, Ciao Poppy! She’s gorgeous but I do prefer the pink haired one. This one will go to my friend Maria of Habilis Dolls, who could not attend. And that is why you see her in the box.

Then it was time for a great presentation. My dear friend (we finally met!) Ada of Papusile Mele was giving us a lecture about Manga in Doll Culture! She showed us all the famous manga characters that got made into dolls, like Astro Boy, Lady Oscar, Sailor Moon and Candy Candy, giving us many details about manga history in between. Lots of rare and OOAK dolls were shown in the accompanying slideshow.

We stayed in Japan with the next presentation: the story of the doll Licca, by the lovely Kazuko Hosokawa. Not only she told us the amazing tale of how Licca came to be, with lots of details and how she developed throughout the years until now, but also brought with her part of her incredible Licca collection, with the complete original Licca family a stand out. Both this and the previous presentation had the awesome Antonio Russo helping out with the translation, from English to Italian. Some dolls and gifts were raffled to attendees, ending the presentation in a most ideal way.

Third presentation of the day was called PoppyParkerly, this time dedicated of course to last night’s star, the lovely Poppy Parker: Daniela Ferrando talked about how the 60s are perceived aesthetically nowadays through our modern sensibilities compared to how it was back then, by using the 60s contemporary Barbies and today’s Poppies.

The last presentation was a much anticipated interview: dear Ada got the chance to ask the talented Linda Kyaw, Mattel designer and stylist of @barbiestyle, lots and lots of questions about her career, Barbie in the past, now and the future. The questions were send by Ada’s readers and, strangely enough, Mattel did not censor them! The interview was very informative even for people who are not even doll collectors. Linda is very intelligent, gracious and kind. She answered all questions, avoiding pitfalls and confidential information of course, and, with Ada being a wonderful interviewer, the session was a blast. It was accompanied by lots of Linda designed Barbies in displays and ended with lots of dolls and other gifts being raffled to attendees.

Linda’s OOAK contribution to the IDC auction

After a brief interval (and a change of clothes), it was back at IDC for the Cartoonia parade fashion show! Anyone interested had registered for participating in this show, dressing up as a cartoon or doll character of his choice. The catwalk was set up in one of the hotel ballrooms. The show was a hoot: participants had incredible outfits, that had taken them countless days to make, complimented by styling, make up and hairstyles matching their characters, not to mention the choreography each one had prepared for their presentation. Lots of compliments, applause and bravos to all participants for the show that everyone thoroughly enjoyed! The photos of the show below (as a slideshow) are by another Greek collector that was there, Makis (thank you so much dearest!), as my seat was not ideal for catwalk photos.

Everyone attending the runway show could vote for his favourite costume, which was quite difficult as they were all amazing! You just had to give your favourite the corresponding coupon that was given with the rest of the registration stuff. All participants were assembled at the hotel’s stairs for a last photo op and then it was time for the welcome drink before dinner, or, as Italians call it, l’aperitivo. An hour later, we were ushered into the ballroom for the gala dinner.

Athena was the winner of the runway show

The whole room was decorated with lots of cartoon elements. Each chair around the big rotunda tables had a transparent balloon tied to its back, lit up with a string of colourful led lights. The centerpiece was a Barbie doll made up as a comics/cartoon hero by doll design duo Lantis Kelly and Catia Destro. Each seat also has a pair of sketches made by Living Plastic Doll for the gala.

I had been assigned to one of the Spanish tables, table no.20, with the lovely Lionel as our wonderful and amazing host. The table gifts were all amazing and I added mine to the bunch: cute mini polka dot dresses in various colours, with matching headband bows and earrings, all made to order by my dearest friend Maria from Habilis Dolls. I already knew Lionel and José from Facebook and got to meet the rest of the table mates there for the first time, all amazing and some of the best I could have: Christelle, Fito, Francisco, Gloria, Maria, Nuria and Pepita! My warmest thank yous and best wishes, you were all amazing!

Table gifts! You can see one of the Habilis Doll polka dot dresses I gifted on the top left of this photo.

After a beautiful ballet introduction, with the dancers dressed in Disney prince and princess outfits, Mario Paglino took the stage, welcoming everyone. He talked about the recipient of this year’s charity auction profits, Dynamo Camp and introduced their team. Then it was time for a speech from Linda Kyaw about Barbie, its history and its future, as next year is the doll’s 60th birthday. There was no preview of anything regarding that front, but we got to see lots of gorgeous Barbie photos, some of which were shown for the first time in public. Then Gianni surprised everyone by announcing that there was a gift for everyone, a special limited edition book (300 copies) dedicated to Linda Kyaw and filled with photos of her Barbie dolls, exclusive to the convention and Mattel approved: The World Of Linda Kyaw. A gorgeous book, printed in quality paper, with lots of doll photos!

60th anniversary logo

Lots of gifts were raffled off to attendees during the night, including many dolls. Our table won two of them! After dessert it was time for the convention doll. No surprises here, it was the same doll that was presented in the Paris and Tokyo conventions, Striking In Stripes Barbie. She is Gold label, has the Karl sculpt and a model muse body. Designed by Bill Greening, she wears an asymmetrical striped evening dress, with black strappy sandals, silver clutch bag and matching jewellery. It’s my first official convention doll (that I get while attending I mean), so I’m keeping her.

Then it was time for the extra convention Barbie, the one designed by Magia 2000, Mario and Gianni. This one was based on the Totally Hair Barbie, remade by Magia 2000, with new hairstyle, make up, freckles and a spectacular dress with an overskirt in custom printed fabric (with comic related print) and a black body hugging Lycra dress encrusted with colourful rhinestones. She wears black stockings, pink shoes embellished with crystals and star crystal earrings. Miniatures of her own special box and the official convention booklet created by Roger Corbeau were included.

One could see the OOAK benefit auction dolls in display in a corner of the ballroom. The talented creators really outdid themselves, as you can see in the photos below. How lucky are the people that bought them! The centerpiece dolls were raffled to each table, ours was won by Christelle - contrary to IT conventions, here you win both centerpiece doll and base for free.

After lots of fun, laughs, raffles and doll fun, we were ready to wrap things up and call it a day - there was a disco set up in another hotel hall for people that wanted to continue but it was already late and I had to catch the last metro train back to my hotel. The next post will be about the third and final day of IDC.

Italian Doll Convention 2018 day one: my first ever doll convention!

May 27, 2018

I’ve finally attended my first ever doll convention! as you’ve probably read in a previous post, I took the plunge last year and registered for the 2018 Italian Doll Convention, and boy did I make the right decision! The experience was a blast and so I’m going to present the whole event here in the blog, with lots of photos and information. We will begin with Friday, 18th Of May, the first day of the convention, which was dedicated to Poppy Parker!

I arrived at Bergamo airport at 11:00 am Friday (Rayan Air helped to keep the budget low) and popped over to Milan with a bus. Checked in at my hotel near Milano Centrale FS - not staying at the convention hotel was not the most convenient option but it was definitely the cheapest. Being familiar with the city, since it was not my first time there, I then took the Metro (underground train) to the convention hotel, to get registered, managing to arrive a few minutes after it had begun.

One of the amazing Magia2000 guys was at the registration, the lovely Mario Paglino, along with assistants gorgeous Sebastiano Zaffalon and the incredible Ibrahim Ismail, who registered me and walked me through the do’s and dont’s of my first convention. I received the convention bag, full of goodies and all necessary stuff for the next three days, plus my convention bracelets, to be worn proudly for the duration of my stay, while nixing every chance of flirting with gorgeous chic Italians in the wider Milan metropolitan area!

First indication you are in the right place

Registration queue - being early means no waiting time. Mario is in the middle, Sebastian with the darker pink shirt and Ibrahim with the black one.

The magical bracelets guaranteeing entry to all events

Finishing early with the registration meant I had quite some time until the start of the first day event, which was at 20:00. So I decided to visit the Armani Silos building near via Tortona, in one of the most fashionable districts of the city, near the lovely canals, I navigli. On one side of via Bergognone are the Silos and right across you can see the company’s headquarters and the Armani Teatro, where the runway shows of the famous designer take place. A pilgrimage for every serious fashionista indeed!

The Armani Teatro where they host their runway shows

The Armani Silos turned out to be quite the experience! The ground floor, apart from the reception, cafe (more later) and guardarobe, have a temporary exhibition space, these days dedicated to the photographer artist Paolo Ventura. His work is characterised by the short stories he makes by constructing small scale dioramas and photographing them, creating his own worlds. Photographs, models and paper dioramas combined into a great experience, which was the icing on the cake that was Armani Silos.

The rest of the edifice is dedicated to the master. Three floors brimming with his clothes, divided by floor into three categories/themes: androgynous, ethnic and stars. Androgynous is about the brilliant way he fuses masculine and feminine in his clothes, his most prominent charachterisic along with his fluid tailoring. Ethnic is about the way he incorporates influences and elements of other cultures without merely copying them. And, finally, stars, was about his scintillating evening wear, minimal yet opulent, in a way only Armani can do. One of the great things about this exhibition is that you can walk amongst the clothes, able to look up close to all the details and workmanship involved. The only fault (for me) was the lack of detailed information on the outfits: apart from the respective collection the outfit comes from, no other information was given. Half of the third floor is taken over by the brand’s digital archive, accessible through huge touch screens and iMac computers. There is also a small screening room, where films and ads made for the house are shown - when I was there, a film by David Lunch was being projected.

I had to have a coffee at the ground floor cafe, both to relax and absorb what I had just seen, but also to charge my phone. The experience kept on being full Armani, with branded water and even sugar cubes and chocolate! There’s a lovely outdoors space too. I left to have lunch at the big canal, Grande Naviglio, at a favourite osteria, but had to hurry back to the Silos afterwards, as I had forgotten my convention bag at their guardarobe! After that, back to the hotel to freshen up. Below you can see the contents of the convention bag - best gift in my opinion: the amazing Balmain pencils! Thank you Magia 2000!

Time had come for the first event of the convention: the Harajuku party dedicated to Poppy Parker and the special guest from Integrity Toys, the designer David Buttry! A big ballroom was transformed by cartoon balloons, lighting and decorations into a harajuku scene, with many attendees dressed up as manga and anime characters or merely following harajuku style. A lavish buffet took over half the room, with lots of food and drinks available. A DJ was there to enhance the effect, later helping attendees burst into karaoke performances with the Spanish contingent making the biggest impression! Meeting people that until then were only known to me through doll groups or social media turned out to be the best part of the convention, with first and foremost the lovely, kind and talented David Buttry.

Me with lovely David! It was great meeting him at last!

David Buttry made his appearance on stage to give an interview to Rogier Corbeau, from the great blog Dutch Fashion Doll World. I found out that the questions, submitted by readers of the blog, were screened by Integrity Toys beforehand, which is kind of weird. The interview itself was great, with David telling us about his work process, his inspiration sources and how Poppy came to be. He also told us that the exclusive convention Poppy begun her life as part of the Swinging London Collection but was kept out of it to then transform into the event doll. He had also brought along another Poppy, a prototype doll from the Swinging London Collection that was part of the exhibition of various Poppy Parker dolls (all from the collection of Lauretta Tonini) at the event.

Another exhibition inside the ballroom were the brilliant photographs taken by José Rdriguez (Ken Mad) with Poppy at the Scala of Milan as theme. Each photograph had Poppy transformed into an opera heroine, from Tosca to Norma to Aida. We were extremely lucky to each receive a lovely box with the printed photographs.

Ciao, Poppy! was the gorgeous event doll, finally revealed to us with a special presentation, and given to all attendees upon the presentation of the corresponding ticket received upon registration. The exclusive doll, limited to 250 pieces, even less than a centerpiece in other conventions, dressed in colourful clothes, with pink hair, a flower necklace in multicoloured stones, short skirt, knee socks, high heeled peep toe pumps and a shopping bag with her face and the words Ciao, Poppy! on them. She has the high heel feet instead of the classic Poppy articulated feet and her make up is more modern, matching her harajuku style perfectly.

Everyone was so happy to get this special doll, but there was one more thing: a special gift in the form of a bathing suit designed by David in retro style. But that was not the end of it. Another Poppy doll, the blonde variation of the first one, was available to all attendees for purchase, to be bought the next morning for €160,00. This version was again limited to 250 dolls. Apart from the different hair colour, her lips are pale pink, contrary to the strong red ones of the pink haired version. I did not want a second one but bought it for my dear friend Maria of Habilis Dolls, who could not attend and loved her.

The rest of the evening was full of fun, drinks, song, dance and friends. The prototype Poppy Parker was raffled off to attendees, and the lucky winner was Lamanda Rae Scott! You can see her below with David and the OOAK Poppy!

It was a wonderful evening, being with great friends and getting lovely dolls - what a great way to start a convention! As I got on the Metro train to return to my hotel, I felt happy and excited for the next day. Read all about it in the next post.

All photos and videos, unless otherwise mentioned, are courtesy and copyright of Stratos Bacalis and the Fashion Doll Chronicles- not to be copied or shared without permission

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