The greatest challenges for doll makers in 2018

Hi,

when I was thinking about the past year again, there has been many changes in the doll business, and in some areas there was incredible progress accomplished. Looking back about new dolls introduced and trends started in 2017 would be a long article. A lot of unusual body styles became reality, and the variety of possibles choices almost exploded - at least in certain areas.

However, looking ahead, it's much easier comprehensible what are the greatest technological challenges for doll makers in 2018. At least if you ask me, it boils down to three areas:

1) Repairability and maintainability. End customer prices dropped massively in 2017, resulting in manufacturers looking for ways to save costs, preferably without anyone noticing. So the surface remains pretty, but below… nuts are still welded onto the skeleton, and some TPE blends change with a staggering pace, making it impossible to provide repair instructions or DIY repair tools. There are even some manufacturers that do not have TPE glue for their own products or claim not to be able to ship the glue. If skeletons are designed to be not maintainable and if no glue exists, products like this are nor repairable. You can ony wear them down until they fall apart. That's simply not right because every doll owner knows that injuries will occur sooner or later. Making dolls not maintainable is just not right.

Since TPE dolls dropped so much in pricing, some customers do not consider it crucial anymore to be able to repair injuries. Of course, a TPE doll costs much less than a silicone doll, so it's a less urgent issue than fixing a $6000 investment. However, $1500 is still a lot of money - imho too much to throw away after a short period of use. So I think one of the major challenges ahead is to make dolls sustainable and long-lasting. If some people have $6000 and are ready to spend it for four throw-away TPE dolls, they may do so. But for the rest of us who is worrying about the ecological ramifications and rather save $4500 for something else, dolls need to remain repairable and maintainable. Maybe not for a decade, but at least for a couple of years.

2) Consistency and documentation. Another issue that is bugging us big time from a vendor perspective is that too many things change unnanounced, so we can not be sure that a doll that will be delivered in a month will be similarily built like the one we have seen today. That starts with shifting skin tone colors from batch to batch, continues to measured weights of the shipped dolls over the design of the skeleton and does not even end yet with the silicone and TPE blends used. Within the past year, almost every manufacturer at least once changed the composition of their doll flesh. Did you know that?

Thusly, gaining more consistency is another major challenge for doll making. Obviously, dolls are no industrial products from the assembly line and maybe never will be, so some slight deviations will be always a component of owning a doll. It can make the doll unique in a one-of-a-kind way and kickstart personality development. But it's not slight deviations I'm talking about - it's the stuff they are made of, how much they weight and which color they have. These things must not change unannounced every couple of days. If manufacturers believe that these changes are necessary to improve their products, we need at least documentation what has changed.

3) Weight reduction. Last but not least, there is the overall weight of dolls. Many customers are looking for lightweight dolls in the weight range between 20 and 30 kg. That's a weight that can be handled by almost anybody comfortably without injuring themself, so it's a healthy weight range. However, dolls with these specs are typically either not life-sized, or expensive. The variety of lightweight dolls has not significatnly increased during the last year; the major trend we have seen was quite the opposite: The spectrum of doll weights has massively expanded above 40 kg. There are now lots of fleshy dolls with huge breasts and big butts closing in to 50 kg. Three TPE dolls already weight more then 50 kg - that's more than most silicone dolls ever weighted.

I am perfectly fine with heavyweight dolls - as long as the skeleton designs are sturdy enough, packaging accomodates for the massive weights, and customers understand what lifting 50 kg of dead weight means for their backs. However, I don't think that we urgently need a lot of 180 cm dolls with 140 cm bust and 65 kg body weight. What we - imho - really need is more variety in the range of manageable life-sized dolls. I know that this is a huge challenge, especially for TPE doll makers, but what the heck, in this area we need innovation. Urgently!

These three areas are the greatest challenges for doll makers in 2018 from my point of view.

Please feel free to share your desirables for new dolls in 2018!

Sandro