I have shared my home for the more than 2 years with two Teddybabe Deluxes and have always found them to be wonderful companions and perfect for night time snuggles. However, I have always hankered after a more visually realistic doll for photography, but an old spinal injury and 2 lots of reconstructive surgery have left me unable to cope with the considerable weight of a full size silicone or TPE doll.
I first came across some mentions of Textiledoll, in this Forum and on TDF, around January this year, about the time that the venture was starting up. Frankly, it all seemed a bit too good to be true, a poseable realistic looking doll with real-girl proportions at about the same weight as a Teddybabe Deluxe. I wasn’t sure whether to take the claims seriously or not. Then, when in May this year I had determined to order a new doll I looked again. The gallery on Textile Doll’s website - http://www.textiledoll.com/en/home - which presented a collection of tantalising images and specifications which seemed to fulfil my needs precisely. Also by that time, two members on TDF, LWhisperer and Topchef, had taken delivery of their new dolls from Textile Doll (the gorgeous Riga and Alise respectively). So now I had independent opinion and photographic evidence to back up my choice and I decided to contact Textile Doll about placing an order.
Contact, Specifications and Ordering
Textile Dolls are designed and hand created by a brilliant artist and craftsman called Jury in Riga, Latvia. Jury says that around one hundred man hours of work goes into the manufacture of each doll.
For all enquiries and orders you should contact Jury via the ‘Contacts’ tab on the Textile Doll website http://www.textiledoll.com/en/home . Jury responded to my initial enquiry within a few hours and all subsequent emails received responses within a similar timescale. Jury was an absolute pleasure to deal with, happy to answer my queries and discuss specification options. He could not have been more helpful and accommodating.
The website lists a range of available options for your doll very similer to those you would be given if ordering a silicone doll. Two body size options, 150cm or 165cm tall, are currently available with a third option apparently in the pipeline. These can be made with a choice of four different skin tones.
There is a choice of six different head sculpts, which can be specified with one of seven different eye colours and ten different lip colour shades.
As each doll is made to custom order for her purchaser it is possible that Jury may be able to incorporate any special requirements you may have. For example, Lwhisperer wanted a slightly smaller than standard foot size on the 150cm body for his Riga to enable him to use shoes he already had for his other dolls and Jury was able to accommodate this request.
After a series of email discussions on specifications and options I made my final decisions and placed my order with Jury in June 2014. I was aware that he had a full order book and that there would consequently be a long wait, but I mentioned to Jury that I would greatly appreciate it if my doll could be ready to take to the UKLDF Meet in September and he said he would do his best. Jury did not require any payment up front, but said he would contact me just before he began work on my doll to confirm that the specification was unchanged and to request a deposit payment of 50 Euros, with the balance being payable on completion.
Payment and Shipping
On 12 September I received an email from Jury to tell me that my doll was ready and attached some photos of the finished lady to whet my appetite. I made a payment for the balance of the price Jury had quoted me in June and which included the cost of shipping. On 16 September Jury mailed me to confirm that my doll (who I had already decided would be named Signe after a very pretty Latvian girl I had once met) was on her way and gave me the shipment tracking details. Being shipped from one EU country to another, Signe’s journey was both quick and uncomplicated with no additional charges for import duty or VAT and no delays for customs processing. After a few days of doing very little other than staring at the shipment tracking web page hitting the refresh button, a big box arrived fro Latvia on 19 September. An amazingly quick journey.
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On her body, Signe’s skin is made from a Lycra fabric covering polyurethane foam ‘flesh’ over an articulated skeleton. I am not sure precisely what materials the skeleton is made from. pressing the ‘flesh’ of an arm or leg it is possible to feel a substantial ‘bone’ within. I would guess these are formed either from wood or perhaps plastic tubing. From the way the joints operate I would guess that they are probably articulated hard nylon joints of some kind. They are certainly not the bent wire familiar to Teddybabe partners. Wire and plastic formers are used in the hands and feet for appearance and articulation.
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One thing that all dolls of all types have are seams, whether they be mould seams on a silicone/TPE doll or the sewn seams of a Teddybabe. Textile Dolls are no exception. Seams are unavoidable where the ’skin’ panels are joined together, but the difference is that these seams move. The skin fabric is not fixed to the polystyrene ‘flesh’ below and moves around on top of it, particularly when performing major limb movements or removing tight(ish) clothing, so you need to be prepared to pull affected seams back into their intended and least obtrusive positions every now and again, especially chefking position of the seams when photographing. Its a bit of extra faff but does it detract from the Textile Doll experience? Not really, its just part of making sure your doll is properly maintained., like powdering your silicone doll or massaging your Teddybabe’s packing fibre back into position to avoid protruding skeletal wires.
Looking inside Signe’s head shows that it is made from strips of fabric (and perhaps paper) soaked in a resin or glue over a mould or former which then sets hard. High quality glass eyes and their sockets (looking rather like plastic bottle tops) are glued in from the inside of the head. The eyes are movable, adjusted from inside the head by small plastic levers on the rear of the sockets. - a simple but highly effective solution. It is not necessary to remove head from body to adjust eye position as it is possible to insert fingers sufficiently far into the head cavity to reach the adjustment levers by just tipping the head back slightly.
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The head is hand painted in oils to highly realistic effect and has flock eyebrows and eyelashes glued in place.
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. Otherwise, much like I imagine the majority of Teddybabe partners with their standard inserts, I suspect the majority of new Textile Doll partners will discard this immediately, although it could be used as a sleeve to aid positioning of another insert.
”) ….
get the smelling salts, Granny has just passed out). Cowgirl, both ways, is pretty darned good too - or so they tell me 
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