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| Photo credit: American Girl |
Romina was a doll created by the Götz doll company. Wait, wasn't American Girl created by Pleasant Company? The answer is yes, but the dolls were initially manufactured by Götz factories.
When she set out to create AG, Pleasant Rowland purchased the Romina face sculpt from Götz, which is still used today, along with their remaining stock of soft-bodied Romina dolls (Most had a plastic torso). The original white-bodied Samantha dolls are actually slightly modified Romina dolls! Molly and Kirsten had to be completely created from new parts, so they look extremely different from early Samantha dolls. The biggest difference in my opinion is the eyes and eyelashes. Samantha had looooooooong glamorous eyelashes that were spaced out (Think SpongeBob, just not as dramatic), While Kirsten and Molly had shorter eyelashes that tended to look like a single block of eyelash. As soon as the stock of "Romina era" Samantha dolls sold out, she took on a look closer to Molly and Kirsten, as well as much darker brown hair.
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| Photo Credit: American Girl |
The original Our New Baby dolls (Now known as Bitty Baby) used the sculpts and bodies of a Götz baby doll line, which wasn't as popular as the ones with closed eyes, which is most likely why Götz allowed Pleasant to buy them. The dolls no longer use the original sculpts, but they closely resemble them. The blonde baby initially had platinum blonde eyelashes which kind of looked like spaghetti noodles...? These were later changed to light brown, and once Mattel took over, they had hard black eyelashes that don't break or bend easily.
Basically, Pleasant Company reused old doll parts!
I really hope you enjoyed reading about this; I thought it was very interesting.
'til Next Time! - JCole
