I opened an antique dresser drawer, a stiff, corpse-like doll stared up at 12-year-old me. I reeled back in horror, and never liked dolls from that day. As a twist of fate, I garnered an online reputation as a doll expert. A case in point comes as a photo from KM of a bride doll given to her by her dear grandmother in the 1960s. She doesn’t remember the maker: it’s Madam Alexander. The impeccable condition of the doll and wedding gown after 60 years fascinated me. Why did girls hold bride dolls in high esteem?
A wedding is both an anxiety-producing event and a pinnacle event around the bride’s appearance. Thus, a supposed perfect day with a beautiful tableaux of gown, hair, makeup, and jewelry often becomes stressful. Bride dolls reflect both polarities. An example on the horror side is Disney’s 2023 creation of The Haunted Mansion Bride Doll. This beautiful bride wields a bloody ax, while dressed in a mermaid style wedding gown and veil. Shades of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, weddings can be murder!
Bride Dolls in History
For thousands of years in cultures where pre-adolescent girls were promised in marriage the bride doll came with a purpose. Dressed in a beaded headdress and mask, in flowing ethnic colorful robes, she’s given to a girl to help qualm oncoming anxiety. The Israel Museum of Jerusalem exhibited these dolls from Yemen and Morocco in the show Girl-Bride-Doll.
Contrast this with the expensive bride dolls made by Simon and Halbig of Thüringen in 1890-1910 for the wealthy young ladies of Germany and America. Although given as a gift to a little girl, they modeled this bride doll after a grown woman’s body dressed in the latest 1900s wedding styles. These dolls came with bisque porcelain heads, as opposed to high fired china porcelain heads, making the ‘skin’ natural looking.
Natural-Looking Mature Female Bride Dolls
The doll KM owns “walks” and turns her head at the same time. She also bends her knees, a mid-20th century engineering feat. With her vinyl face and arms, plastic body and jointed legs, open and shut blue eyes with fringed eyelashes, red lipstick and fingernail polish, short Marilyn-style rooted blonde hair, pearl earrings, and “High Heeled” feet, arched for the a spike heel affixed with elastic. The condition of this doll, with the silk floral bouquet still in its hand, amazed me.
People have associated dolls with weddings for hundreds of years since the first baker placed two wedding dolls on a cake. The wedding topper reached peak popularity in the 1930s when the Kewpie celluloid doll became the rage. These horrifically cute-ugly, squat, small, and very inexpensive bride dolls came dressed in a white gown and veil.
A National Museum of Australia collection contains a 1930s Kewpie doll that decorated the hood of a honeymoon car. I learned that in New Zealand and Australia they traditionally stuck a bride doll on the hood of the ‘motor,’ carrying through to the late 1970s when a Aussie Barbie was dressed in white and strapped to the hood of the honeymoon car. Also, Russian automotive decoration around nuptials includes a bride doll! Italy seems to have the only sane car-association around a wedding. Someone decorates the grill of the car with flowers to wish the couple a sweet and beautiful ride through life.
Now to the most married doll in history: Barbie
Mattel through the years created over fifty celebrity bride dolls based on Barbie’s proportions. You have not lived through the last century without seeing the Princess Dianna doll. Other companies jumped on the celebrity bride bandwagon, and made brides anywhere from Queen Victoria to Scarlett O’Hara. Queen Victoria dolls, the first brides to dress in white, didn’t shout “virgin” but a sign of the family of the bride being rich enough that a dress could be worn ONCE. Previously, gowns were color-appropriate based on the age of the bride. After twenty-six or so she didn’t wear a beige or taupe gown but a GREY one!
The use of an object made in the image of a human takes on deep symbolism. KM’s Madam Alexander bride doll circa 1960s is worth $450 in that perfect condition. Strange that a supposedly fully grown female should have the face of a baby, which makes total sense given the wishful “projections” this doll represented.