London Fashion Week - and dolls !

It's always a busy time in London but especially during this month as London Fashion Week. I love that A Girl For All Time HQ is based in one of the fashion capitals of the world, as it gives lots of inspiration for doll clothing and accessories.  It takes around 18-24 months to come up with the initial idea, then create the prototypes, design, tweak, test and then make it available to purchase. Just like LFW, there’s a huge amount of planning involved to get a collection off the ground!

Sam, Your 1960’s doll has a love for fashion and her ultimate ambition is to become a fashion designer. Of course, Sam grows up in Paris – another iconic fashion-obsessed city and her brief stopover in London only ignites her passion further...

How London Fashion Week started 

London has always had a thriving fashion scene yet it has only attracted the attention of the press in the past few decades. London Fashion Week (LFW), was originally named British Fashion Week and was founded in 1971.

A man by the name of Tony Porter along with the help of the Clothing Export Council of Great Britain (CECGB) began putting the foundations in place for fashion week.

The very first LFW  cost just £1000 to launch – that’s about £15,000 in today’s money, still a tiny budget compared to what they spend now!  Tony Porter had to find the first £500 himself but with the help of designers Jean Muir, Zandra Rhodes, and Bruce Oldfield that was achievable. The CECGB matched the further £500 and LFW was born.

Only 5 designers showed for the first year and for the next 5 years, Tony used to collect the fashion journalists from their hotels for the show, and then tell them all about the designers in the car ride over to the event. He’d even host LFW parties in his own home in West London!

Nowadays the LFW is a major event and a media sensation.  Apparently, when Tony was asked in an interview about the beginnings of LFW, he said ‘I just had this idea that something had to be done.’  It must feel amazing knowing that you started something so influential.

Design and Dolls

It just goes to show you that everyone has to start somewhere, including me, with my desk load of ideas and never-ending to-do lists. 

You can see some of our designs here - just view our collection of  doll clothing

If you want to try your own hand at creating fabulous fashions, we have a great page on our site with patterns for our dolls, all from independent small craftspeople. Why not have a go yourself and see what fashions you can create?

Want to try your making your own doll clothes and doll costume? 

View some of our featured  Independent patterns

We're offering you our LFW special - buy a Sam doll bundle and get a free Ginsberg cat!  Available only between 14th - 19th September. 

Back to School

The summer is winding down and a new school year is fast approaching. The start of a new school year comes with a whole new set of hopes and expectations for the coming months. It's exciting, it's a little bit daunting, and it's a fresh start for a new year.

One of the things my kids always loved about this time of year was shopping for new school supplies. Pristine notebooks, shiny new rulers, not-yet-gnawed-on pencils... It's almost like an early practice run for Christmas! 

As always it got me thinking about what it was like to start a new school year in the past, and what it could have been like for the characters from A Girl for All Time.

I did a little digging and turned up some interesting facts I did not know before. For example, even Tudor children would have had new school supplies in the form of a newly carved hornbook . That oldest one dates back to 1450 discovered in England  and they were usually horn paddles ( or books ) that were covered with letters of the alphabet or numbers or perhaps a specific verse. 

Victorian school children would have had chalk, slates, and maybe a few books that were carried all bundled together in a leather strap or - if they were lucky-  in a leather satchel.  Instead of notebooks like we have today, paper to practice writing on would have been pages of newspaper with plenty of space in between the print to practice your penmanship. 

Mid-century American school children would have been reading Dick and Jane books while school children in the UK would have been reading Janet and John 

Paper notebooks were really not affordable until the 1960s when they became readily available and were at a price most people could afford. Some of the designs produced during that time are still in use today. If you've ever had the black and white composition books, then you know the ones I am talking about! 

School supplies may have changed over the years, but I don't think the excitement and anticipation about the new school year is any different today than it was centuries ago. 

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Exciting News from A Girl for All Time !

All of us at A Girl for All Time® are extremely excited to announce that in 2016/2017 we will be releasing a new range of gorgeous, contemporary dolls called Your Modern Girl™.

Sign up here to learn more and keep up to date !

Our new range of Your Modern Girl™ dolls will be wonderfully unique and reflect the world that today’s girls live in – a world more ethnically, socially, and economically diverse than at any other time this century with girls who are strong, confident, and comfortable in their own skin. Our new range of Your Modern Girl™ dolls will be unlike anything else seen so far, and we are very excited to start sharing with you.

We will be announcing our very own Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of A Girl for All Time®’s ‘ Your Modern Girl™’ range soon.

Our inspiration

All of us at A Girl for All Time® believe in the unique power and strength of girls and it’s what inspires us every day. Knowing that every girl is different and has ideas and aspirations, dreams and goals unique to her has been one of the cornerstones of the concept behind A Girl for All Time®.

Like the girls that inspire us, our dolls are completely unique and unlike any other dolls – they are beautifully crafted with original face sculpts that are just that little bit more ‘grown up’ without being ‘adult’ and have a fantastic depth of historical background not seen before.

Our beautifully written stories engage our young fans and create an emotional connection to our product that is unique to our brand.

The response has been amazing, with people writing in or posting in our fanclub and Facebook pages about how much the love the their AGAT Girls, the ethos and the concept behind the brand.

Now we want to bring that same excitement and love of our historical doll line to the world of contemporary dolls … and can’t wait to start sharing the journey with you!

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