Disney's "Little Princess Cinderella" by Zapf Creation

While I was waiting for my 18" Annie doll to arrive, Connor gave me a tip to go check out some wonderful flickr pictures of a highly-articulated 14" Disney Ariel doll made by Zapf Creation.  As Connor noted, I am a big fan of articulated dolls, Disney Princesses and redheads, so the tip was perfect for me (thank you, Connor!).  I also like the Zapf company quite a lot and tend to be impressed with the quality of their dolls.  Given all of this, it should come as no surprise that I went directly from the flickr pictures to the online shops, trying to find one of these Zapf dolls to review.

The dolls are not easy to find.  I don't think they've ever been for sale in the United States and it seems like they are now discontinued.  Limited quantities remain for sale online--often at dramatically marked-up prices.  I believe these dolls were first made in 2010 and retailed for around £25.  If you live in Europe, you can probably still find a doll at a reasonable price: Amazon UK currently has Ariel for £15 and Puppen Toys in Spain has several of the dolls at retail.  Here in the United States, it seems to cost $50-100 to bring home one of these princesses.  Fishpond.com has the best deals that I could find, and they are willing to ship internationally, but they don't have many dolls left.

Zapf made five princesses: Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Snow White and Cinderella.  The current prices and availability are linked to popularity.  Belle is the hardest to find and costs the most--often well over $100.  Fortunately, my favorite fairy tale princess, Cinderella, was the easiest to find and the least expensive:

"Little Princess Cinderella," by Zapf.

For anyone who is eager to start their own quest for one of these dolls, I should mention that Zapf has made several versions of the Disney Princesses, so peer at those pictures really closely.  I almost got fooled by this similar-looking (but unarticulated) Zapf Cinderella.

These dolls are 14" tall, so their boxes are much larger than Monster High or Ever After High boxes, but significantly smaller than an American Girl doll box.  Cinderella came in an octagonal corrugated cardboard window box:

There's a cartoon of Cinderella on the front of the box that looks nothing like the doll:

The doll has sweet, slightly plain, but fairly realistic features.  Her head and eyes are not overly exaggerated.  For some reason she reminds me of a Corolle Les Cheries doll:

The back of the box has some pictures of the other dolls in the line, and a few pictures of Cinderella and her mouse companion:

The articulation looks promising...

Viewing the box from the top down, you can see the octagonal shape and the "Little Princess" title of this series of dolls, with "Cinderella" written in several languages.

The German "Aschenputtel" is my favorite.

A blue and white cardboard backdrop slides out of the main box:

The backdrop has two mounted cardboard pictures that are repeats of pictures from the back of the box. 

It looks like the mouse has a bobble head:

Cinderella is secured to the backdrop with a few large paper ties that hold her up against a molded plastic base.  

The backdrop has a landscape scene with a castle in the background, a heart-shaped sandbox in the foreground, and a lot of pumpkins lined up along a picket fence.  Ugh...pickets.

The mouse is tied into his own plastic holder with a single clear rubber band.  This looks like Gus from the movie:

Gus-Gus.

He's made out of flexible vinyl and is pretty cute.  He's just under two inches tall.  His head does bobble a little--or at least it moves back and forth if you shake him.  His arms look like they should move, but they do not.

Cinderella has a nice weight, and she stands well on her own:

Right away, I could tell that she has a torso joint, because this joint is wobbly and frequently causes her to tip slightly to the right:

She is wearing her blonde hair mostly down with a bouffant ponytail at the back.  She has ringlet curls framing her face and one of the curls has a mind of its own:

Sproing!

Her hairstyle is accented with a pale blue satin ribbon that is reminiscent of the Disney Cinderella's iconic outfit.

The hair is a lovely natural blonde color and is very soft to the touch.  There is no hair styling product in this hair.  Instead, it comes covered with a high-quality hair net...and looks fine right out of the box.

Cinderella has a beautiful, mild face.  I am glad that she doesn't attempt to look anything like the Disney Cinderella.  Her features are understated and appropriately childlike.

She has bright blue painted eyes with large dark pupils.  All of the painted details around her eyes are black, except for her eyebrows, which are fairly bright orange.  The color choice for her eyebrows is a bit of a head-scratcher.  Those would look great on Ariel.  Her lips are a natural matte pink.

Cinderella's blue shiny dress feels much nicer than I assumed it would.  The fabric is fairly thick and has a soft feel and an elegant drape.  It is not at all stiff, crinkly and cheap-feeling like so many of the play doll princess outfits.

The dress is mostly pale blue satin, but it does have some tulle peplums and tulle puff accents on the sleeves.  The tulle is translucent white with some painted silver dots.  No glitter.

Well, actually, the bottom of the skirt does have a little glitter.  There's a silhouette of adult Cinderella with a clock in the background, and these designs are dark blue with a coating of iridescent glitter.

I am not crazy about this decoration and would prefer the dress if it were plain.

The hem and the neckline of the dress are trimmed with a thin strip of delicate white lace.  The neckline also has a dark blue satin ribbon.

The dress has a long, sturdy velcro closure in back and is easy to get on and off.  

Underneath the skirt, there is a short petticoat made out of white tulle that is thicker and stiffer than the tulle peplums.

Under the dress, Cinderella is wearing pink stockings and blue vinyl shoes:

Here's a closeup of the pink stocking texture.  These stockings have almost the same feel as nylons, but they're slightly thicker and seem more durable.

The shoes are molded flats with minimal decoration.  There's a bow on the toe of each shoe and a strap that does not unfasten.

The outfit is simple, but it's easy to use and seems very nicely made for a play outfit.

I was pretty excited to inspect Cinderella's articulation. I have to admit that I rushed through the clothing evaluation a little bit...eager to see those joints.  It's really fun to get a new doll that has completely different joints from the other dolls I own.

This doll is made out of hard plastic (with a vinyl head) and has twenty points of articulation.  

Twenty.  

At first glance, Cinderella's most unique joints are in her legs.  She has hinged knees and ankles, but she also has swivel joints just above her knees and in the middle of her lower legs:

That's a lot of joints.

Her head can rotate all of the way around, but she can not look up and down.  This is a disappointment, but what makes it ok is that when she does move her head around, the angle of her face stays about the same.  She doesn't end up looking at the sky...like some other dolls I know.

The torso joint does not move front-to-back at all, just side-to-side.  As I mentioned earlier, this joint is pretty wobbly.  I can get Cinderella to stand up straight, but her upper body really wants to tip to one side or the other.  The range of motion in this joint is not huge, though, so it doesn't create a major posture problem: 

This doll has thick limbs, so her joints have large, bulky hinges:

She has a wonderfully childlike curve to her belly.

Her shoulders, elbows and wrists all have chunky hinge joints:

There's a lot going on in the arm articulation.  Let's take a closer look:

The elbow hinge has its own rotational movement.  In the pictures below, you can see the elbow before (L), and after (R) it was rotated at the elbow:  

In this third picture, the arm has been further rotated by using the joint just above the wrist:

The wrist itself has a simple hinge joint:

This doll has large, strangely-shaped hands.  

Banana fingers.

Cinderella has hinged and rotational movement in her hips.  She can not do a full side-to-side split with her legs straight underneath her...

But with a little hip rotation, she can do much better:

She has no trouble with her front-to-back splits:

Her lower legs have a design that is very similar to what you saw in the arms, except that the knees do not have a rotating hinge, they have a simple hinge joint and a separate rotational joint that sits just above the knee. 

The disadvantage to this design is that the knees look pretty pointy when the lower legs are angled away from the body:

The knee and ankle hinges have a pretty good range of motion, though:

I am a little concerned about the seams on the back of the doll's lower legs.  These seams get stressed when the legs are rotated:

There's already a little split in the seam.

Here's a sample of some of the fun poses Cinderella can achieve:

She balances on her own in most of these positions, too:

Cinderella can't sit in a chair (or on a box) with her knees together or she tips backwards:

If she splays her legs a bit, she can sit upright very nicely:

Similarly, Cinderella can't hold herself upright when she's sitting on the floor with her legs out in front of her:

Good for the abs, anyway.

She looks much more natural leaning back on her hands: 

The first two dolls that popped into my head for a comparison shot were my Makie doll, Glythia (because she is the most poseable doll I own), and the China Girl from Oz (because I thought she might be similar in size to Cinderella).

Indeed, China and Cinderella are very similar in size.  China's dress looks great on Cinderella, although the bodice is a little loose:

 Glythia showed Cinderella a few of her best moves...and Cinderella tried to keep up:

Do... or do not. There is no try.

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night...

Glythia balances better than Cinderella, but I was very impressed by how well Cinderella did overall.  If Cinderella's head could look up and down, her articulation would be almost perfect.  The only other critique I can muster is that her joints are not as elegant-looking as Glythia's.  

I found this doll's height and scale difficult to predict based on the online pictures.  She is actually smaller than I expected she would be.  I knew that she would be larger than my 12" dolls like Liv and Monster High, and smaller than 18" child dolls like American Girl, but I guess I pictured her as being more like a Hearts 4 Hearts doll.  Here she is with Lauryce:

These two dolls have a very similar torso size, but Lauryce's large head puts her in a different scale.  Lauryce could be a younger sister to an American Girl doll, but Cinderella would look strange paired with a typical 18" play doll.

Although Lauryce's shoes are too big for Cinderella, her dress is a near perfect fit.  I am tempted to try some other Hearts 4 Hearts clothing on Cinderella.  In contrast, Cinderella's dress does not fit Lauryce.  The sleeves are tight over her large hands, and the dress won't close in back. 

Here's a comparison between the Zapf Cinderella and two Disney Store Princesses:

16" Singing Cinderella and 12" Rapunzel.

And a shot with a Moxie Teenz doll and Liv Hayden:

14" Moxie Teenz and 12" Liv.

Other than the China Girl outfit and the Hearts 4 Hearts dress, the only clothes I have found that fit this doll are items made for Tonner's 14" Betsy McCall doll.  

I found this adorable outfit on eBay at a store called Wonderful Worlds.  All of the pieces are very well-made and fit Cinderella perfectly:

Seeing this doll in regular clothes inspired me to take down her princess hairstyle.   Her ribbon headband is not plastic-tied into her head or sewn into her hair, which is refreshing.

It stays in place so nicely because it has a small section of white elastic in the back:

The hair is parted on the side and a small area of hair from the top of the head is pulled back into a ponytail that doubles back over itself to create a bouffant effect.  The ponytail is held in place with two clear rubber bands.

The hair feels wonderful and has a nice rooting pattern:

When the hair is brushed out, the ringlets leave two areas of frizz on either side of Cinderella's face.  The hair that was in the ponytail won't lay flat, either:

I gave Cinderella a quick boil rinse to help straighten her hair.  The hair is really lovely and well-cut.  After the rinse, it's impossible to tell that it was supposed to be styled into a ponytail:

Now she looks like a regular little girl.  In fact, like this, she looks like Zapf's Jolina doll, who I believe has the exact same body.  Jolina is also very hard to find in the United States.

Here is Cinderella back in her gown for a few more pictures.  I love how the elasticized headband can easily be put back on her head:

Bottom line?  I love this doll.  I wish this line of Little Princesses was sold in the United States.  It's hard to quote exact retail in US dollars, but if the dolls are selling for £25 in the UK, that's about $40.  That price seems high for a medium-sized play doll, but if you compare this doll to Princess & Me Rapunzel, for example, everything about this doll is superior, and she costs at least $10 less.  I think $40 is a fair price.  However, as much as I'd love to have another Little Princess in my collection, I don't think they're worth the $100-and-up prices on eBay.

Cinderella's articulated body has a few flaws.  I think her knee joints look bizarrely angular in some poses and she has very strange, clunky hands.  Her body feels heavy and sturdy overall, but the seams along the backs of her legs worry me a little.  This area gets torqued when the doll is posing and the seams could be at risk of splitting.  The only other problem I had with the body is that the torso joint is loose and causes the doll's upper body to flop back and forth more than I would like.

Other than those small criticisms, everything about this doll is wonderful.  She has a substantial weight to her body and feels sturdy and durable.  Her size is nice--she's large enough for young children to manipulate, but she's small enough to be easily portable.  Her face is mild, but she's charming and versatile.  She makes a lovely young Cinderella, but she can quickly transform into an ordinary modern girl.  Her rooted hair is silky and easy to work with, and it has a beautiful, natural color.  The original hairstyle is fancy without being overdone, and there is absolutely no styling product in this doll's hair.  When the hair is let down, it has a nice shape and could be restyled in a number of different ways.  The Cinderella gown is surprisingly soft and well-made.  It does not have any of the cheap-feeling stiffness or caked-on glitter that other princess play clothes tend to have.  The dress is carefully sewn and has some nice details.  I find the Cinderella silhouette a little cheesy, but at least it's clear who this doll is supposed to be.  

Above all, the articulation in this doll is incredible.  She gives my Makie doll, Glythia, a run for her money.  Her twenty joints allow her to strike a huge variety of poses, many of which she can hold without any support.  I think that this doll's posing range gives her a wonderful personality that her plain facial features cannot offer on their own.  She would be perfect as any kind of athlete--a gymnast, a dancer...a horseback rider.  My next quest will be to find a horse that fits her.  

The shelves are overrun with fairy tale dolls this season, making it difficult for any one princess to stand apart from the crowd.  Amidst such a competitive market, this little gem (released years ago) has not only managed to grab my attention, but she stands out as one of the best princess play dolls that I've ever reviewed.