My review inspiration comes from unexpected places. For example, we were sitting around chatting about stuff in Panama, and my
brother-in-law mentioned a play doll catalogue that had recently arrived in the mail at his house. He couldn’t remember the name of the line, but it had clearly made an impression on him. He described the girl dolls as being cute and wearing nice-looking historical costumes, but he described the boy dolls as being (and I quote) “grotesque.”
That got my attention. Grotesque? Really? Definitely worth investigating. He elaborated to explain that while the
male dolls have child-like bodies, they’re burdened with large heads and
angular man-features. The problem was, I had absolutely no
idea what dolls he was talking about. I thought maybe he meant Ellowyne Wilde? But Rufus isn’t grotesque, really, just comical. I literally had no idea where to start my search for these mystery dolls. Googling "grotesque male doll" didn't get me anywhere I wanted to be. Fortunately, my mom came to the
rescue. She used her Google
superpowers and tracked down the Carpatina line in under twenty minutes.
Carpatina LLC is a privately owned New Hampshire-based company that has been making play dolls since 2002. The company name could be derived from the Latin word carpatinus which means "made of hide." The Carpatina company got its start in 1998 selling medieval Romanian clothing for people. Their cloaks are amazing and can be bought directly from the Carpatina website or on Amazon. The company also makes several lines of doll clothing with an emphasis on medieval and fantasy pieces. The Carpatina website is really fun to browse. After a few days of deliberation, I settled on the following purchase:
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| Erin doll wearing the Guinevere fashion. |
