Paper Dolls

I've been reminiscing about paper dolls lately.  I loved paper dolls as a child!  We even created our own, cutting the fashion illustrations out of the Sunday paper, carefully mounting them on cardboard and creating new dresses for them.

Paper dolls are sort of a lost art, though there are a few folks keeping the art alive.  One of my friends is Jim Howard, a quite famous fashion illustrator in the 70's, 80's and 90's.  He had an impressive career illustrating for Neiman Marcus, Bonwit Teller, Bon Marche and the like.  He has created a beautiful series of paper doll books, drawing upon those fashions of the past.  You can check out his paper doll work at Jim Howard Paper Dolls

I've been thinking about a paper doll fashion book myself, of children, or course.....I've been doing some testing - and here's one first try at a paper doll.....what do you think?

I'm working on another paper doll project as well - GIANT paper dolls!  In conjunction with the family programs for the Denver Art Museum, as in lead in to the Yves St. Laurent exhibit which will be showing at the museum starting in late March.  Denver is the only US museum to garner this impressive exhibit!  I don't want to let the cat totally out of the bag yet, but stay tuned to learn more - and keep your calendar open the last weekend of March.  Get your kids creative juices flowing by bringing them to the museum for the family day to celebrate fashion!

And think about creating your own paper doll project with your kids this weekend......