Madame Alexander Dolls: An Enchanting World

Entering the world of Madame Alexander dolls is like entering a microcosm. Since its inception in 1923, the Alexander Doll Company has been creating dolls that have reflected both life and literature.

Entering the world of Madame Alexander dolls is also like entering the world of glamour and high fashion. Immaculately designed and embroidered costumes have been one of the hallmarks of the famous Madame Alexander dolls. Dolls made by this company have also made fashion statements. This is attested by the fact that Madame Beatrice Alexander was given the Fashion Academy Award for four consecutive years from 1951 to 1954.

But behind the huge success of the Madame Alexander dolls lies the story of incredible hard work, determination and independent thinking. And the journey began on the Lower East Side amidst teeming poverty.

Alexander’s father had a doll repair shop where her mother also helped. A good number of the broken dolls came from Germany. But with the outbreak of the First World War, repair orders from Germany were disrupted and the family business was on the verge of breaking down. That was when Beatrice Alexander, already married for two years, stepped in. Along with her sisters, she decided to make cloth dolls. The War was on, and one of the first dolls was modeled on a Red Cross Nurse. Madame Alexander’s uncanny sense of relating to the times and the power to anticipate what would appeal to the buyers always made the Alexander Doll Company remain one step ahead of most doll manufacturing companies. It was in 1934 (the Alexander Doll Company had been then running for eleven years) that the first surviving quintuplets of the world were born in Ontario. Madame Alexander lost no time. Her company created the Dionne quintuplets. The previous year had seen her making the Alice in Wonderland and the Little Women dolls. The films based on the books had been released that year! On the other hand, the famous Scarlet O’Hara doll was related to the book. But when the film was released, it was found that the doll uncannily resembled Vivien Leigh!

Madame Alexander was a pioneer and she could clearly see the shape of things to come.

The dolls made by the Alexander Doll Company met exacting standards of production, and Madame Alexander herself had set those standards. The Elizabeth II doll set was created in the year of the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and involved serious research and the use of the same dress materials that were used for the real ceremony. The sculpted cloth dolls first gave way to dolls that were realistic but made from a breakable composition, and later, evolved to the unbreakable plastic dolls. But the qualities that have made the Madame Alexander dolls outstanding are their variety and their outfits. The dresses are made from original materials and, designed, embroidered and sewn to an incredible perfection. They range from the traditional, to the chic and to the flamboyant. The accessories match the dresses in terms of realism and perfection. The faces tell us that they are dolls. But they too are delicate and exquisitely designed.

The variety of Madame Alexander dolls is astounding. They relate to literature and the movies (Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind), ballet (The Swan Lake), Disney (including a set of Mickey with a model of a broom automaton carrying two pails of water from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice!), different cultures and countries, angels, ceremonies (weddings and birthdays), the fashionable and the not so fashionable.

Madame Alexander wanted her dolls to help children develop the quality of nurturing as well as develop the quality to relate to both life and the arts. It is no wonder then that this grand lady of the world of dolls considered her creations to be her children.