Doll-A-Day 2017 #202:Village Dress Belle

  I had a pretty busy day today. I was intending to take my pictures this evening, but I ended up doing something else. So these pictures were taken simply,inside,and with flash. I may update tomorrow with better pictures if I have time. Sorry.
 We've seen the original Belle doll from Beauty and the Beast (HERE). Today we're looking at one of the most recent Belle dolls, from the recent live action movie.

I found this Belle clearanced for $5 at Walmart a couple of weeks ago.

She's described,in several languages,as 'Village Dress' Belle.

She has the Emma Watson face,but not the far uglier one the Disney Store dolls have.

She even has some very light freckles.

While there is a lot of stuff to take issue with about this doll,if you really look at her, there is alot of Emma Watson in there.

  To be fair,I have seen some really amazing repaints of the Disney Store head that look so real,leading me to believe it's the painting at fault with that sculpt, and not the sculpt itself.

Her box is made to look like the glass bell jar that contained the enchanted rose.

 I think that's a really neat idea, but it makes it hard to photograph her in her box,due to glare on the rounded surface.

See?

That's a little better.

It's such a nice display that I hated to ruin the packaging in case I wanted to replace her inside. I decided to try to take her out without ruining it. Luckily the designers of the package made it easy, by placing the plastic hanger in between the layers of cardboard,right where I needed to be to cut the elastics holding her in.

I had to take the plastic bubble loose from the card to get her out, but it loosened itself off while I was tearing into the other part, and did so without ruining her background.

 When I got her out her package looked like this.   

Belle's 'Village dress' is a printed replica of the movie dress,with even her side laces printed on.

I was curious about her shoes, because I love the Disney Store ones.

Interesting, but not as great as the Disney Store ones. Even her socks are molded on.

The weird thing about these shoes is,they are obviously meant to be flat boots, but they are made in high heel stance.

Tip toe through the tulips.

That's because her feet are in the high heel stance too.

Why not just make both flat feet?

Disappointingly,Belle doesn't even have bending legs. She does have a certain range of movement to her arms and legs though, as they can move out to the sides,as well as up and down. 

"The hills are alive, with the sound of music..."

  Her hair style is pretty much the same as the original Belle's,based on the animated movie,minus the weird, and inaccurate bangs.

I'm not sure if it was intentional,but her ponytail parts in the middle.

It could be just because of the way she was displayed in the box.

I told Ken that thing best thing about having this doll is that it gives me a great excuse to have this set.

The Beauty and the Beast Castle friends set. I LOVE this set!

There have been several different sculpts used for Belle over the years.Here's the very first Belle.

Here are a couple of recent,pre-live action Belles.

And Miss Watson.


I don't think any of the pre-live action 'fashion dolls' really looked like the animated Belle.

They just came nowhere near. The Animator's Collection toddler dolls are the only ones that really capture the look of animated Belle.

As I said on the first Belle post, Emma loved the movie when she was small. She was so little then,(She was around 2 at the height of her Beauty and the Beast mania.),that she misunderstood the relationship between Belle and 'Nobody',as she called Gaston. (because of the song: "Nobody fights like Gaston...")

Emma's second birthday cake. I warmed the candles over a hot stove and bent them into his horns. He has vegetarian marshmallow eyes and teeth.

She was always pairing up the PVC figures she had. I had to explain to her that Gaston is the bad guy,he doesn't want Belle to be smart or be herself. He just wants her to be pretty and make him look good. He's bad. Beast may not look like the good guy, but you can't always tell from looking at someone if they are good or bad, and what someone looks like isn't as important as what kind of person they are. Little as she was,she caught on, and began pairing Belle and Beast instead.

  That's it for Beauty and the Beast. Tomorrow is Shrunken Saturday. See you then for a mini doll.