Doll fashion design is no different than designing for children. Only that you might find it difficult to get a 6 year old to wear a cute dress with lots of lace and trim and embroidery to school. At least that has been my experience. My daughter only wears pants! The days of nice smocked dresses created by our designer my mother are over. Much to the dismay of my mother, of course.

This is not my daughter but actually me - way back when ......

Please excuse the quality - this was before we even dreamed of digital photography!!!

Rosemarie Ionker, our designer, has written four books on doll dress making. The fourth book is came out this year. She might not have won an award yet, although she certainly deserves one, but she has helped a few doll makers win awards with her designs.

Rosemarie started as a fashion designer for women's wear, but I can remember the first dresses she created for my first Käthe Kruse doll. When I look at these all I can say is that they were good, but Rosemarie has worked on her perfection and still does. Those first doll dresses are nothing compared to what she develops now. And there seems to be no stopping her!! I myself am not a person to ooh and aahh about things, but there are times when I take a peek at what my mother is working on and then I do ooh and ahh. Yes I too am amazed at my mothers talent.

Design, style and fit are not the only things that make Rosemarie Ionker a specialist in her field. She also is very careful in her choice of fabrics and trimmings. Those of you who have seen or own one (or more) of our designs know that the fabrics we use are carefully selected.

It starts with the content. We use mostly natural fibers - cotton, batiste, organdy, silk, cotton jersey, wool, etc. But that is not all: the texture and thickness of the fabric is important too. Dolls are very small and therefore we chose a fabric that will fall proportionally to the doll. Thick cottons, polyester and such are too stiff for dolls.

The print or design on the fabric is crucial too - if you want to make a flower print shirt for a doll then those flowers better be small or no one can see the flowers - only splotches of color. Which brings us to color. Dolls have a strange thing with colors - there are some colors that just do not look right on a doll. But then that is true with me. I cannot wear orange - although I really like that color.

The trimmings too are hand picked by Rosemarie, by all the same standards as for fabrics. French Valencienne lace - not that easy to find. Cotton lace - this is becoming scarce and what is available on the market not fine enough for dolls. Silk ribbon for embroidery. Cotton embroidery thread.

The only really "plastic" we use is the buttons. We only use buttons on our doll fashion - the only exception is the t-shirts and denim collection (where we used metal press buttons). All the buttons (and the exceptional press buttons) are in proportion to the dress.