Doll Review: Our Generation Dolls

This is Our Generation doll Kelly. She cost £24.99 from Smyths. The prices of dolls in this range seem to vary depending on their outfits and the accessories they come with but Kelly was one of the cheapest.

These dolls look to be modelled on the American Girl dolls. The American Girl Doll line was introduced by Pleasant Company in 1986, and was designed to educate young girls about various periods of American history. The doll was also partly designed to fill a gap in the market, where the only doll offerings were baby dolls or adult like Barbie dolls. The American Girl dolls were supposed to portray girls aged 8 to 14.

Not being American, I didn't have one of these dolls growing up and it never really occurred to me that there was a gap in the market that needed filled. There doesn't seem to be many toy shops selling American Girl dolls here and when I have seen them sold, they sell for over £100. Definitely more of a collectors doll than a toy for a child.

Our Generation dolls are made by family-run company Battat. The dolls are manufactured in China, which is probably why they have a much, much cheaper price point compared to the American Girl doll. Overall, they are very similar to the American Girl doll. They're both 18 inches tall and their body measurements vary only very slightly, so you should be able to use any American Girl clothing on your Our Generation doll and vice versa.

Our Generation seem to have tons of accessories for their dolls, like clothes, furniture, pets and even vehicles so there can be loads of play value with them.

Here she is without clothes on. You can see that she has a soft body (it's actually very firm) and a vinyl head and limbs. Her arms and legs can only move forward and back and there are no joints at the elbows or knees. She also has sleepy eyes that close when you lie her back.

Her hair is extremely soft and silky, but looks as if it would easily end up matted. It is so soft that it is actually hard to do anything with. I also noticed that if you move the hair in a certain way, you can see quite large bald patches. Her scalp is painted the same colour as her hair in places to make it less noticeable. She didn't come with a hair brush as an accessory. She did come with glasses (which I haven't photographed) and they were held onto her head in the box with plastic tags, like the kind you get on clothes labels. You had to cut them to get the glasses off, but that left part of the plastic tag sticking out of her head. It seemed as if it had been put in through one of the holes her hair is rooted in. I haven't been able to get the plastic tags out and they're quite sharp.

Here's Kelly standing next to Zapf Baby Born's Big Sister doll. There is not a huge difference in height between them. I believe Kelly is only 3cm taller. There's not a huge difference in the length of their bodies either, but Big Sister's seems to be more rounded.

I wondered if they would be able to share clothes. I really didn't think I would be able to get the Our Generation doll clothes onto Big Sister, but they went on quite easily. I'm not sure she looks great, they do look a little bit tight and where the skirt attaches to the bodice doesn't quite look in the right place for Big Sister. But they fit! I even managed to get the shoes on. The Our Generation doll has much flatter feet, but the shoes went on with a bit of wiggling. I think it helps that they went over socks, which helped them to slide on.

One thing I didn't really like was the way the doll sits. Because there are no joints in her knees and her legs can only move forward and back it almost looks as if she's doing the splits when she's sitting. Her arms are also held uselessly out in front of her. It looks as if there are some Our Generation dolls available with more flexible limbs. If you're just looking for a doll to dress then dolls like this one will be fine, but if you want a doll you can pose and play with one with flexible limbs might be better.

The clothes she comes with are a long-sleeved top and a pinfore dress. She also comes with underwear, shoes and socks. I don't think the pale pink/peachy top matches very well with the bright pink hearts on the dress and the socks. I think they're in too different colour palettes.

The clothes were not too bad quality compared to some of the clothes I've looked at, especially considering the price was quite low. I think the top is made from a polyester jersey. The seams are not finished but this fabric won't fray. The neckline is just folded over and you can see it is trying to curl outwards in places.

The pinafore is made from quite a heavy weight fabric that also won't fray. I thought it was reasonably well made, although there are some unfinished cut edges at the back where it fastens. They did a better job of the back fastening than most as the edges lap over each other properly instead of leaving a weird lump.

I tried some of my Baby Born outfits on Kelly, but they didn't fit quite as well. Here the knitted jumper doesn't fit too badly, but it seems a bit wide over all. The jogging trousers are far too short, they're more like three-quarter length trousers. They do fit well at the waist though.

This more of a baby's outfit and not really right for a child doll but since the trousers didn't fit I didn't expect these to fit. They're not too bad on the leg.

This jacket is a roomy jacket since it's made to fit over an outfit. It fits Kelly not too badly. Baby Born has a larger head so the hood looks a bit big.

I tried a dress on her for made for 15 inch dolls just out of interest. The style of the dress is that it's a short dress so I expected it would be entirely too short, but it's not as bad as I expected. The matching bloomers also fitted well around the waist.

Overall, she's a nice doll and is very affordable. With all the accessories available, there is lots that children can do with these dolls. One of the benefits is that because American Girl dolls are so popular in the US, a lot of the big pattern companies have sewing patterns for them. Since Our Generation dolls are pretty much the same size, you will be able to make lots of clothes for them. I have even seen pattern books for clothes and accessories. There are lots of knitting patterns available for knitters too. Pixie Faire is a great website for sewing and knitting patterns for dolls this size.

For me personally, I'm not a huge fan but I'm also not an 8 year old girl. I think it's maybe because I didn't grow up with dolls like this and don't really see the gap in the market that they're meant to be filling. What's wrong with baby dolls and Barbie dolls? Barbie dolls have a lot of accessories like these dolls do but are more compact so would be easier to store. The Our Generation dolls are perfectly nice dolls though and I would recommend them for older children, like age 5+ who like dolls but aren't so interested in Barbie dolls.

Here is a close up of Kelly's face. I think she looks pretty, but there is something a bit Disney like about her features. Maybe a bit too cartoony? It might be that I'm used to dolls with more realistic features or baby and toddler aged dolls. I think she'll probably look very appealing to young girls though.