If you've gotten here, you're probably wondering who the
heck is crazy enough to do all this stuff for dolls.
Well, in a word, me. And as to how I wound up here, well...
I've had a love for both art and dolls for almost as long as I
can remember. I drew and colored all the time and created things
with paper, markers, cardboard, aluminum foil, tape- anything and
everything I could get my hands on. A popular phrase in my house
was "If you can't find the tape/ scissors/ paper/ etc., ask Ann. She
probably has it." My older sister helped to fuel the fire by teaching
me things she had learned in her art class at school. When I turned
thirteen, I discovered the world of fashion and never looked back..
My hopes of going to a fashion school after graduating were
quickly dashed, but the love for clothing design remained, and I
continued to fill sketchbook after sketchbook with my designs. I
hoped that someday something would work out, and I could fulfill
my longtime dream of clothing and catwalks.
My love of dolls goes back further than I can remember. There has always been something
almost magical to me about these little representations of people. I was enchanted with
everything from their beautiful painted faces to their hair to their tiny hands and feet. However,
my love of dolls, unlike my interest in art and fashion, began to wane. The older I got, the more
I realised how limited dolls were. I became frustrated at their poor pose ability- especially after
being introduced to a cousin's highly articulated G.I. Joe figures. Most girls' dolls couldn't even
stand on their own. It was also very difficult to find a doll that had the desired combination of
eye and hair colors, not to mention hair style. I loved the idea of dolls, but the reality was too
lacking, so I gave up my dolls for years.
It wasn't until I decided fairly recently that I needed a more "girly" hobby -there's only so much
of cars, gaming, and video game playing that a girl can take- that I thought about dolls again. I
decided that even if most dolls wouldn't be much fun to play with, they might be fun to collect
and display.I promptly bought a Barbie collectors' magazine and made an accidental discovery
that would reshape every hobby that I had and swallow almost all of my free time. I had
stumbled upon an ad for Volks Super Dollfies, and through that chance meeting, I was
introduced to the wonderful world of Asian ball-joint dolls.
That discovery of ball-joint dolls (or BJD as they're commonly referred to) was in the summer
of 2004, and nothing has been quite the same since. I welcomed home my first doll, a C.P. Elf
El, in October of that year, and he was everything I had hoped for: incredibly beautiful, highly
detailed, and able to hold a vast array of poses. He also came with a wig and glass eyes that
could be changed out to suit any mood. In BJD I've found the dolls that I'd dreamed of and
yearned for all of my life. I've given up some of my old hobbies, though most of them have
simply changed form to focus on my dolls. Now all of my free time revolves around my resin
doll family, or as my husband so lovingly calls them, "those creepy little things"!
My preoccupation with these dolls has led me to design and sew for them, customize and paint
them, blush them, pose them, photograph them, and love them. What started out as an innocent
search for a new diversion quickly turned into a near obsession with these beautiful, unique
dolls. Now it's my hope that my passion for design and creation will allow me to make an old
dream a reality, though I never would have guessed when I first envisioned the Annarchy
Designs fashion label that it would be used for dolls instead of people!
Ann Reineka~Stout
