DolLApalooza 2013

Good Day Everyone,

DolLApalooza is our annual doll meet in LA California where doll owners meet up, do sightseeing, and tour the doll manufacturers. This year we got to visit Mechadoll which is a manufacturer from France which recently moved to Lakewood CA. We Met with Ives, the owner, Ron, production, and Matt, sales.

The facility is in a large warehouse that is shared with others, but there are two small rooms that are actually climate controlled rooms which are built inside the large warehouse. They use this space to pour the dolls. Other activities that don’t require a carefully controlled environment occur outside the two small rooms where we spent most of our time during the visit.

We saw a doll that had just been de-molded, several that were in process, and one that was completed, and about to be shipped out. They showed us a set of breast forms that had the “jelly” inserts, and allowed us to explore, and play with pretty much everything in the shop. There was a skeleton that was destined for one of the in-progress dolls. A couple of us talked to Ron, and Ives about the skeleton, and suggested some ideas for improvement.

Also we did the water bottle softness test where you put a one liter bottle of water on abreast to see how deep it sinks. The Mechadoll measured 1 1/4″ deflection, which is very good 😉

Afterwards it was dinner time and the Mechadoll team treated us all at a Peruvian restaurant.
Thanks guys for a great time.

That was Friday evening, which is skipping ahead a bit. Thursday was really the start of the meet, and we spent it in the garment district buying all sorts of clothes for the dolls. Bronwen from Sinthetics led us to the best deals in town. Also she was able to put a few orders together to get better prices. Plus with all the stuff we bought she was gracious enough to pack, and ship it all to us, because it would be tough to pack it all in our bags for the flight home.

Saturday morning we did our annual visit to Trashy Lingerie. This store is expensive, but everything is well made, and can be custom fitted to the dolls. Which is a real plus for because of Myfanwy’s small size.

In the afternoon, and into the evening is the “Syns at Sin”, Sinthetics annual open house. I’ll quote member Z-Dr from here on;

“I wanted to extend a special thanks to Sinthetics for hosting the 3rd annual Syns@Sins in their studio in Los Angeles on Saturday, July 27, 2013. As usual, they rolled out the red carpet and pulled out all the stops. We got to meet the entire staff this year with Bronwen, Giselle, and Kimmie acting as the cat herders, and hanging out on the production floor were Datig, Johnny, Nick, Nate, and Garney. Oh, and some guy named Matt was wandering around there, too. 😉

When I arrived, there was a group of people waiting in the office for the event to begin. Included in this group were the doll community celebrities Amber Hawk Swanson and Davecat. HiFi-man was there who we only get to see once a year at this event. Also in this group was a soon to be new member, Ace! :welcome: The rest of the ODC group arrived fashionably late as they were returning from lingerie shopping trip to Trashy’s… :redhead: And of course last, but definitely not least, our own paparazzi, Polaroid, was able to join us later on. :thumb:

Matt and Bronwen began the event by showing us a pre-production version of a video that was very cool. I won’t go into anymore detail than that but hope that Sinthetics can and will expand on that topic when the time is right. Then we ate. I have to hand it to Sinthetic’s ability to put on a feast. :drool: Just a note, the things that Matt says are terrible and not to eat, you might notice that he has a few stuffed in his pockets… :whistle:

On to the activities. Pouring a doll, de-molding a doll, sculpting a doll; where would you ever expect to actually get to see these things actually happening? And, to get to film them, too? Need I say more?

This is the third time Sinthetics has hosted an event like this. We have built DolLApalooza as an annual ODC pilgrimage to LA to visit the Southern California doll manufacturers, but we owe it all to Sinthetics for inviting us and acting as our hosts. Matt and Bronwen take time out of their busy schedules to join us essentially each every day we are there for some activity or another.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You guys are the best!”

This is a very busy extended weekend, but still relaxing because we get to break bread and talk doll.

Enjoy