Deirdre

I received Deirdre of Ulster this week. She is wearing a rather complicated dress that is mostly a dark moss-green color with gold and burgundy accents. The costume is one piece, but gives the illusion of layers like a medieval costume would have.

The bodice is made of velvet, with a piece of woven jacquard trim attached to the front to look like an embroidered panel. The gold trim around the edge disguises the fact that this is a piece of trim, and the piece is backed with some sort of thin black material. The front panel is sewn down along the top, and also near the bottom in the center of the piece, but it's not sewn down along the sides. Not sure why they did that.

Photos and review may not be used without permission.

The overskirt is made of a burnout velvet fabric that is pretty sheer. I held the chiffon over-sleeve out of the way for this picture to show the drape of the skirt. It is slightly awkward in my opinion, due to the weight of the velvet I imagine, but when her over-sleeves are hanging down, the weird drape is pretty well disguised. Her skirt is kind of gathered up in the back, and then gathered more towards the front. In medieval art, ladies are sometimes shown holding the front of their skirts up a little (to allow them to walk in spite of the very long fabric), and I think this was the overall look they were going for with Deirdre's skirt. The whole thing is edged with gold metallic lace and gold and burgundy trim, the same trim that is on the waistline and sleeves. The gold trim on my doll's skirt is still a bit stiff from the box. As I mentioned above, the skirt fabric is rather sheer. She has an underskirt made of taffeta beneath the overskirt.

definitely more historical-fantasy than strictly historical) but they are completely hidden under her gown so it isn't that big a deal to me. At least they stay on her feet.

Her shoes are plain green pumps. Not very historical (though her costume is

Her crown is a design that I haven't seen before. It is sewn to her hair.

Her crown and sceptre are both made of plastic that is made to look like gold, and set with clear cystals. She has very fair skin and auburn hair. A couple of larger curls are set around her face and the rest is in more unstructured, wild-looking curls. Her makeup is fairly simple, with olive-green (almost brown) eyeshadow, blush at the sides of her cheekbones, and dark red lips. Her fingernails are painted the same color as the lips (her toenails, by the way, are not painted). She has green eyes with a touch of gold, and uses the goddess head sculpt. I want to point

out that the colors in my photos aren't exactly like the real doll. Her hair color is much less bright; while it is what I would consider a fiery auburn, it isn't bright or clownish looking. The dress color is a bit more muted and less yellowish than in my photos, too.

I will say that, when I imagine the character Deirdre of the Sorrows in my mind, my image is different from Mattel's design. But anyway, Deirdre of Ulster is unquestionably my favorite Mattel doll of the year. In fact, she might be my favorite since they stopped the Portrait Collection. And while her packaging was nice, unlike some other recent dolls I liked (Maiko), it wasn't so elaborate that I felt like I couldn't debox her. And I do feel like she's every bit as nice out of the box as she is NRFB.

She was expensive, though... but I don't regret forking over the full retail price for her. Here she is with the other Legends of Ireland deboxed:

In my opinion, she is definitely in a class above the other three. The first Legends of Ireland were basically like DOTW in terms of quality; Deirdre is a more serious collector doll. I hope Mattel will make more dolls like this in future, and hopefully they won't all be platinum labels. It would be great if they could be easier to get.