Anouk's Official debut! Fashion Doll Quarterly

Pre production Prototype Anouk dolls featuring in the article.

I am very excited and pleased to announce that Anouk has her official unveiling to the doll collecting world in the Spring issue of Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine. A big thank you to Ian Price and Patricia Henry for featuring her so prominently as a lead story with a six page glossy spread.
The magazine is available to buy online and on ebay I believe. Do have a look if you can! :-)
For all sales enquiries please contact Nav Sikand at navsikand@aol.com

Anouk receives a mention on the cover! Hurrah :-)

Anouk, prototypes, booklets, and hairstyles!

A stylish first issue Brunette Anouk sports her sunglasses and a stylish up-do!

It's been a busy few weeks. Getting very close now for the official launch and start of sales. Going through my archives, I came across some beautiful prototype versions of Anouk's Trotteur suit. For various practical and financial reasons, I went with the classic and simple black tailored suit but I thought it would be interesting to see the other ideas for the suit. There was also a prototype Of Printemps with white polka dot material and a longer length, and a different version of Capri in heavy cotton drill with appliqued panels on, quite different to the production version.
I am also considering to give some dolls individual hairstyles, so have been experimenting with curls, up dos and ponytails!

On another note, I printed a mock up of Anouk's booklet. It has turned out really great and just as I had envisaged it. I just cant wait to get the real thing in my feverish little hands!

Prototype variants of Anouk's "Trotteur" suit.

I went with the classic plain black for production, but these 2 were close contenders!

A variant polka dot "Printemps", the final Mod Orange version and an early prototype of Anouk's "Capri" dress.

Experimenting with potential new hairstyles for the long haired Anouk dolls.

Move over Barbie and Sindy! Anouk has a booklet too!

Anouk's booklet

Following on from the concept and tradition that Anouk is a vintage doll form the 1960s, I have been working on a little booklet to accompany each doll. I'm sure all of you remember the great illustrations that featured dolls and outfits available, that accompanied such dolly luminaries as Sindy, Bild Lilli, Pippa, Barbie, Tammy, Tressy, etc.

I had to create some extra artwork and images to make enough pages. But, this has been an aspect of the process that has really been both enjoyable and therapeutic for me!

Once all the artwork was produced, it was time to find a printer and work with my graphic designer extraordinaire and longtime associate, Fokke Hoekman on the layout and text. It's still not finished but almost there!

The initial artwork. Some of it was done as concept art for the factory. Some more recently. I had great fun with this :-) The many faces of Anouk!

Then I needed to do some clean up and give the images a uniform look with blocked backgrounds and bold colours to evoke a 1960s, Mod era feel.

Then working on text, layouts etc with Fokke Hoekman. He is really a whizz, and I can highly recommend him for any design, graphic, layout work you might need!

We are still designing as we speak, but almost there. I am very happy with what we have achieved so far. I think it really does look vintage, and I hope to show you the final layout very soon :-)

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