Studio XOXO! Basix Dolls

Studio XOXO! Basix Midnight Fire Fanah and Jacques

In May, I ordered my first two Studio XOXO! Basix dolls, Midnight Fire Fanah and Jacques. Designed by CJ Starz, the dolls were sold nude. I dressed them as shown next.

Fanah wears a "wet look" orange dress and a pair of silver Mini Brands Fashion boots. Jaques, who has a broader body than most male fashion dolls, wears an ensemble designed to fit his body type.

The lovely Fanah is shown in a close-up.

Fanah is a 12-inch slim-bodied fashion doll with multiple points of articulation. She has fiery red straight-rooted hair that extends to her upper thighs. Her painted eyes are hazel. She arrived with slightly parted lips and painted teeth. I painted over the teeth to give a closed-mouth appearance. Two extra pairs of hands and extra feet were included.

The oh-so handsome Jacques poses for a close-up.

Jacques is a very handsome 13-1/2-inch-tall articulated male with a muscular build, brown-painted hair, painted-hazel eyes, a closed mouth, full lips, and pale lip color.

Midnight Araxá (Raven)

In June, Araxá arrived. Also sold nude, like Fanah, she is multiarticulated and has two extra sets of hands and extra feet. 

Araxá and Fanah have the same body type.

Midnight Araxá with raven hair is a 12-inch multiarticulated fashion doll. Her long, straight, rooted hair extends to her thighs. She has painted blue eyes with painted upper and lower eyelashes and silver eyeshadow. She has slightly parted lips with red lip color.

The lovely Araxá is seen in a close-up

Araxá was initially dressed in a black "wet look" dress with black knee-high boots. 

Shortly after dressing Araxá in a black dress, she and bestie Fanah decided to swap clothes, as illustrated next.

The ladies swapped clothes and took the following "selfie". 

After the lovely ladies took this selfie, they posed with Jaques.

Studio XOXO! Midnight Fire Fanah, Jacques, and Midnight Araxá (Raven) in a close-up

A full-length view illustrates how well they display together.

Fanah, Jacques, and Araxá visited Paris, France, and took this human-led AI photo.

As a side note, these dolls are in the last routine installation at the Virtual Black Doll Museum.

Related Link

Studio XOXO! on Instagram

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©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.
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Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published. To contact me directly, use the About page link, which is also visible in Web View mode, find, and use the email link.

Visit and follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum for detailed installations of antique, vintage, modern, and one-of-a-kind black dolls. http://virtualblackdollmuseum.com

My Mother-in-Law's Doll

Rebecca was made from an Apple Valley kit.

During the last couple of decades of her life, I would buy dolls for my mother-in-law on special occasions because she loved dolls, too. After she transitioned in 2009, my sister-in-law (SIL) kept most of her dolls. She allowed me to choose one to keep, and a select few other close family members were given a doll. An Apple Valley Kit doll that I put together and named Rebecca, my mother-in-law's middle name, was my choice.

Rebecca's sculpt is called "Raspberry," because she's blowing one.

Rebecca uses the Apple Valley Raspberry mold because she is blowing a raspberry. She is a very happy baby.

In the late 1990s, I purchased a 24-inch toddler doll from another collector, made by Jessie International of Quebec, Canada. The company's mailing address was included on the cloth certificate of authenticity sewn to the doll's back. I contacted them by mail to inquire how to purchase additional dolls. They sent me one of their catalogues, from which I purchased at least a dozen dolls wholesale with the intent to sell the dolls, and I did. I gave one to my mother-in-law (MIL). She fell in love with it, and so did her neighbors and other associates. These women, who lived in a rural town, had never seen such "beautiful Black dolls." For a short time, my MIL and I had a small business selling the Jessie Collection dolls. I kept one for myself, and she kept the one I had given her. The others were sold.

The Jessie Collection dolls are indicated by a yellow star.

Initially, I couldn't find a recent photo of my Jessie Collection dolls (the one purchased from another collector and the one I kept from my wholesale order from Jessie International), but I did have the above group photo, taken on June 14, 2003.

This is a close-up screenshot of the June 14, 2003, photo that includes my original two Jessie Collection dolls. The one on the right is the one I purchased from another collector.

As I was creating tags for this post, "Jessie International" was noted as a previously used tag. It was used for the following photo taken of my two dolls for a 2010 post about dolls from Canada. Find the link to that post at the end of this post.

This is a better photo of my original two Jessie Collection Dolls. They are from 1990 and 1995, respectively.

In June 2026, I attended a "mother's appreciation dinner" hosted by my niece. Towards the end of dinner, my niece presented me with the Jessie Collection doll I had given my mother-in-law. Obviously, at some point, my SIL had given it to her, and now my niece wanted me to have it.

This photo was taken before my MIL's Jessie Collection doll's ponytail had been restyled.

At some point, my mother-in-law gave her doll new socks (I could tell by the pink ribbons attached to the sides, which did not match the dress color), but the dress, pantalettes, and shoes were unchanged. The doll was still in great condition, except her ponytail needed restyling, her socks and shoes needed washing, and I chose to swap out the pink sock ribbons with red ribbons. 

The video below captures the ponytail restyling technique and includes an image of the final result.

Related Link

Dolls from Around the World - Canada

 

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All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.
__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published. To contact me directly, use the About page link, which is also visible in Web View mode, find, and use the email link.

Visit and follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum for detailed installations of antique, vintage, modern, and one-of-a-kind black dolls. http://virtualblackdollmuseum.com

Artificial Intelligence is Not 100% Reliable

This unknown 21-inch clay and cloth doll entered my collection in July 2020.

The pictured doll has been part of my collection since July 2020, and I've never been able to identify her maker. Recently, I asked Google's Gemini AI  assistant to help me trace the doll back to its original maker using the same headshot photo and a description of the doll's head markings. It is marked: "ETG © VT" within a circle with an "M" to the right of the encircled letters.

Gemini provided a lengthy, detailed answer and identified the mold maker as Vesta Turner, based on the VT head mark. I then searched for online information about a doll artist or mold maker named Vesta Turner, but found nothing. So, I commented that I couldn't find information about her online. Gemini gave a vague answer stating that very little online information is known about Vesta Turner and that some doll sites (including my Black Doll Collecting Blog) might have additional information. 

So, I asked it where it found the information it provided, and it wrote: 

To be completely transparent with you, I need to make a major correction: I completely hallucinated the name "Vesta Turner" and the details surrounding her studio in my previous responses. I made a completely ungrounded logical leap trying to decipher the initials "VT" on the back of the doll's head in image_8c3a03.jpg, and I apologize for providing you with fictional information. 

Because "Vesta Turner" was a mistake on my part, you won't be able to find any legitimate links or historical records connecting that name to doll molds, Leo Moss reproductions, or the 1970s and 1980s time frame. 

In the above response, it referenced my blog again, so I informed Gemini that I am the author of Black Doll Collecting. It apologized profusely and stated it would not insult my intelligence any further. So, in other words, if AI doesn't know the answer, specifically the Gemini platform, it will make something up (fabricate an answer) and call it hallucinating when confronted. 

On 06/27/2026, I updated my original post about this unknown doll with the complete Gemini conversation. So, AI users, beware and know that AI not only makes mistakes, but it also intentionally fabricates.

__________

All photos and text are copyrighted and cannot be used elsewhere unless permission is granted by the author.

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.
__________

Thank you for reading. Comments that are not spam are appreciated. Spam comments will not be published. To contact me directly, use the About page link, which is also visible in Web View mode, find, and use the email link.

Visit and follow DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum for detailed installations of antique, vintage, modern, and one-of-a-kind black dolls. http://virtualblackdollmuseum.com