Tatiana Nayara Oliveira A Gift From Me to Me

Tatiana Nayara Oliveira Dollfriend by Via E

When I preordered Tatiana in the spring of this year, I had no idea she would become a Christmas doll. Having arrived a few days prior to Christmas, I waited to open the shipper until Christmas morning.  It was the first "present" I opened.  I was pleasantly pleased as well as surprised.

Tatiana arrived with an unexpected surprise for me, a beading kit to adorn her mounds upon mounds of curly hair, which can best be styled by finger combing.  Details about hair care are included in the first paragraph of the separate doll care sheet that accompanied Tatiana.

Doll care sheet covers hair care and water play.

Because I was among the first 100 people to preorder, my name appears on the side panel of the box. My niece's name is there as well for the doll I purchased for her.  Reghan remains quite excited about that.

Ellen Callen, Tatiana's creator, also numbered and signed the top of Tatiana's box.  (This was another pleasant surprise.)

Doll Details

Tatiana is 19-inches tall, made of heavy vinyl, with articulated elbows and knees. She has hazel eyes that close when she is supine with upper eyelashes, and a smiling mouth with molded teeth.  

As mentioned previously, she has thick, curly rooted hair.  It is best to finger comb Tatiana's hair and detangle, if necessary, from the ends up.  

 

When she is not being manipulated, I have elected to keep the ends tied together with a satin ribbon or keep the hair under a thick hair net, like this one, to prevent tangles.

Tatiana wears a white blouse with cut-off denim shorts that have a metal snap button closure and multicolored cloth belt.

The denim shorts have two functional front pockets along with the metal snap button closure.

Tatiana's big and second toes are separate to allow wearing thong sandals.  

To prevent them from falling off her feet, Tatiana's sandals also have a clear band in back.  Care should be taken when removing the sandals from her feet to prevent popping the clear band off like I did (because I forgot it was there).  A quick fix was to Velcro it back in place.  

Tatiana also comes with a Qata purse, described in a Via E Facebook status update as "not a traditional purse. Qata is Inca for blanket...that's the closest word in English. It is really a functional woven piece used in many ways in the Inca life of past. A Qata is a blanket, a scarf, a cloth that is tied to carry berries, flowers, or other items gathered. The Qata could be wrapped to form a beach cover, halter top, scarf...or anything else you could imagine. Tatiana wanted to modernize her Qata so she went into her grandmother's sewing kit and added two orange buttons in the shape of flowers and then created six button holes; three on each side so she could attach a strap and then use that strap to make even more use of her Qata."

Tatiana holds her unfolded Qata.  I did not unbutton it for fear that I would not be able to fasten it back correctly.  

Body Construct and Redressing Attempts

Tatiana can stand alone without the assistance of a doll stand.  We know she can wear clothing designed for Alexis, the other Dollfriend by Via E, but we needed to know if she could wear clothing already on hand.  So she undressed to try on three different fashions.

First we tried on an 18-inch My Twinn Friend fashion.  The top and pants are both a little large on Tatiana's more slender frame.  We found the same held true for the next two fashions she tried on.

Tatiana wears an 18-inch Madame Alexander fashion.  The top and shoes fit.

Her slender waist leaves a bit of room in the waist of the pants which will easily fall off.

The tunic and boots of this American Girl fashion also fit Tatiana; however, the waist of the culottes is about an inch and a half too large for her as shown in the next photo.

A quick fix with a jumbo paper clip tapered the waist of the American Girl culottes as shown next.

Before returning her to her box, Tatiana redressed in her original fashion and shoes and protected her hair with the red satin ribbon tied at the ends.

For more information about the Via E Dollfriends, visit their website or Facebook page.  In March of this year, Ellen also introduced readers to Tatiana in a guest post, which can be read here.

Addendum 12/28/2015 11:37 a.m.

I knew I was going to forget something important.  I wanted to include that Tatiana's values are written in her native language, Portuguese, with an English translation for each on the inner lining of her box as illustrated in the above  image.  They are are:

Bondade (Caring)
Chefia (Leadership)
Excelência Excellence)
Alegria (Joy or Fun)
Compaixâo (Compassion)

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