Summer Cissette

For some reason, I notice I will often find a trend occurring as to which dolls I am able to find and purchase at a good price. You might remember year before last was my summer of brides and ballerinas; every lot seemed to have one or both! Lately I am seeing a series of Cissette dolls and clothes. Who knows why, but I've been able to snap up several without anyone bidding against me. So, prepare yourself for several Cissettes in both branches of my store. I already have some listed on eBay and Etsy and more are on the way.

Cissette wearing vintage Alexander clothes

The dress is tagged.

I recently came across two vintage brunette Cissette dolls, which is exciting in itself because brunettes are far less common among Cissettes from the 1950s and 60s. One is in really bad shape and needs new fingers and her face sanded down to remove some yellowed varnish someone applied long ago, but this one was easy to restore. She just needed re-stringing, hair styling, cleaning, and a new outfit. In my stash of clothes I have a few tagged Cissette dresses and other untagged pieces. I chose this tagged pink sundress from long ago. It's similar to an Alexander-kins dress I've seen from 1964, but I haven't seen this one before and don't know exactly when it was made. Sometime between 1957 and 1964. Then I found a matching hat, stockings, slip, and panties, all from Cissette Portrette dolls made in the 1970s and 80s. I picked a silver fashion doll purse from the 70s too. Cissette still lacked shoes and jewelry, so I made those for her.

The shoes are made from replacement plastic bases lined with felt and with metallic silver straps and glass bead accent. I used rhinestone head pins to make "diamond" stud earrings and sized down a child's silver tone flower necklace with rhinestone accent for Cissette.

The underclothes are all Alexander.

The shoes are handmade.

I made the earrings and necklace.

The purse is a fashion doll piece.

Cissette is marked on her back, and you can see in the photos there is a little glue residue on her shoulder. There's some on the undersides of her wig in back too. Her torso has some tiny red marks I wasn't able to remove. Otherwise, she's wonderful. Her knees bend, and her unusual green sleep eyes work fairly well. Sometimes you have to open them wider manually. I re-strung Cissette loosely to protect her joints, but she can still sit and stand alone with posing. Cissette's arms are more pink in color than her body, but that's not really too visible when she's dressed.

The Alexander mark

The dress has some spots.

Cissette's dress has some pin-sized light brown spots here and there, but they are not terribly noticeable. There are two thin spots, not exactly holes, in the skirt. I treated those with Fray Check so they won't enlarge. All in all, this is a wonderful display doll and a great addition to your collection. Pleas make sure to check my stores on eBay and Etsy for Cissette and many more dolls, with new ones coming every day.

Cissette can sit.

Her paint is all original.