So, we kept shopping and looking around. Then we found the three different displays showing #80 in set-ups, wearing different outfits and sporting some cute girly looking hair styles. Cute, but not my thing. That is . . . until my Mom rounded the corner of the third display and had to stop. She's like, "That doll looks really Indian!" (Meaning like a girl from India.) I skidded to a stop, because I've really wanted an AG doll that looked truly Indian! There she was, sitting on a bed, and they had put a very low "princess" hair style on her. She did look Indian! I couldn't believe it. I had totally not planned on buying a doll, but Mom said I should get one. (Elizabeth says she knew I'd be getting one since the photo was released last week!) So, we went over to look through the boxes for #80. There were only three out on the floor, but the employees were more than happy to keep bringing them out from the back for me to look through 'til finding my perfect girl!
There are two things that make the doll look different. The first being the ugly new eyes. I looked for one that had less white showing, purely because of the way the eyes are inserted. I don't like the new eyes, but I love Nanea and #80, so it is worth it to me to find a doll with a pair of eyes that I can live with. They also photograph even whiter than they look most of the time, so it's often not quite as bad in real life as the photos.
The second thing was the placement of the wig. If the wig is glued higher on the head, she looks very Hispanic. If the wig is placed lower on the forehead, it gives the Indian look. I have to say that there were fewer of the "Indian" look than the Hispanic. Of the six or eight dolls that I looked at, only two had the lower wig --- and one of the three display dolls in the store. I was able to pick one that looked very like the display that I loved!
Here's a slideshow of photos showing her as she came out of the box and hair net.
Just click on the thumbnails or arrows to advance to the next photo.
The next two photos show the new way that her feet were fixed in the box. There are two plastic bands around each ankle. Instead of being rubber bands, they are clipped in and you just cut them off (see last photo). Probably a better way, since you don't have to pull the band up and work it over the leg.
Finally, there are two photos showing the new stamps in the vinyl of the doll's under arm area. This is a new stamp, only seen on the three new TM dolls, apparently. This seems to bother a lot of people, but you really don't notice them unless the arm is pulled out all the way to the side and pointing up. I didn't even know they were there until someone asked me to look for them. They are no worse than the big old logo on the back of the doll's neck. But, I've included photos of both arms. My guess would be that these are necessary now that there are multiple shades of the different skin tones. It would be easy to confuse Addy's arms with #80, but they are definitely a different tone.
The other thing that people have wondered about is the tone of Violet's skin. So, here are some comparison photos. The first shows five dolls: Nanea, TM #77, #67, Addy (1995 PC) and Violet. She is definitely a bit darker than Addy --- in the same way that #67 is slightly darker than #77.
The second photo shows Violet next to Addy (who is a German-made PC doll from 1995).
The third and fourth photos show Violet with my 1997 PC Josefina (who is actually 18-3/4" tall).
The fifth and sixth photos are comparison of body fabric and closed-eye lids of Addy, #80 and Kaya. The body fabric of my Addy and #80 are very similar. I also thought that the closed eyes on the two were very close. Addy's are a teeny bit lighter, but the flash on the camera makes them look a lot lighter. The second photo is taken without flash, and while you cannot see the skin tone as well, that is more realistic to the closed eye color. Kaya is definitely lighter and more yellow. We have multiple Kaya dolls, and the body fabric varies a LOT! That is a second Kaya body laying on top of the Kaya doll to show color.
[Edit: 13 Jul 2018] The last photo shows #80 beside a TLC #1 that my Mom just got. We were really amazed to see that #1 is much darker than #80! (Though #1 is not as red in tone.)
More later . . .