D o l l s H e a v e n
About ....
Kaethe Kruse
Kaethe Kruse CATALOGUE
At Christmastime 1905, Käthe Kruse hand-crafted a doll made from a potato, a towel and some warm sand for her first daughter Mimerle.
Five years later, the dollchild becomes the star of an exhibit in Berlin, "Homemade Toys".
Homemade they were indeed! Käthe Kruse dolls were made by the young mother with the help of a painter and five seamstresses in her living room and distributed all over the world.
Today, 90 years later, the tradition that began in a living room in Berlin continues in a spacious workshop in Donauwörth.
Lots has changed, but not the philosophy that Käthe Kruse began with:
"Handwork- the hand follows the heart. Only the hand can create what the hand returns to the heart."
Handwork is still the foundation on which the Käthe Kruse company is built. Each and every doll, piece of doll clothing and (when ever possible) accessory is made by hand.
Many of the doll's clothes have embroidery, crochet or knitting: all carefully done by hand, not duplicated by machines.
Each of the reindeer-hair-stuffed bodies is hand-stuffed by one worker. Only in that way is the perfect symmetry of the limbs achieved.
The human hair of the wigs is individually hand-knotted into the wig cap. We are the only doll company that does so today.
It is only through knotting the hair by hand that the fullness of the wig can be regulated and the too-much-hair unnatural wiggy look of the machine-made wig is avoided.
Hand-knotting also locks the hair in, so that the wig can withstand brushing and restyling. (For dolls are still made with children in mind.)
This is an extremely time consuming and expensive process that requires three to seven hours to make each wig. Today, this technique is used only for motion picture and television stars and Käthe Kruse dolls!
Each doll's face and where necessary the hair is painted by hand. This is why each doll is an individual with its own charm and expression.
Käthe Kruse dolls are made to be loved by anyone who loves dolls, children and adults. The doll's bodies are still made of cloth so that the dolls are soft and warm to touch.
Many of the dolls are still stuffed with reindeer hair, Reindeer hair is used to keep the bodies in the original shape, after being loved for many generations.
Kaethe Kruse CATALOGUE
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