Glamorous Fashions of the Gilded Age Paper Dolls by Eileen Rudisill Miller Review

I am so happy to be getting back to paper doll book reviews. I did a few last year and I super enjoyed them, so here comes another one! One thing about these photos, the book is super glossy and it was super hard to get shots without bad glare. I did my best with my limited camera skills, but it’s far from perfect.

Glamorous Fashions of the Gilded Age Paper Dolls by Eileen Rudisill Miller came out from Dover Publications in 2020. It’s letter sized, has four dolls (two ladies and two gents). Clothingwise the ladies get 26 gowns and each gent gets an a morning coat to wear over their tuxedos. Apparently, balls and weddings are what the men are dressed for. Also, hats… a lot of fantastic hats. I am very jealous of Miller’s ability to draw hats.

The two male paper dolls both have very distinct faces. The blond sort of reminds me of Brad Pitt. I confess that the two lady paper dolls look the same to me. I wish they had maybe different skin-tones or more character in their faces. Heck, given that these dolls can’t share clothing, each one could have been taller or shorter or fatter or black or… there’s a whole range of options. There’s no reason all four dolls needed to be white skinny people.

I wish there was more paper doll diversity in general, but in the historical paper doll book world it’s particularly lacking. I find I am noticing it more than I used to. It’s not a new problem, though.

While the back of the book identifies the Gilded Age as being from the late 1860s to the late 1890s, I’ve never thought of it as starting that early. I’ve always thought of it as the last 30 years of the 19th century. My only quibble with using that language is that it gives the impression the book will cover those dates and it doesn’t. The dresses in the book are super 1880s.

You know, that silhouette where you could balance a tea-tray on the hard lines of the bustle? Yeah, that look.

This paper doll book is high quality. The covers are thick card stock and the interior pages are also card stock, but thinner. Everything is high gloss which, while super frustrating to photograph, does result in really brilliant color. The insides of the covers can be turned into a “ballroom scene”. It’s a neat idea, though I missed historical information from older Dover books.

All in all, while I might have some quibbles about the historical accuracy of most of these dresses, I loved the brilliant colors, hats, and Miller’s use of graphic shapes to great impact. I hadn’t bought a Dover paper doll book in a while and I’d gotten used to lighter weight paper in book interiors. While I suspect cutting this one out would be a little hard on the hands, the stiffer papers feels like it would stand up to hours of play. It makes me miss that style of paper doll book more than I thought I would.

This one is certainly worth your time if you have, like I do, a fondness for bustles. Just don’t expect much on the “historical accuracy” front or the paper doll diversity front. You can grab Glamorous Fashions of the Gilded Age Paper Dolls direct from Dover Publications or a lot of other places online.

I’m opening up comments on this one, as I am curious if other people have seen this book or if they have a paper doll book they’d like me to review. Let me know!