Magalie Houle Dawson:
Fashion Sculptor

By Lisa A. Lawrence

If you don't know about Magalie's doll fashion designs, it's not surprising.  They sell so quickly you are very likely to miss them!  I happened across a few of Magalie's designs on eBay® over a year ago (I'm on eBay all day or I would have missed them too!)  It's actually more accurate to call her designs "fashion sculpture" or maybe "wearable art."  Her designs are very much in line with her French-Canadian background.  She has an extremely unique style... by which, whether you'd like to own it or not, you're likely to be fascinated. 
 

Magalie is a very low key seller.  She doesn't spend a lot of time on the various doll boards. She's too busy taking care of her farm animals!  But when she is there, everyone stops and takes notice!  Magalie makes even the very best of doll fashion designers gasp and marvel at her work!  Because of the uniqueness of her designs and their limited availability, Magalie is in a class by herself!  I specifically "saved Magalie's article" for Fall, as her designs so wonderfully and instantly call up images of the changing color of leaves and the crisp weather of that season.

Magalie Dawson was born in ST-Jean D''Iberville, Quebec, Canada.  Raised in Granby, her father worked in textile all his life while Magalie's mother was always sewing, knitting and drawing. Magalie enjoyed shopping at the many little fabric shops in Granby and the nearby surrounding small towns.  She now lives in Vermont with her husband, son, dog, two cats, five cows and four chickens

Magalie finished high school at the age of 17 then decided to take a year off before attending fashion school.  "That year off was a little longer then I had anticipated." Magalie notes, "I met my first husband and started a family.  Seven years later, divorced with two children, I did my three years of fashion school as a single mother in Montreal."

Magalie has worked as a seamstress for several clothing manufacturers.  She also designed costumes for Ballet dancers.  Then, she owned a Dance Wear company where she did the designing and sewing followed by a clothing shop with sportswear, costumes, bathing suits, etc.  She has also worked as a doll designer for a small doll company in Vermont and as a Fashion Doll designer. 

Magalie has had dolls as far back as she can remember.  Her first ones were mostly Barbies®. Now, her collection of about 100 dolls includes a wide range: from vintage Miss Revlon® and Crissy®, to Tonner® Dolls, Cissy®, Genes®. My latest "models" are Tiny Kitty®, and the Super Dollfies.®
 

As a child, Magalie's favorite game was grabbing her dolls, some scissors and thread and going through a big bag of fabric remnants to create outfits for her dolls!  "My first memories of me sewing would be being too young to use a needle!"  Magalie recalls, "Cutting fabric with small plastic paper scissors and using ropes to tie fabrics around my doll!  I usually made nice things and would show them to my father. He'd say, 'Nice in the front  but not enough fabric in the back.' I definitely did learn by trial and error. Learning not to be afraid to ruin some fabrics is the first step to being a good seamstress! And of course, my three years at College La Salle in Montreal certainly helped improve my skills!"
 

Magalie's "farm" provides her with much inspiration for her designs.  "When Bennett and I started hunting for a house seven years ago,  we did not really know what to look for." Magalie recalls, "We had a very small budget and all the houses we could afford were in bad condition on very small lots.  Then we visited a double wide mobile house on a ten acre piece of land with beautiful decks built around it and a beautiful pond just in front for a view, we fell in love!!  It was private, magical and.....   within our budget!!!  But there was another buyer before us. They finally decided to buy it.  I was so sad!  But at the same time, this experience helped us to "shop" differently!  From then on, we were looking for land!  We finally found our piece of paradise; 39 acres of beautiful maple trees, majestic oaks, and big rock sculptures ( we named a few:
picnic rock, throne rock, whale rock....  So that we can refer to them to explain where on the land we are talking about!).  So we bought the land and put a new double wide mobile home on it with the intention to sell it and build when our finances recovers (We hope to build in a couple of years)."

"Bennett spent a whole summer, full time, digging a pond (almost a lake!!). We named it 'Lake Eric' after our late best friend Eric Carol.  We both are busy with the animals, but also with gardening.  I start flower seeds in the winter and see them grow into beautiful flowers in the summer!  We also have  a half acre vegetable garden and a LOT of lawn to trim and manicure!  Our house is far from the road (800 feet driveway lined with apple trees and such) so we have a very private paradise, where you can hear frogs, crickets, and birds."
 

"I do walk around the lake every day, and sit on my favorite rock to see the sun rise.  I find a lot of inspiration then, thinking  about my day, and what to create next!  One of my latest designs for the Super Dollfie, "La Libellule", was designed in honor of the hundreds of dragonflies that dances above the lake this time of year. I was inspired with hummingbirds (They really are fairies!!), frogs, owls, moths.... It is magical!"

However, Magalie found that living in Vermont's farming country was not the best place for a fashion designer.  Once she discovered the internet, her possibilities opened up and the "whole world" was visiting her online store!  She started selling on eBay® three years ago.

On occasion, Magalie has collaborated with repaint artists.  She did a project entitled The Four Elements in which she asked four repainters to join her.  Each repaint artist sent Magalie a Platinum Gene to have Magalie dye each one's hair according to which element they represented (Wind, Water, Fire and Earth).  Once she was finished dying each dolls hair, she would return it to the repaint artist along with fabric swatches for inspiration and color schemes.  Once the repaint was finished, the doll was again returned to Magalie who then dressed each doll and photographed them.  She has done similar projects for The Repaint Gallery.  Magalie has also done commissions based on a repaint or someone's special doll.

When Magalie takes commissions, she will not reproduce the outfit for anyone else, making sure her commissioner gets a true one-of-a-kind designer outfit.  "For a commission," she states, "I always do my own designs, with vague specifications from the collector: color, type of ensemble, etc."  For her regular designs, when she has enough fabric, Magalie may do a small limited edition.

Magalie has a website at www.dolloutfits.com.  Her outfits sell out very quickly!  Luckily, she keeps many of her past designs on her website for our visual pleasure.
 

Magalie makes her living off her doll work and "trying, with my husband, to be semi self sufficient with our small farm.  It is so wonderful to be able to do the work I love in my home studio. I started sewing in the house, with no sewing room!  After a year, we built a "Sewing Palace" next to the house!"  While Magalie claims she wants to keep her business small, she does have dreams of creating her own dolls, very small editions of course!

Magalie is sometimes inspired by the coloring of a doll and the doll's attitude.  Mostly, however, her inspiration comes from the beautiful fabrics she finds.  Rather than trying to reproduce period outfits, Magalie likes to design outfits for the past present and future based on what she would have designed in the specific era, not on what was actually designed.  Magalie is also greatly inspired by movies.  "I do not listen to music when I work." she notes, "I put movies on!  They are a great inspiration."  Her favorites include The Wizard Of OZ, Some Like It Hot, When Harry Met Sally, and It's A Beautiful Life.  She finds inspiration from actresses and has reproduced dress for a Marilyn Repaint and an Audrey Hepburn My Fair Lady repaint.

Magalie sketches out her designs at the beginning of her creative process.  "I learned fashion drawing in fashion school and have always sketched." She states, "But I wish I had more time. Drawing is always better when you do it on a regular basis! I usually sketch a vague design and tape fabric swatches on the page. I then use this guide to design a fashion. I have folders and folders of those drawings."   Magalie finds that the design she's working on gets "adjusted' as she goes, rarely ending up looking the same as what she had originally planned.  Most of her ensembles, from design to completion, take her between three to five days.  Usually she has about three designs she's working on at any given time, so she actually completes all three in the same time frame.

"The time it takes to design and complete an ensemble is about three to five days, but then this is half of the work!" Magalie explains, "The posing of the doll (my job) and the photo sessions, building the page for this ensemble, and taking care of the website is my husband's work.  Bennett has experience in photography, computer work and sales! He really has the eye to capture a doll, and make her look alive! This makes it all possible, without him, I do not know if I could do what I do!  We form a perfect team, and really enjoy working together." 

Magalie has much to say on beading.  "I think that it is very important to clarify some points on hand beaded and already beaded fabrics." Magalie states, "There are couture fabrics that are heavily beaded and very beautiful (expensive too! From $150.00 a yard to as much as $300.00 a yard).  Sometimes I find vintage dresses, beautifully beaded, that call for me to resculpt into a doll ensemble.  Working with already beaded fabric is very difficult!  You just do not "cut and sew" with such fabrics, especially for dolls, the pieces are so small, and the beads are more then often not individually knotted, so if you cut..... beads fall all over!  You have to carefully draw your patterns pieces on the back of the fabric, de-bead for seam allowances, then secure the threads so that all beads are not going to fall!  To sew a gown and then bead it is in ways easier then using already beaded fabrics!  But also very time consuming!  I used over 20,000 beads in "La Salamandre Bleu" (photo # 16), which took a week of full time beading. This ensemble was done through a whole summer, an hour here and there.  Another ensemble that was heavily beaded (but it did not show as much) was "La Fleur De Gingembre" (photo # 12). So, in my opinion, both ways, using already beaded fabrics or hand beading an ensemble, are a lot of work and I respect both highly as a wonderful aspect of this art!

Magalie has done a few designs for Trent®.  In the future, she plans to do some "matching ensembles" for Trent and Gene.

Currently, Magalie still shops for her fabrics mainly in Canada, including Granby and Montreal. "I find my jewelry in garage sales and such."  She states, "The most 'unusual' place I shop is where I find my vintage furs.  I go to a place called The Clothing Barn; an old barn filled with clothes!  The lady that owns it puts furs aside for me when they come in!"


Magalie takes special interest in packaging her outfits for shipping.  "This is one of the most important steps for me." She states, "The presentation, last inspection of the ensemble, packing etc. is quite a ceremony!"  She put a label on each ensemble, usually in the coat or stole.  Her ensembles also come with Certificates of Authenticity.

Magalie hasn't traveled much, but she did manage a trip to Paris and found the Haute Couture houses very inspiring!   She hopes to eventually create her own fashion dolls in very small editions and OOAKs.  Personally, she can't wait to have grandchildren and hopes to become more self-sufficient with her small farm.