Doll and Toy Museum
Don't be scared: THIS ISN'T ALL PICTURES OF DOLLS. THERE ARE OTHER COOL THINGS, TOO.
There are a lot of museums in Tokyo and Yokohama. This is my first so far, but I plan on visiting a lot more. I'd been meaning to go to the Yokohama Doll Museum since we moved here. I'll admit it: I like dolls. Not baby dolls or those creepy giant-eyed dolls fom the 1960s, but old ones and ones dressed in high fashions. They are so amazing, those ornate dresses in miniature, with all the tiny details of lace, ribbon, buttons, and accessories. And I've always loved old things. They give me a little chill that I've never been able to really explain to anyone to my satisfaction. I've always liked antique shops, and old houses with seldom-explored attics and basements. It's almost like I can feel the residues of long-dead personalities clinging to the objects they touched. That, and they just spent more time on crafting things before our disposable plastic age. No one will collect plastic 2-liter Diet Coke bottles or IKEA furniture, but antique furniture and old glass medicine bottles are still nice to look at, and they last a hell of a lot longer. You can see the care for the aesthetics. What's wrong with making something beautiful as well as functional? That whole 'they just don't make them like they used to' adage is true, but it has become something my generation really has no right to say. By the time we were kids, functional and throwaway was the rule.
But I digress. I went to the Doll Museum, and while it was smaller and less extensive than I was hoping, it was still pretty cool. I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I turned off my flash and waited until the wandering curators/security types were otherwise occupied before snapping.
The first room was for dolls representing different nations. I especially liked the Indian ones and the Indonesian ones. The fabrics and colors are lovely.
This is the Croatian set. I owned this set! It was given to me by a Hungarian friend, so I always assumed they were Hungarian. I guess I was wrong. I have since lost the male, but I still have the female.
I have always been kind of creeped out by African art. It used to give me the shivers to walk around the African mask room at the Cleveland Museum of Art (one of the best art museums in the world, believe it or not. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up with it). I'm not sure why this stuff is scary to me. Primitive and folk art from other areas of the world doesn't have the same effect. It just seems extra primitive and violent or something. I'm not sure.
This set represents the United States (and one Canada). I thought it odd that the dolls chosen to represent my culture are examples of traditions we white people have either tried to wipe out or have relegated to kitsch. Should we instead have cowboy hats and gangsta rags? I don't feel these dolls represent the American majority, and I wondered whether it is the same for all the other nations. Are all the 'traditional costumes' those of mostly-exterminated minority cultures?
In the next room was a historical collection. I thought this one had a very Mae West face, though not the figure:
These two were in the 'Automata' category, which I guess means you wind them up and they do something. I wished I had been able to read the descriptions. I can't believe people gave their kids stuff like this. My kids get plastic and still manage to wreck it in a week.
This is a really ornate 'doll house,' though I'm sure it was off-limits to the grubby hands of little girls. A woman who worked there gave me a lovely explanation, but all she translated for me was chiisai (small), which was one of the only words I actually understood, so it was pretty much wasted on me. Sigh. It was really neat, anyway.
The rest of it was mostly old toys.
Like the Hoop Zing Girl and Mr. Scary Skullyface:
Mr. & Mrs. Astroboy. I didn't realize how old he was, or that he had a female counterpart:
Some of these look like old comic strip charcaters to me:
One room was devoted to the private collection of one guy, at least I think that's what it was. It was amazing, the amount of stuff in this collection, all kinds of pop-culture stuff and trappings of eras gone by. I'm guessing it represented a 19202-1950s timeline. There were tons of posters, a mind-boggling collection of tins, matchbooks, cosmetic containers, tin watch boxes, advertisements, perfume bottles, etc., mostly in an art deco meets Japanese aesthetic style (which actually had a huge impact on the Art Nouveau and Deco movements, anyway).
My favorite poster. Who knew ink could be so alluring?
Matchboxes:
Cards: Lots of naked chicks inviting you to their bars and clubs and cafes:
This mannequin was standing in the corner, I assume because she was vintage. I thought she was rather eerily life-like:
Cool tins. I'm not sure what for:
More cool tins, for Shiseido soap. So beautiful. I need some of these.
I adore old visions of The Future. Like Metropolis and Buck Rogers comics. Where everyone has a ray gun and a fishbowl helmet and creepy robots made of tin cans menace society.
Spooky nationalistic kids marching:
Yea, Betty! and friends. I love the old cartoons, too. So surreal and un-PC. and why is Mickey Mouse so representative of Disney? When's the last time they made a Mickey Mouse movie? He shows up on everything here, especially clothes.
There were a lot of action figures, for lack of a better term, for products like candy and other food companies. I guess they have been doing the merchandizing thing for awhile.
The Milky girl: still a common site in Japan today, and she hasn't undergone a makeover like the Campbell Soup kids did or Betty Crocker.
Sambo-like guy as a cook hanging out with his buddies the butler-birds and happy baby bunnies:
I liked this guy's collection so much that I bought a book in the gift shop. It has inspired some painting ideas. I can't read it, but I can look at the pretty pictures.
There were some modern dolls on the first floor, by modern doll artists. I find most modern dolls weird, because they usually try to give them either more human faces or highly stylized ones, with GREAT BIG EYES or mouths like the main characters in The Dark Crystal. I guess I like my doll-faces idealized. Anyway, here are a few I thought pretty.
A ghostly white one:
And her black-clad counterpart:
I just liked this one's hair. She was for sale in the giftshop. If I ever have long hair again, and I'm thinking about it (really passively, i.e., not cutting my hair), I want to do it like this once:
I know a lot of people think dolls are creepy. Mostly I don't find them so, but this one did haunt me a little. It's the eyes. I kept expecting her to blink:
Sorry to all those who think dolls are creepy or just stupid. Or whose illusions about me that I have shattered. Yeah, I like dolls.
There are a lot of museums in Tokyo and Yokohama. This is my first so far, but I plan on visiting a lot more. I'd been meaning to go to the Yokohama Doll Museum since we moved here. I'll admit it: I like dolls. Not baby dolls or those creepy giant-eyed dolls fom the 1960s, but old ones and ones dressed in high fashions. They are so amazing, those ornate dresses in miniature, with all the tiny details of lace, ribbon, buttons, and accessories. And I've always loved old things. They give me a little chill that I've never been able to really explain to anyone to my satisfaction. I've always liked antique shops, and old houses with seldom-explored attics and basements. It's almost like I can feel the residues of long-dead personalities clinging to the objects they touched. That, and they just spent more time on crafting things before our disposable plastic age. No one will collect plastic 2-liter Diet Coke bottles or IKEA furniture, but antique furniture and old glass medicine bottles are still nice to look at, and they last a hell of a lot longer. You can see the care for the aesthetics. What's wrong with making something beautiful as well as functional? That whole 'they just don't make them like they used to' adage is true, but it has become something my generation really has no right to say. By the time we were kids, functional and throwaway was the rule.
But I digress. I went to the Doll Museum, and while it was smaller and less extensive than I was hoping, it was still pretty cool. I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I turned off my flash and waited until the wandering curators/security types were otherwise occupied before snapping.
The first room was for dolls representing different nations. I especially liked the Indian ones and the Indonesian ones. The fabrics and colors are lovely.
This is the Croatian set. I owned this set! It was given to me by a Hungarian friend, so I always assumed they were Hungarian. I guess I was wrong. I have since lost the male, but I still have the female.
I have always been kind of creeped out by African art. It used to give me the shivers to walk around the African mask room at the Cleveland Museum of Art (one of the best art museums in the world, believe it or not. I consider myself very lucky to have grown up with it). I'm not sure why this stuff is scary to me. Primitive and folk art from other areas of the world doesn't have the same effect. It just seems extra primitive and violent or something. I'm not sure.
This set represents the United States (and one Canada). I thought it odd that the dolls chosen to represent my culture are examples of traditions we white people have either tried to wipe out or have relegated to kitsch. Should we instead have cowboy hats and gangsta rags? I don't feel these dolls represent the American majority, and I wondered whether it is the same for all the other nations. Are all the 'traditional costumes' those of mostly-exterminated minority cultures?
In the next room was a historical collection. I thought this one had a very Mae West face, though not the figure:
These two were in the 'Automata' category, which I guess means you wind them up and they do something. I wished I had been able to read the descriptions. I can't believe people gave their kids stuff like this. My kids get plastic and still manage to wreck it in a week.
This is a really ornate 'doll house,' though I'm sure it was off-limits to the grubby hands of little girls. A woman who worked there gave me a lovely explanation, but all she translated for me was chiisai (small), which was one of the only words I actually understood, so it was pretty much wasted on me. Sigh. It was really neat, anyway.
The rest of it was mostly old toys.
Like the Hoop Zing Girl and Mr. Scary Skullyface:
Mr. & Mrs. Astroboy. I didn't realize how old he was, or that he had a female counterpart:
Some of these look like old comic strip charcaters to me:
One room was devoted to the private collection of one guy, at least I think that's what it was. It was amazing, the amount of stuff in this collection, all kinds of pop-culture stuff and trappings of eras gone by. I'm guessing it represented a 19202-1950s timeline. There were tons of posters, a mind-boggling collection of tins, matchbooks, cosmetic containers, tin watch boxes, advertisements, perfume bottles, etc., mostly in an art deco meets Japanese aesthetic style (which actually had a huge impact on the Art Nouveau and Deco movements, anyway).
My favorite poster. Who knew ink could be so alluring?
Matchboxes:
Cards: Lots of naked chicks inviting you to their bars and clubs and cafes:
This mannequin was standing in the corner, I assume because she was vintage. I thought she was rather eerily life-like:
Cool tins. I'm not sure what for:
More cool tins, for Shiseido soap. So beautiful. I need some of these.
I adore old visions of The Future. Like Metropolis and Buck Rogers comics. Where everyone has a ray gun and a fishbowl helmet and creepy robots made of tin cans menace society.
Spooky nationalistic kids marching:
Yea, Betty! and friends. I love the old cartoons, too. So surreal and un-PC. and why is Mickey Mouse so representative of Disney? When's the last time they made a Mickey Mouse movie? He shows up on everything here, especially clothes.
There were a lot of action figures, for lack of a better term, for products like candy and other food companies. I guess they have been doing the merchandizing thing for awhile.
The Milky girl: still a common site in Japan today, and she hasn't undergone a makeover like the Campbell Soup kids did or Betty Crocker.
Sambo-like guy as a cook hanging out with his buddies the butler-birds and happy baby bunnies:
I liked this guy's collection so much that I bought a book in the gift shop. It has inspired some painting ideas. I can't read it, but I can look at the pretty pictures.
There were some modern dolls on the first floor, by modern doll artists. I find most modern dolls weird, because they usually try to give them either more human faces or highly stylized ones, with GREAT BIG EYES or mouths like the main characters in The Dark Crystal. I guess I like my doll-faces idealized. Anyway, here are a few I thought pretty.
A ghostly white one:
And her black-clad counterpart:
I just liked this one's hair. She was for sale in the giftshop. If I ever have long hair again, and I'm thinking about it (really passively, i.e., not cutting my hair), I want to do it like this once:
I know a lot of people think dolls are creepy. Mostly I don't find them so, but this one did haunt me a little. It's the eyes. I kept expecting her to blink:
Sorry to all those who think dolls are creepy or just stupid. Or whose illusions about me that I have shattered. Yeah, I like dolls.
posted by Sandi at 3:03 PM
2 Comments:
So how wasn't this all pictures of dolls again?
I believe those mysterious tins are OLD cigarette/tobacco tins. A family friend of mine had one with tobacco from the early 1900's. Still smelled amazing and fresh. There was a big collection aspect to those particular tins. Not seeing the aspect ratio of size, I'm only speculating, but I know those Japanese love their frickin' smokes...
Love you all.
K
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