I am very excited today as Chantilly, this year’s Doll Carnival limited is officially on her way. For those of you who don’t know, for the past three years Jun Planning/Groove Inc. has held a Doll Carnival during the fall/winter exhibiting new prototypes as well as custom dolls. So far there has also been a limited edition pullip or dal associated with the event every year, all three dolls have been limited to 300. The first doll carnival in 2007’s limited was Jouet, last year’s (2008) limited was Isolde a H.Naoto collaboration and this year’s limited was Chantilly, the Angelic Pretty collaboration. I find it kind of interesting that so far all three of them have been blond and all three of them have been linked to at least one other doll Jouet and Jolie are supposed to be a matched pair, Isolde and Adsitlia are effectively repaints of one another and Chantilly has an almost identical stock just in a different color as the Angelic Pretty Byul Cocotte (my French isn’t as good as it used to be but isn’t Cocette slang for whore?).
I was somewhat fortunate this year, as I did not have to jump through quite so many hoops as I have in past years and I didn’t have to pay quite as much as I have in past years either. I paid an astounding $800 for Jouet from VOTD as they were the only people selling her at the time (even on Yahoo Japan) at least they tossed in a free Jolie though ^^; I actually ended up buying two of last year’s limited Isolde, I have since sold one to a friend of mine but I paid almost $600 for the NRFB one and $350 for the OOB one that I kept (she was missing her purse though :/ ). Somehow Pullipstyle managed to get a few in stock, they have never have had the previous doll carnival limiteds thankfully unlike VOTD they do not I gauge their customers in price. I had discovered that they had Chantilly in stock for a reasonable price ($350) literally while looking over someone’s shoulder as they purchased my Aya and Sakura (who I still need to do write ups for ^^;) for me for Christmas. I panicked as I was kind of already down to the quick in my bank account (I refuse to let myself drop below a certain point) so I felt a bit cheeky and emailed pullipstyle. I have bought a lot of dolls from pullipstyle over the years, probably around 80 or so (I’ll do the actual math out later) so I decided to be a bit brazen and ask if the owner could do a hold for me until my paycheck came in this week. Much to my delighted surprise, the owner agreed to hold her until my paycheck came. Somehow Chantilly was paid off last night, miraculously before my paycheck even came in all I have to say is yay for late Christmas presents.
I got the tracking number for her via Fed Ex this morning, no expected delivery date as of yet (I will update this post when I get one though) although I was quite pleased to see an indirect signature is required, Fed Ex are crafty ninjas who don’t like to ring my doorbell and just leave packages on my front porch or worse yet show no sign they were ever here until I check the tracking number and see failed delivery attempt after I think the 3rd one they send it back, so I have had to drive up to their sorting facility over an hour away on more than one occasion to fetch a package because of it. I go back to work starting tomorrow and I was quite frightened poor Chantilly would catch her death of cold if she was left out on the porch all day (unlikely but it is below freezing outside the plastic could become brittle) or be kidnapped (more likely, stuff disappears around here all the time very rare for it to my stuff though as I tend to make sure the handymen who work on my building are regularly given cookies and such, so they tend to keep an eye out for my packages and bring them to the rental office. I am also the only resident to get my car dug out by the handymen after a snowstorm) but now at least I know she will be waiting for me in the rental office when I get home after work on some later day.
I already have a name picked out for Chantilly. I have a great affinity for Quentin Tarantino films even the ones he himself did not direct, but even the ones he just writes like True Romance (although I hate the way they butchered the soundtrack, I would have much preferred it the way it was originally written versus the one we ended up with). I had it in the back of my mind for a while that I would like to name a pullip (or dal), after the character Alabama but I never seemed to fit any of them but I think Chantilly will be the perfect match for the name. The song “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper plays during one of the scenes (the phone booth/ sex scene that shortly follows) of True Romance, so I am taking it as a sign that Chantilly’s name should be Alabama. I have also decided my 2010 naming scheme for the dal will be places, 2008’s theme was food and 2009’s theme was alcohol so I decided to change things up a bit this time.
In other dolly news, I also have a NRFB Paja on the way from Yahoo Japan won in the very early hours of Christmas morning.
