Suomenlinnan Lelumuseo

The Paper Doll Reflects the Fashion and the Ideal of Beauty of Its Time
  

From the 14th century on, details about the changes in fashion in Europe were passed on by fashion dolls. A fashion doll was a life-sized doll that was dressed in the latest modes. Information on new styles was also spread by pictures of costumes painted on a transparent glass. The flat costumes were put on a figure the same way you nowadays dress a paper doll.

A more practical way of representing modes was developed in England in the end of the 18th century. The Englishmen introduced a paper doll that soon became known as The English Fashion Doll. This doll was simply slipped into an envelope so that is was easy for anyone to take along. When the styles changed again, the paper dolls were naturally passed along as playthings to children since the mothers had finished with them. The paper doll playing tradition was born.

Publishers and printing houses utilized the idea of the paper doll in many European countries. The first dolls made especially for children to play with were published in London in 1810-1816. From England the paper doll sailed to America. The biggest manufacturer of paper dolls, the low-priced doll sheets in particular, was nevertheless Germany.

  
 

In the early days, the paper dolls and their costumes were ready cut out and sold in beautiful cardboard carrying cases or envelopes. When the dolls started to come out in sheets, publishers were able to print more dolls and the price became lower. Because of the reduced price, advertisers began to use paper dolls as free gifts and the dolls soon found their way also to the homes of those children who could not afford dolls’ houses or tin soldiers. The household had to own a pair of scissors, though.

In the mid 19th century, people in Finland got worried about the fact that Finnish children had very few toys that were of Finnish origin. By the end of the century the first big Finnish toy manufacturers started their business and in the beginning of the 20th century there were already several Finnish toy companies in this country. In the first years of the 20th century the manufacturers made cardboard sheets of buildings and soldiers only, and the first paper dolls did not come out until the 1920’s.

The paper doll became very popular in the 1920’s and 1930’s but the real golden age for paper dolls was the wartime 1939-1945. Because of the war, there was no import and all toys had to be made in Finland. For example artists such as August Tuhka, Brita Enckell, Inga Fagerholm, Arnold Tilgmann and Yrjö Könni drew paper dolls in those days. At the time of depression, paper dolls were reasonably priced for both the manufacturer and the buyer.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s paper dolls were printed in Finnish magazines. Nowadays it can be hard to find Finnish paper dolls anywhere else but in museum shops.