Catwalk kitties

I was digging through my box'o'dolls last night and came across my Catwalk Kitties.
They were an odd line that appeared sometime in the early 2000s and never seem to have really taken off.
I don't know much about them, I came to the line late and all three of mine were bought second hand so i've never had the fun of deboxing a brand new one. You don't see them for sale very often on Ebay and places like that so I don't think there are that many of these girls around, but they're unique and very very odd.
I love odd, so of course I love the Catwalk kitties.

So I decided to use Topaz as my model for this ramble. She was one I recieved minus her original clothing unfortunately, though my other two (Annika and Toffee) both have their original clothes. Their outfits are nice, decent quality and Barbie sized with holes to accommodate their tails.

Anyway, this is Topaz (Warning, dolly nudity!)

 

The catwalk kitties are a similar size to your standard Barbie, though stand a little taller thanks to their giant heads. 

Overall Topaz is very heavy, her body is dense and well built, her head is made from quite thick plastic and doesn't have a lot of give to it. Her only downside is her hair which is coarse nylon and prone to frizzing. it also hides her moulded kitty ears which is such a shame.  Her face is very flat and very very cat-like. I appreciate how feline she is, rather than the lazy cat ears/human face combo you often see.

She has a cute little pink nose, a slightly open mouth and huge blue eyes with silver shadow. Her cheeks are lightly blushed and like several of the kitties, she has white stripe tabby markings. I feel it's a shame these tabby markings didn't carry over to her body though, some stripes on her arms and legs would have been awesome. 

 

They have very limited articulation, their shoulders, chest, head and hips are the only movement you'll get. Their tail however is totally bendy, it has a wire inside so you can twist it into just about any shape or position you want. 

The arms are all the same on these dolls. One straight, one bent as if to rest on the hip. 

The legs are your typical soft rubbery affair but they don't move much.

The chest joint allows for some very unnatural poses. It only twists around rather than pivoting like the Barbie Fashionistas, so while poor kitty won't be bending down any time soon, she can pull off some pretty freaky spineless positions. 

It's not a very practical joint. Even twisted to the side like this it sticks out from her slender waist and is very obviously boxy.

 

That lovely tail. It's soft and so bendy but it does make redressing a bit of a pain. 

The outfits these dolls came packaged in had velcro flaps which left a little hole for the tail, a great idea but it does limit their fashion choices. Regular Barbie clothing does fit, but pants and skirts can't be fully done up because of the tail. 

I like that they have a tail though, it's a cute touch and makes them far more than just a Barbie with a kitty head tacked on. 

 

Speaking of cute touches, OMG PAWS! The catwalk kitty hands are fantastic. They're tiny detailed little paws. My only gripe is that they're a little disproportionately small for the doll. They have little claws and moulded paw pads, sooo cute!

Another unusual feature of the Catwalk kitties was the choice to go a bit Bratz with the feet pegs. The shoes clip on and off just like a Bratz doll, though the feet are much more in proportion and don't provide a heavy base that allows the doll to stand (I always kinda liked that about Bratz)
Unfortunately this again, limits your redressing ability. Each pair of shoes is matched to the kitty skin tone, and not many of them share a skin colour. Annika and Topaz are both grey but Toffee is yellow! No way can she wear either of her friend's shoes without looking ridiculous.

Bratz shoes have an ever so slightly bigger peg hole, but the shoes I tried did stay on, they just swivelled around quite freely. A pair of Bratz Boots would probably be fine.
Likewise, there's no reason you can't jam a pair of Barbie boots on over her stumps, her legs are a similar size and shape. So there are options.

Overall the Kitties have some awesome aspects. I love their faces, I love their little paw hands and I like their tails but their bodies are frustratingly static. Kitties should be agile and flexible! So let's experiment...

Here she is on a Monster High body. Her head is massive on this body, it's bigger than the MH girl heads!
Pros: Articulation
cons: No more cute paw hands or fluffy tail!

 

By comparison, her old body is seriously chunky. If only I could remove that tail without damaging anything but alas. Maybe a pipe cleaner would do the trick...

While her head is a similar height to the Monster High ghouls, it's a lot wider. She doesn't quite fit on poor thing.

Final thoughts:

The Catwalk Kitties line was, from what I understand of it, short lived and unsuccessful and I can see why. The dolls themselves are very strange and their appeal understandably limited. While little girls like cats, do they like freaky cat/human hybrids?
Personally I love them, though more articulation would have made them perfect in my eyes. However, I can see why they never took off. The concept of a bunch of kitty models was a cute one, but I feel they may have just been too inhuman looking for the regular kid.

There were a lot of characters in the range though, I only own three and i'd love more. particularly Cali who, being a calico cat, has two toned hair! EEE. This line is full of gorgeous little details like that which make me smile, I only wish they weren't so hard to find or so crazy expensive when they DO show up.

Also... they came with pet cats.... that freaks me out a bit.