Monster High - Freak Du Chic Clawdeen and Twyla

I'm ALIVE!

I know right? It's been like over a month but I am alive! We had some... life stuff happen. It got in the way of dolly purchases.
But it did give me some time to open some stuff I had laying about for a "rainy day".

Remember in my last "I bought this stuff" roundup I talked about some Monster High dolls i'd bought but not deboxed? Well I have now, so here's my rather muddled review of them!

Hopefully things will settle down irl soon and I can actually get into some sort of routine with this. I feel bad slacking off but there's not much new hitting shelves atm and all the "old" stuff i'm getting second hand off ebay. I will cover those purchases too.

So... Monster High purchase SPAM shall happen over the next few days/weeks! Prepare yourselves.

First up is Freak Du Chic, specifically the Target/Argos exclusive pair Clawdeen and Twyla.

I didn't bother picking up the other FDC stuff because while I love the circus theme, I just couldn't justify it. These two however were special enough I knew I wanted them in my life.

Unlike the rest of the circus line these two are kinda desaturated and quite strikingly different.

Clawdeen is a "lion" tamer while Twyla is a stilt walking clown... I think.

At £20 they were a little costly, though I got Twyla for £12 in clearance,  a few days later Argos put them back up despite removing them from their catalog (jerks)

Anyway, let's get these suckers open at long last!

We'll start with Twyla:

The boxes are kinda cool. While they have those awful plastic fronts to them, the backing cards are really artistic. Both boxes are different and have this little cutout flap of the character to give the 3d effect.

This is Twyla's box. There she is in the corner, in a somewhat awkward looking over her shoulder pose but in the background there's what looks like a unicycle and two more stilt clowns coming out into the ring.

Aside from Twyla herself, the whole backdrop is done in shades of red and grey. I like it, I can't remember a time they did backgrounds that were TOTALLY different in boxes. Exchange did slight tweaks to the same overall image that were related to each character, but this is a whole new scene each time.
Do the regular FDC dolls have these backdrops too?

For reference, this is Clawdeen's box. It's a cage and above there's someone on the high wire.

Notice that there's a little white "there's something behind here" label? At first I thought that meant there was a diary or something, but it's not a diary, it's something a little cuter:

CIRCUS POSTERS!

I think these are designed to slot into that playset Rochelle comes with. They're printed on thick cardboard, the other side is blank boring grey but the fronts are awesome.

I find it interesting that Twyla gains a surname on her card, but hasn't got one on her box. Boogeyman, it's such a lazy surname lol. Then again, so is "Wolf" lol.

Anyway, these are cute. I like them. I almost wish I had some way to properly display them.

Anyway, here's Twyla... two Twyla's in fact. Original Twyla from 13 wishes, and this fun clown stilt one.
Her stilts make her SO tall, but she is actually on the same little sister body.
I find it kinda amusing they took a short character and gave her stilts, it makes me smile.

These exclusives, it's worth noting, DO come with stands. The generic black stands, Twyla only just fits on hers with her stilts on.

Her hair is the usual teal colour with black streaks, styled in this big poofy style with thick curls. It's a little messy at the back, to get it to stick up like this is has to be pulled up and put into a sort of messy high ponytail so it doesn't look that great from the back, but it's super effective from the front.
I expected frizz out the box, but some finger poofing up the curls removed the worst of the box flatness and I think it looks pretty decent.

She has curled bangs, I like Twyla with bangs, I think they help make her rather mature face look a little younger.

She has purple eyebrows, teal and grey eyeshadow and grey eyes with a purple crescent shape to just give them the hint of colour.
Around her eyes she has these curled tendrils and purple lower lashes, and then big blue/teal circles on each cheek.

Her lips are pale purple and shimmery.

I find it interesting to note that her original release doll had teal eyebrows, she also had purple lower lashes but a wider painted mouth.

Original's skin tone is a LOT more purple. Freak Du Chic Twyla is very pale, she's still purple but there's a greyish quality to her skin tone.

I'm convinced Freak Du Chic has a bigger head than 13 wishes. Her head just looks so much larger, it's messing with my brain.

She also has bigger eyes. Just.. the face mould looks enlarged and different.

The grey that travels up FDC's arms is paler like the rest of her.

Even the legs are different. While 13 wishes has this elaborate series of wisps and curls, FDC has a much simpler single "smoke" effect on the side of her leg.

Her outfit is a single piece bodysuit/romper, a similar style to outfits we've seen Twyla in before actually. I think the style works better as a clown costume than a genuine piece of fashion though, no teenager should seriously wear a romper, rompers are for toddlers man.

Her clown romper has an attached puffy collar, a chequered upper piece and then a spider pattern body and puffy shorts with a ruffle around the middle. There are fishnet sleeves too and two big fuzzy pom poms slightly off-centered. I don't know if they're meant to be off centre like this, but mine has lopsided pompoms.



You can better see her wierd high ponytail/half bun thing here.

Her socks are fishnet and have attached ribbony bits in the exact same fabric as Gooliope's underskirt and indeed the fabric reused across the entire Freak Du Chic line.
I kinda like that cohesion, it's a nice touch to tie all the dolls together.

The ribbon pieces are way too long without the stilts on.

Speaking of the stilts, here they are.

These things are awesome. they attach to the leg with a shoe section and a cuff that clips around the leg.
The plastic is very soft and pliable so they're really easy to get on and off, but likewise rather easy to twist out of shape.

They have a thick chunky bottom to them with swirling shapes, they kinda remind me of table legs, or perhaps... bed legs? (get it, boogieman? beds? I might be stretching)

The shoe section itself actually clips off, there's a thick peg sole on the front of the shoe and slots into a big hole in the stilt quite securely.

The shoes without the stilt attached are still awesome, but look a little unbalanced with no heel I think.

Twyla also comes with her pet dust bunny Dustin, only this time he's green and dressed up like one of those wind up monkeys.

Interestingly, they look to have used a totally new sculpt here instead of just altering the existing one. He's smaller for a start.

And he has a fatter butt, more rounded lower leg and shorter stockier head.



And so we move on to Clawdeen.

As the "lion tamer", Clawdeen of course comes with her "lion" (we'll get to that) and a purple flaming hoop for said "lion" to leap through.

It's a bit of a pain to get her to hold it.

Both Clawdeen and Twyla have very rubbery hands in this release, more rubbery than I recall any other Monster High doll i've handled. They're soft and extremely pliable, but this means Clawdeen's hands, which were packaged with her holding the hoop in box, were distorted quite badly. Thankfully BECAUSE they're soft and pliable, they can be shoved back into shape. But likewise, because they're so soft and squishy, her hand doesn't really hang into the slot of the hoop that sturdily.
She also has a weak elbow, while Twyla had a weak knee. Again from the poses they're tied into the box in. It means the weight of the hoop drags Clawdeen's arm downward and while i could fix Twyla's iffy leg with a teeny clear elastic band around the joint (pro tip there), the elbows aren't as easy to repair. Hmmm.

This Clawdeen is a little tricky to photograph. First thing you might notice, she's not brown. Or rather, she IS brown but only very slightly.
Her skin is a very pale greyish brown tone, there's the hint of brown but only the hint.
It's a very unusual colour but it ties in with Twyla also being desaturated.
What I can't work out though is why only these two are done like this. Why do the other dolls all come in their usual bright colours and these two get almost greyscale releases? It doesn't make sense!

Anyway

Clawdeen's eyes are bright yellow and really stand out against her paleness. Her hair is a pale lavender colour with thick black sections at the back, her eyebrows are purple and she has this incredible purple "claw" facepaint down both cheeks.
Her lips are a sort of deep puce colour.

She wears a tophat on a headband much like Avea's, with a big white... rose on it? I don't understand the significance of the flower but eh.. ok.

She has no earrings.

Alongside a regular skin toned Clawdeen, this girl looks ghostly.
She could almost be a totally different character!

Alongside similarly toned dolls, you can see she's not quite grey like Moucedes is, but not quite as brown as Marisol. Her skin tone is impossible to describe.

Her outfit is a bit complicated.
First and foremost, her "gloves" are painted on, or rather I believe her entire lower arm and hand is moulded in black plastic. But it works.

She wears a short sleeved top with a sort of ribcage like effect on the front. I think it's meant to be corsetting but i'm a bit baffled by it. It's chunky and plastic and honestly gets in the way.
Her bodice on my doll is sewn lopsided, so it doesn't quite sit straight anyway.
over this grey top she wears a big fuzzy bolero/shrug in pale purple. It has an elastic band at the back so it can be slid on and off. She also has a simple black necklace that looks to be... teeth or something.
Not sure if this is a reused necklace or not.

Her pants are zebra print, almost. The pattern is very reminicent of the standard "freak du chic" pinstripe used on all the other dolls and indeed that very fabric is used for the "tails" of her shirt.

Hiding under all that fur there's also a really chunky upper arm cuff that's three black belts.
Her top is made from stiff brocade-like fabric and has tails, then there's this random... extra tail made from the FDC sheer fabric. On mine it's not central. I don't know if whoever made my Clawdeen's outfit was drunk that day, or simply didn't give a shit or if it's supposed to be lopsided, but nothing about her shirt actually sits in a way that seems right. The tails are wonky, the bodice itself has a tendency to twist to one side throwing the line of the garment off and then there's this strange wonky extra bit of fabric.

I dunno, it's a bit of a mess honestly.

Moving down, Clawdeen does however have INCREDIBLE boots. I mean holy crud these are cool boots.

for a start they're knee high, and they're made of soft pliable plastic textured to look like leather or hide. There are little studs going all the way up, a stiletto heel and the tongue extends into what looks almost like shin pads.

these boots are seriously cool, I think I might be in love with them.

You can better see her wonky bodice here, the ruffled peplum sort of.. thing of her top and the arm cuff. Her painted lower arms actually have moulded wrinkles even, to make them look more like gloves which I had to admit, it pretty damn clever.

Just like Twyla, Clawdeen also comes with a pet. And just like Dustin was different, Crescent is pretty much unrecognisable as a "lion" here.

Original Crescent has a long sinuous body with a long thing tail, wide eyes, a scar or some sort of line across both eyes and this sort of savage look to her.
Also she's dark purple.

New lion Crescent not only has a big fluffy mane and is pale greyish purple, but is substantially stockier and flatter faced. Her eyes are wide and cute and even her ears are pointier.

You aren't fooling me Clawdeen, these are two totally different cats!

Overall? Despite some dodgy seamstressing, this pair are awesome. I know there's some who will moan about Clawdeen being "whitewashed" and it does seem a little odd for Mattel to only greyscale these two characters, but the effect on them IS really neat. They look like they stepped out of an old timey news reel and that's awesome.

Their outfits are very detailed and while Clawdeen's bodice is a hot mess, structurally they're all sound and well made. No loose seams, no unhemmed bits and some really nice fabrics and textures used.
The hair is soft and held the curl on both dolls actually pretty well, they look decent straight out the box just with a little finger combing to "fluff" the hair out.
Even Clawdeen's painted arms were well thought out, they look decent and not just slapdash "it'll do". Their facepaint is cool and the addition of new pets and some incredibly detailed shoes is just icing on the cake.

The Freak Du Chic line as a whole is pretty awesome looking but these two? they steal the show.

A solid 8 out of 10 imposter kitties. Let down only by Clawdeen's drunk bodice, some iffy joints and those super squishy hands.