HelloNana Nana dolls - Nana Makeba

 So this is an unusual one.

In my random ebay scrolling I came across a listing for a doll i'd never seen before, new in box.

It peaked my curiosity and was pretty inexpensive so I picked her up. 

 

 

 

 

So this is a Nana Doll, which from my research turns out to be a small line of "aspirational black dolls" designed in Ghana (though their contact info all seems to be UK based) and founded by Fuse ODG who's an afrobeats musician back in 2018? I think? Finding the actual launch date is a bit tricky I found. 

Nana is a title in Ghana, it means something along the lines of king/queen/monarch but that's only a very loose translation. 

Their website can be found here.

Anyway, 

like a lot of these black doll brands, it's a teensy tiny company who's whole aim is "black kids deserve dolls that look like them" which I wholeheartedly agree with. 

And much like a lot of these tiny companies, the dolls are NOT CHEAP and predominantly sold in small little independent stores or online.

these dolls retail for a whopping £20 which feels pretty steep to me, but let's get a better look.

(it's also worth mentioning that every doll sold contributes money to building a school in Ghana)

I admit I initially thought this doll was a lot older than she is. Her box and her general design SCREAM 1990s to me, she reminded me a lot of dolls like Imani and Kenya. Her purple eyeshadow is particularly Imani lol. 

The back of the box tells you a bit about each character in the line. They're all named after influential African women. 

Nana Makeba, the doll I have, is named after Miriam Makeba, so is a singer. 

I find it curious they went with the surnames rather than their first names. This may be a cultural thing i'm unaware of, or it could simply be to make the dolls sound more obviously African. I don't know.

This girl has a LOT of hair. It's amazing.

Also it's surprisingly soft. 

It isn't overly well rooted unfortunately. They missed a line at the front which means you can see the indent of her scalp. Poor girl. 

There's a lot of it though and it doesn't seem to be shedding much which is nice. Ooo it's nice to touch. I dunno what fibre it is but it's sooooooft.

I've never seen a doll fixed to a backing card like this. It's two hooks and a piece of elastic. This was ALL that held her into her box. No plastic tabs, no staples in her head, just a little piece of elastic around her waist. You unclip it from the hook on one side and bam, she's free. 

I like this. 

She uses a lightweight Barbie clone body with articulated knees (old fashioned hinge joint) but static arms. 

The body has some scuffing on one side of the chest for some reason. 

It's a cheap body but it feels like it'll withstand play okay. Still, for a £20 doll it's really light and very clearly a cheap china knockoff body.

Wierdly, her head is unmarked. Her body just says "china" on the back.

She has a kind of ashy complexion and her head is quite hard. You can see her poorly rooted hairline here.

Her makep is very... old fashioned... purple and green extreme eyeshadow that looks more like something you'd see on an  80s doll and pale purplish pink lips that photograph a lot lighter than they actually are. I mean they're light, but they're not as pink as they look here.

She has asymetrical eyebrows as well. 

My doll had paint smears on the side of her face. So the qc on these dolls is not brilliant. 

She has pierced ears but no earrings. Wierd. I personally think she'd rock some gold hoops or something.

She has a really cute nose but beyond that her features are quite... I dunno, kinda generic barbie doll. 

She has molded panties, rubbery arms and hard plastic legs that can barely splay sideways. She can sit, but that's about all she can do. The poseability of this body is EXTREMELY limited. 

For some inexplicable reason she comes with a pair of blue heels, there's no blue on the doll or her outfit so they stand out and look really jarring and bad. 

they're not terribly made shoes, they're made of a thick vinyl which makes them easy to get on and off but they don't work with her outfit at all. 

but as she's basically a Barbie clone, she can wear a lot of different Barbie sized shoes. Once I find my shoe stash I should be able to find her some more suitable footwear. A lady needs decent shoes.

I like her outfit though. The African fabric is so colourful and fun and I love me some yellow. It's so rarely used with dolls and I dig it.

The outfit is well made but in a home made sort of way. It doesn't look factory made, more "someone with a home sewing machine" if you get what I mean. 

but it's put together solidly and fits the doll well. 

I felt her neck looked a little bare without a necklace or something so I rummaged around and found this Bratz necklace for her. I also felt like her hair was a bit too big to be that realistic (not to mention it'd get in the way. Having previously had long curls that stuff gets EVERYWHERE! it's annoying as shit. lol) so I had a go at styling it into a more managable style with a cute little headscarf that tied in with the green on her outfit.

I think she's cute like this. 

Though I will say, i'm not overly impressed by the quality of this doll. 

I admire the goal, but I find it quite annoying how often these sorts of dolls crop up with all this talk of "black girls deserve black dolls" but don't also add "black girls deserve GOOD black dolls". 

the quality on a lot of these sorts of "african queen" dolls (there's a fair few of them out there) always reeks of half heartedness. A barbie clone body, a reused or derivative head sculpt, an inflated price tag and inadequate quality control. 

Much like brands like Lammily which were sold purely on idiology rather than the quality of the product, I feel like Nana dolls aren't really trying hard enough to not only be their own thing, but to be their own GOOD thing.

because black kids deserve toys that represent them, but they also deserve well made toys that represent them and don't cost double what the white toys cost. You know what I mean? 

And I get that these are small companies who don't really have the money to invest the same way Mattel or MGA can, and that's fine and dandy, but you look at say Fresh Dolls, or Lottie, both of which are tiny little companies that decided there was a niche they could fill and while both aren't overly cheap, both DO have unique sculpts and are constantly talking to customers and improving their diversity and their quality. 

Sadly Fresh Dolls aren't sold here in the UK and import fees make them prohibitively expensive (I really wanted some of the boys) but my point is, I look at the quality of my Fresh doll or my Olmec Imani from the 90s and compare them to Nana and there's really no contest. 

And it annoys me that for all the good intentions, so many of these little startups then take the cheap easy route to shill some low quality dolls with a "diversity premium" price. 

Of course these small companies will never be the same level as Mattel or something because they just don't have the money to invest to that level, but i'm tired of cheap chinese clone barbie bodies.

I know, I know, you want the dolls to be interchangeable with Barbie stuff but come ON. It's lazy and it's cheap. 

She's an interesting find, but she's in no way worth the £20 the company are asking and frankly, I think it's quite exploitative that they're charging that sort of money for this level of quality. 

it's shameful. 

I will give her this though, she has nice soft hair and a very funky outfit. 

And her features remind me a LOT of several different 90s dolls. Imani, Hasbro's Sindy, Mattel's Crissie... there's even a touch of Steffi Love there. 

But really, at this point, with so much competition, you gotta bring something new to the table. Nana doesn't really bring anything new, she's yet another Barbie clone sold on politics rather than merit as a doll. Which is sad because damnit, kids deserve ethnically diverse dolls that are sold as GOOD DOLLS. Nana feels very old fashioned, very outdated.

And it's something i'm gonna continue to bitch about because even Mattel is guilty of this shit with their asian representation often being a half arsed pixelly release in a sack dress and ugly shoes.

there's a lot the company are doing that's to be applauded. They're teaching history with their doll bios, they're encouraging pride and they're giving kids in Ghana a doll that's "theirs" which is very cool. I mean there's a lot of cultural pride in your nation's own doll brand. Just look at Sindy and the UK. I just wish they were a little more... individual and a little better quality.

I do though wonder how much they are in Ghana, it may be the UK price is just really inflated. It's definitely possible that they really were never designed to really be sold over here (despite the company being based in the UK) and were really supposed to be for a Ghanian market and needed to be kept to a certain price point.

Nana Makeba isn't terrible, but she's rather overwhelmingly "just okay" which is a real pity. 

Still, it's cool to have an African doll to join my gang. She'll fit in well with the other international dolls. And I still think her outfit is freaking cool. 

Now to find her some decent shoes.

every queen should have a decent assortment of shoes don't you think?

Damn she's giving me serious 90s doll flashbacks here.