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One master craftswoman is singlehandedly populating the uncanny valley of the dolls. Mistress Love Dolls
Denise Hall, a 37-year-old doll artist from Wales, creates hyperrealistic silicone babies that she later hawks for more than $4,000.
“Some of my customers love these dolls to the extent that they sleep with the dolls on their bed every night,” the mom of three told Media Drum World.
“It’s lovely when customers who cannot have children enjoy treat my dolls as their own offspring & witness the happiness it brings to them.”
The life-like dolls, called “reborns,” are often purchased by women who experience miscarriage, infertility or child death as a way of managing grief.
Jess Ellis, a mom to 13 reborn dolls, spent nearly $7,500 on her collection of silicone babies. She previously explained that it’s “therapeutic” to hold them, and says they’re helpful preparation before becoming a parent to a human child.
Despite the occasional critic calling Hall’s work “weird” or “scary,” many customers are collectors who appreciate the craftsmanship of sculpting the silicone reborns, which takes “several weeks,” she said.
First, she creates the clay mold for the doll before pouring a silicone mixture over the clay. After it sets, she breaks up the clay inside the mold and removes it, resulting in a “flexible silicone sculpture” which she paints.
Hall — an avid collector herself with more than 40 limited edition Disney princess dolls to her name — first stumbled across the realistic reborns on Etsy in 2008.
Shocked by how life-like the figurines appeared, she decided to make some herself and now takes custom requests from customers, some of whom ask for a doll that looks exactly like their own child.
Tifa Love Doll “I love creating my artwork, and the job allows me to continue to raise my children through these very difficult times I am going through,” said Hall, who has been raising her three kids on her own for nearly two years.