REVIEW: Be Fashion Academy

Okay, so these girls came out last year, I think? I completely forgot about them until recently. 

I think what makes them stand out is that the art was clearly done by the same artist that tackled Hairdorables. It's gorgeous! The full length art seen on the website almost makes you cry when you see what the dolls turned out to be. 

Not being the company, I can't really speculate much on what happened here. Why did they have such nice art when the dolls are so different? Cassie's glasses disappeared. Cassie, Balam and Kelia are all significantly lighter than their art. The shoes were so detailed. Augh. It's like they spent all their budget on the art. 

The boxes are huge, with a blurb about the line as a whole and then about the character. A large artwork of the character is on the right, while you can see the other four around a little sketch that punches out of the box so a budding fashion designer could try it out. 

I was drawn to Bryce because she reminds me of Vega from Star Darlings. So I ordered her from Amazon to give the line a whirl. 

Kelia reminds me a bit of Hairdorables Noah. Hera is your standard Barbie-ish blonde. A little bit of Stella from Winx in there, but that's my Winx nostalgia. Cassie doesn't have her glasses here. They must have scrapped them before designing the boxes. She does wear them in the art on the website though. 

Each doll comes with an activity and a dress form with a dress.

Bryce's unique accessories are a guitar (that has peg for a strap but no strap...sigh) and stencils. 

The character side of the activity sheet is the same for all five girls. 

But each has a different fashion "lesson." 

Bryce's goes along with her stencils. 

She's actually really cute. 

Her face reminds me a little of those Littlest Pet Shop Blythe dolls. 

The body I instantly recognized. It was part of the draw of this line for me. I'll get to that picture when we do Kelia next. 

Bryce has the worst shoes of the five. They don't even fit her. An open toe sandal where the toes don't peep out. 

She has these odd two long locks of hair. These don't appear in the art at all. It's like they had some sort of focus group that was against the short hair, glasses and skintone variety, so they made all the changes.

Without the jacket. The jacket is actually really nicely made. The top is very cheap. The shorts with sheer pant legs are in between. They're weird. I love them. 

Ah, Vega. 

I dunno why I like her so much, but I do. It isn't just the Vega resemblance. 

I used Kelia to model some of the second outfits. Bryce's is...yeah. Wow. The fabric is neat though. Is it so wide because kids are supposed to stencil it? I have no idea.

The belt helps, but this is easily the worst of the dresses.

Since she's shown herself above, let's move on to Kelia. 

She's the one who gave Quinn her orange dress. 

I wish she looked like that. Gorgeous. 

She's still cute. She's got the little barrettes. 

I do wish they'd tried harder to keep the coral/darker peach jacket though. 

Love her makeup. 

Kelia has some stickers to decorate her dress, plus sunglasses and a skateboard.

Her lesson is the stickers. 

Her outfit quality is mid-level. 

I had already realized I was right about the body and then here she is with shoes from the same old doll line. 

She has little fabric panties that are a nice touch. 

In her own dress. 

That's better, but I think Quinn wears it better. 

So what is this body I keep mentioning?

KURHN!

I had so many Kurhns back in my NYU days. Like 2007-2009. I have very happy memories from that time and these dolls remind me of that, which is likely part of why I was so attracted to Be Fashion, despite their obvious flaws. 

Moving on, here is Balam. I researched her name, wondering its origins, and everything I came up with was a masculine name. I think they were going for the Mayan version, because it means "jaguar." 

She might have my favorite art. 

Her accessories are a pair of sunglasses and the shoulder cat. 

Her lesson involves that mesh piece of fabric and different ways to use it. 

She bumped Bryce off as favorite the second I opened her. 

She's a badass. 

I'm not even a cat person, but I love all of this. 

She even looks good in the sunglasses! (Same ones as Kelia.)

Cassie is modelling her dress, because that light pink wasn't going to be flattering on Balam. 

It's okay. Not as bad as Bryce's, but the other three are better. 

I ordered Cassie from Walmart, because she'd sold out on Amazon. 

Ugh, she's SO CUTE. She would have been so awesome if they'd kept this skintone. I prefer the darker pink hair on the doll though. 

She has some beads and embroidery silks. Or whatever you call those. She also has a fabric purse that's cute, but ultimately pretty simple. 

Things to do with the dress elastic. 

Her hair is great! I love her makeup, eyes, dress, and boots, too. 

Adorable choker. 

And the crystal headband!

Her dress...is not a dress. 

I'm sure others could come up with something prettier, but this was my best result after messing around. I'm disappointing they didn't use this lovely fabric to make an actual dress, and have the elastic just be a separate piece. Bah. I still adore this color though. 

She and Bryce are tied for my second favorite after Balam. 

Finally, we have Hera. 

Still getting those Stella vibes. 

Her purse is super cheap. It's the worst accessory they made. 

Her lesson is her scarf. 

Now the purse may have been cheap, but the rest is not. Hera is the only one with pierced ears and she has huge rhinestones dangling from her earrings. She has a plastic necklace and belt. And the skirt on her dress is beautiful! 

I feel like she's a little more luxe than the others. 

She even has some tinsel. None of the others do. Maybe it's to make her stand out, considering she's just a blonde in a line with blue, green and pink hair. 

Her second dress is neat, but it looked better on the dress form than it does on Cassie. I tried it on VIP Hair Megan, but it was a no go. 

The dress forms are pretty neat. Three separate pieces that go together easily and remain stable. 

I have mixed feelings on this line. 

They're vastly overpriced at $34.99. I remember Kurhns not always being cheap, so sometimes these more obscure things are costly. But I chuckle a bit thinking of the people calling LUV overpriced. 

The art is gorgeous and eclipses the dolls. The changes from art to doll are certainly problematic. 

But they remind me of things that make me happy. Kurhns. Star Darlings. Hairdorables. Winx. They're fun and a nice addition to my eclectic collection. So they work for me. I don't think they're a particularly good doll line in any way, but they work for me. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.