Ty Girlz clothes on Moxie Teenz

The Moxie Teenz are among my favorite playline dolls but their clothing options are limited due to their oddball 14" height. The line was cancelled after three years so they didn't have a chance to build up a large wardrobe. 

MGA released three waves of MT dolls, several wigs and accessory sets, and some fashion packs. How many outfits? I can't find a good source for detailed information about these dolls, apparently they weren't popular enough (please post a comment if you know of a website that shows all the available fashion packs). All I know is that my local TRU has had the same three MT outfits on sale for well over a year, but Google Images indicates there were some MT fashions released earlier that I didn't see in person.

This is how I display my Teenz:

My collection has all four dolls in the 1st wave (plus an extra Arizona from a thrift shop), no dolls from the 2nd wave, and two new dolls introduced in wave 3 (Gavin the boy and Leigh the redhead). Wave 3 dolls have rooted hair, don't buy them if you want to play with the MT wigs.

You can see how tall the 14" Teenz look compared to a Monster High doll on the far left and a Liv doll on the far right. Liv dolls make good little sisters to the Teenz, despite being manufactured by a different company. Both lines feature wigs, big heads, inset eyes, and articulated bodies.

Ty Girlz, the clothing donors

A sample of some of the Ty Girlz produced before their cancellation in 2012

You might think the Ty Girlz look kinda cute in this photo, but the dolls are so much worse in person. I don't mean to insult anyone who likes them, they're just not my taste at all.

Ty Girlz clothing is far from a guaranteed perfect fit on Moxie Teenz dolls. I think most of the TG pants are too small, but I haven't been able to try all of the styles available. Stick to skirts to be safe. If pants fit over the thighs they'll look like capris or clam diggers. Sleeves look short on the longer MT arms, but they can be rolled up to the elbow or left alone for a 3/4 length sleeve. Some shirts reveal the belly, which isn't always a bad look, especially on dolls with a flat stomach.

thrift store score

I've found several Ty Girlz at thrift shops, plus the one carded outfit shown above. At the usual $2 or $3 thrift price I don't mind picking up a doll just for her outfit, especially if it'll help the Teenz expand their wardrobe. (I'm not sure what their retail price was but the Ty Girlz are discontinued so it no longer matters, and I never saw them in regular stores anyway.) I don't buy every Ty doll I see because some of the clothes are boring or they don't look like they'd be a good fit for the Teenz.

Three Ty Girlz outfits on Moxie Teenz (shoes are MT). 

The Paris shirt seems appropriate for a doll named Bijou

The skirts look short, but compare them to this official Moxie Teenz skirt shown on the right (below):

Ty Girlz skirt on left, Moxie Teenz skirt on right

Above: the two Arizonas, both first wave but their lips are different shades of pink. After this photo I swapped their wigs, the casual straight style looked better with a more casual outfit. 

I also decided there were too many short skirts in the MT lineup on my shelf, so preppie Arizona is now wearing Bijou's original skinny jeans. I like this look even better:

Here's another Ty Girlz outfit modelled on Moxie Teen Leigh. As you can see, the jeans look like clam diggers:

Wanna go clamming?

TG jeans have velcro sides to ease in redressing the stuffed fabric bodies. This feature also helps slide the tight jeans over plastic MT thighs, but it was still quite a struggle putting the jeans on Leigh. The sides don't close completely on MT legs, so it's not a good fit. It looks OK from the front but I don't recommend you buy a TG outfit with jeans for your MT dolls, unless you really love the shirt. TG pants made from stretchier fabric would likely fit fine around MT thighs, but they'd still be short.

Most of the Ty shirts have Velcro down the back but this preppie shirt made things a little more difficult:

There's no opening in the front or back. I almost gave up and cut it down the back, I thought her arms were going to break! In hindsight I should've tried to put the shirt on starting at her feet, it looks like the neck opening would stretch over her hips.

Bottom line: It's worth taking a second look at Ty dolls in thrift shops if your Teenz need more clothes. Keep the limitations in mind (avoid pants and accept the sleeves will look 3/4 length if you don't roll them up) and you probably won't regret buying a Ty Girl for her clothes, especially at cheap thrift store prices.

A Moxie Surprise

Guess who I saw again?

Looks like nobody wanted to spend $5 on Moxie Teen Arizona. I found her again at Value Village with a new price tag. This is definitely the same doll, I remember the flower sticker on her forehead added as a unique touch by her former owner. The jacket would've been nice but I'm happy she has her shoes and a basic shirt. My plan is to dye her clothing, maybe I'll experiment with dyeing the doll too (she's a duplicate in my collection). Don't ask why $5 seemed too much but $3 was acceptable, I can't explain it.

Aside: As you've probably noticed I usually round prices up because it seems silly to say $2.99 when $3 is essentially the same thing, and $3 is a more accurate reflection of the price, if that makes sense to anyone else. I won't report something cost $2 when it was really $2.99 but that's how we as customers are trained to think of prices ending in 95 or 99 cents.

First wave Arizona, she needs a bath

Her lips look different than my other 1st wave Arizona, the lip liner is more pronounced. I wish Arizona had brown eyes, Madison has blue eyes with a tan and they look too similar on my shelf, though it helps if I put a blonde wig on Madison. Oh well. I could change them if I want to but it's not worth ordering new eyes and switching them out, the eyes would cost more than the doll. :)

Let's see what all was included in her bag, I don't think I've documented one of these thrifted random bags of toys before.

1. Moxie Teen Arizona w/ pink shirt, skirt with attached lace leggings, black boots
2. Mattel fairy doll
3. cute Mattel picnic basket
4. brown and white skirt with blue trim, homemade
5. plaid skirt (the waist is a little big on Arizona, she's wearing it here)
6. red and pink striped hat, too big for any of my dolls
7. tiny shirt
8. two pink and white chairs, one is missing the white back piece
   
9. a rectangle of purple nylon fabric

Not bad for $3 but none of it's worth anything to me without the Arizona doll too. As usual I'll do one of three things with this extra stuff: 1) keep it, 2) donate it back, 3) give it to my nieces (they're almost 3 and 5). Sometimes I'll throw an item out if it's true junk and not worth putting back into the thrift stream.

Speaking of changing prices... starting last week the local Goodwill is once again putting $2 and $3 stickers on a lot of their fashion dolls. This isn't a big deal but it'll affect how many dolls I thrift. On Monday I ended up not buying a couple $3 dolls I would've purchased if they had been $1.29, which is the price I've grown accustomed to. One was a Moxie Girl missing a foot-shoe (it snaps on at the ankle, just like Bratz shoes) with wrecked hair and a cute but dirty outfit that had noticeable play wear. I wanted her for a Monster High CAM body but I'll wait to find a cheaper donor doll. Oh well! If the Goodwill doll is in great condition then $3 is fine, but I'll be a lot pickier now.

Here's an example of a Moxie Girl I bought a couple months ago for $1.29:

This is my only intact Moxie Girl (the other one was a thrifted mess and I turned her into a MH CAM body last week). I probably would've paid $3 for this MG, but at $1.29 she was an easy purchase. I'm not cutting her up because she's adorable and there isn't anything wrong with her. :) I can't imagine buying more of these Moxie Girlz dolls new in stores because they're not exactly my style but I couldn't resist this cutie with such a great outfit.

I love her freckles!

 

A new outfit for Moxie Teen Bijou

Bijou

I was poking around Flickr and read that MGA's 14" Moxie Teenz can wear some Ty Girlz outfits. That's the same Ty responsible for flooding the world with Beanie Babies. Uh, wonderful. Ty Girlz have zero appeal to me but I filed this information away in my brain -- Bijou and Tristen need new clothes. I didn't expect to find a Ty Girlz doll any time soon though, especially not at a price I was willing to pay just for the outfit. Then I stopped by the Goodwill a few days later and found one! It was well worth $1.29 to satisfy my curiosity and see how the outfit fit my MT girls.

Seriously, can doll companies stop with the words ending in Z instead of S already? It's ridiculouz.

Here is Moxie Teen Bijou in a Moxie Teenz pink wig, she borrowed the hat and boots from her MT friend Tristen. The sparkly shirt, pleather jacket, and pants are from Ty Girlz Rockin' Ruby. I love Bijou so much, she's 100 times prettier in person and this pink wig looks perfect on her!

Clearly I need to work on my lighting skills. I'll get better!

This outfit was sewn onto the Rockin' Ruby fabric body with a few simple stitches tacking down each piece, including the choker (not shown, I need to resize it to fit Bijou's smaller neck). This was a happy surprise because it increases the odds of finding a used Ty Girl still in her complete outfit. The shoes are part of the doll's feet however, so they can't be removed.

Important note: This is the only Ty Girl I've seen in person so I don't know if other dolls in this line have some clothing pieces that can't be removed. It might depend on the doll, buyer beware.

The pants are too short for Bijou but otherwise fit well and the legs could be tucked into boots (same with Ken doll pants on Moxie Teenz, btw). The sleeves on the jacket are also too short but this can be fixed with black faux fur or black lace trim around the wrists. The jacket as it appears in this photo looks like it might be too small but Bijou could close her new jacket with double-stick tape (there are no fasteners to hold it shut). I didn't want to cover up her sparkly top so I left it open.

This was a moderate success so I'll keep my eye out for more Ty Girlz at thrift shops. It seems like dresses, skirts, shorts, and short sleeve shirts from Ty Girlz would probably fit Moxie Teenz without modification, but that is just a guess based on very limited information. Avoid pants and long sleeves unless you want to modify the length with trim. Some Ty Girlz pants might look like cute capri pants on the Moxie Teenz but the bell bottoms shown here aren't the right style for that effect.