I came across one of these dolls just by chance, and it made such an impression that I had to purchase one and take it home and find out more about it. The internet was pretty limited in terms of information. I found one very outdated and problematic website called www.rustiedolls.com that I was able to find out a bit of information and background but couldn't really find much of anything else. A lot of the picture links were broken and it looked like it was a fan maintained website where the fan well stopped maintaining it.

Background information:

Rustie dolls are a line of studio originals, artist original porcelain dolls, and limited edition production dolls created by the award-winning doll artist known as Rustie. Her career spanned over 25 years and she was renowned for designing elaborate, richly detailed collector dolls. I'm pretty sure that career ended - either she retired or she passed away because there is no current information out there on her.

Rustie's creations have garnered many awards and attracted affluent collectors worldwide. Her dolls are highly sought after for their exquisite stylea nd the meticulous attention to detail that goes into each piece. Rustie's designs have been recognized with prestigious awards like the DOTY (Doll of the Year) and TORI Awards. The dolls come in various themes, including a line of Native American Indian porcelain artist dolls.

Rustie's passion for fashion and design is evident in her work as she ensures that each doll is a masterpiece and you'll see some of that work in her gigantic porcelain models often in vintage and historical throwbacks.

So what does this look like - here's a photo from an ebay listing for the Porcelain Bride. Now this picture looks much like a BJD fashion doll in the photo - but what you need to understand is that the actual doll is 40" LARGE. Yes folks - this doll is just over 3 feet tall, porcelain and that dress and hat is absolutely huge. Did Rustie make smaller dolls? Absolutely, but if you are really looking for a wow in your collection, then one of the large size is the way to go. Now granted a lot of these dolls were made in the 90's and early 2000's so some of the design work can look a little dated. But there are only a handful of doll artists that tackle dolls this big so it makes a big statement and they are rare. If you type Rustie doll into the search box on ebay, yes you will get a whole bunch of listings - but you will notice that almost none of them are the same doll. This is because these dolls were all limited runs and numbered. The highest price ones go for upwards of $700 and are like-new in the box. Out of box can be $200-$500 depending on their condition.

Now to give you an idea of the size, take a look at this shot in a bathroom in proportion to this doll. Now I have seen these dolls in person and it's massive sparkles and rhinestones in this absolutely huge doll.

I mean, if you are into huge hats and dresses, you'll fall in love with these creations because you get 3 feet of massive dress and hat.

Now because information is limited on these dolls, and I actually have one now I can tell you a bit about the construction. It's built like an antique doll, where only a portion of the bust/head connects to a soft body and therefore the hands/forearms are made of porcelain but the rest of the arm is soft body and similar to the legs as well. The arms are completely bendable, so in the ones with massive dresses, there is a loop ribbon that the hand holds to hold the dress as you can see in the above picture, but that you can also raise the arm higher or lower or bend it more to pose her. The head is able to turn and move, so she can be posed to look in any direction. The other arm can be bent to hold the hat or fan out in the direction of the dress. The doll I bought did not come with a stand. I bent the legs to position her to stand, but she had a tendency to fall forward which is never a good thing with a porcelain doll and she is heavy - I'd say 20lbs with her dress and her hat, so I'd go for finding a stand or make sure you bend her backwards enough and lean her up against a wall. She has real eyelashes on the top, and her bottom lashes are painted on. Thin stretched lips and natural make-up, and you can tell it's not a generic porcelain company made doll. If you've got one out of the box and missing it's COA, on the back of the neck is the # of the doll and how many they made. For instance mine says #250 of 2,000. I've also seen runs where only 500 were made. These dolls ar