What kind of company is Bella! Productions?
Bella! is literally a family owned and operated company. Christina heads the design, Robert heads the business, Robert's Mom supervises and different family members (brothers, sisters, cousins) help out from counsulting to stuffing envelopes. We are looking to stay small and to stay focused on creating highly collectible products for our collectors.

Does Bella! Productions sell direct or through dealers?
Bella! is a combination direct sales and dealer supprted company. We are dedicated to creating "collectible" dolls, fashions and accessories. Artistic Director Christina "Bogie" Bougas feels very strongly that flooding the market with Clea Bella products will break down the integrity of keeping the line "collectable. We therfore strive to keep our edition sizes very low. Our combinatin of direct sales and dealer orders allows us to produce low edition and high quality products without the high price normally associated with such small edition sizes.

DOLL SPECS:

How tall is Clea Bella?
Clea is 16" on ballet point, 15 1/2" on fashion foot, and 15 1/4" on flat foot (available 2004). Clea is a 4:1 ratio doll. (four dolls stacked head to toe would equal one life size woman.) At present, she is the most petite of all the 4:1 ratio dolls. If Clea were a real person she would stand about 5'2" and wear a size 2 dress (We don't know about you, but all the women working at Bella! are extremely jealous!)

How many Clea Bella Face Sculpts are there?
Artistic Director Christina Bougas is constantly looking for ways to improve Clea. At present there are the following face sculpts:

2001 - Original Porcelite Head
2002 - First Vinyl Head (3,800 dolls produced with this head) Sculpt was retired in July 2003.
2003 - First vinyl head with fixed acrylic eyes (never distributed - used only for initial prototypes)
2003 - Second Vinyl Head (slightly smaller than first vinyl head and closer to original Porcelite sculpt.)
2004 - Revised Vinyl head with fixed acrylic eyes

What is Clea made out of?
2002/2003 - Clea is made out of a number of different compositions: her head is rotomolded vinyl, her torso is hollow mold injected hard plastic, her arms and legs are solid mold injected plastic. Her hips are FULLY rotational, giving her the most articulated hip joint on the market in both 2002 and 2003. Arms and legs are strung, making changing her clothes very easy.

Can Clea wear other manufacturer clothes?
Our collectors tell us YES. Clea swaps clothes very nicely with the other 15 1/2" dolls in particular. The 16" dolls are slightly bigger than Clea, still she can wear the clothes.

How does Clea's figure differ from the other 6:1 scale dolls?
Clea holds her shoulders back like a dancer. She has a slight sway back which gives her a very flexible visual appearance when she is in both fashion runway and dance postitions. Her waist in small, allowing her to still look slim in gathered waist costumes.

What are Clea's basic measurements?
Bust = 7", Waist = 3 3/4", Hips = 6 5/8"

What kind of legs does Clea have?
At present Clea has two leg styles: straight ballet and straight fashion foot. In 2004 we are planning to introduce our flat foot and bended knee doll

MANUFACTURING

Why didn't you come out with a bended knee doll first?
Molds are extremely expensive, $5,000 to $10,000 per piece. (Clea presently consists of 13 pieces: head, torso front, torso back, right arm, left arm, right bent arm, left ballet leg, right ballet leg, left fashion leg, right fashion leg, head join, arm joint, hip joint.) Bent legs require 5 pieces PER LEG. (front of thigh, back of thigh, leg, hip joint, knee joint) Very few companies can afford to come out with a bended knee in their first few years of production. This is why Christina put so much work into making Clea's hips fully rotational and her legs shapely enough that she doesn't have to have bent knees to have expression and posibility.

Will Clea ever have bended legs?
Yes. We have completed the prototype and hope to put it into production in 2004.

Why does it take so long for a doll presented at a convention to hit the market?
Most companies, our selves included, work with China to manuafactur our doll. But there is less than a handful of manufactuers actually qualified to produce high-end collectible dolls and costumes. Production schedules are VERY tight. If the slightest thing goes wrong, such as running low of fabric, the whole process can stall. Doll manufacturers are also subject to many outside factors which they can not control, such as dock workers strikes, paper work lost in customes and even a war.

Why don't you make your dolls in the U.S.?
We tried. But we discovered that there are no U.S. factories geared towareds the high quality and low edition size requirements of the collectible market. Most required a 10,000 per design minimum order. China is geared more towards the small doll company.

How many Clea Bella dolls have been manufactured so far?
We plan to manufacture only 3,000 a year. Bella! is geared more towards costumes and accessories and less on dressed dolls. We want our dolls to reamain highly collectible, both now and down the road, while making the addition of new pieces to the line fun and afordable. All of our products are produced in limited quantities ranging from 50 to 300.

DOLL CHARACTERS

How many different characters are there?
There are several dozen characters planned for the Clea Bella doll line over the next ten years. At present, only Clea is on the market. We hope to introduce Anna, Dee Dee, James and Papa between now and 2005.