New Dollies? You know what that means!
Mirror Mi is a new doll line by MGA. Have you seen blind box BJDs? They're vinyl or pvc BJDs in 1/12 to 1/6 size, usually coming out in a themed set of 6-8 where you don't know which doll you get from the set. Not quite in the same class of quality as resin strung BJDs, but very cute, very accessible, and VERY popular! And that's what these gals remind me of. They have similar headsculpts, faceup styles, and even the joints in the hips and knees remind me of BJDs. So if you like those, you'll probably like these. If you like these and have never heard of blind box BJDs, you should look them up, because you'll probably like them too!
Quality wise, no complaints. The hair is nice, the face is nice, the body is nice. I do like how they keep evolving their articulation, the ball joints look a bit odd but the range of motion is wonderful and most outfits won't show them. The range of motion on the knees is excellent, too.
TLDR: If you want to sew for them, they are Petite Curvy size. For PANTS (literally only pants) print at 100%. For tops and dresses with poofy skirts, print at 90%. For dresses that are FITTED in the hips (like the QiPao) I will split the difference and do 95%.
Ok, onto what you're here for:
Mirror Mi are short-torso'd, wide hip dolls and that slots them right into the Petite Curvy pattern size. I ordered her next to the dolls that are MOST similar, so if you're stealing pre-made clothes from other dolls, you'll get the best fits from Draculaura, and LOL OMG dolls.
However, before you sew in your snaps or velcro to fit your intended doll, clothes fit a bigger range which is why patterns fit a bigger range of dolls better than the same results from pre-made stuff, either official doll clothes or clothes you've made and already sewn in the closures on. The other thing you can do with a pattern is enlarge it or shrink it on dolls with the same proportions, so for example 100% fits Rainbow High perfectly, 90% fits Jr High perfectly and if you happen to have one of those GIANT Amayas? Exact same pattern, just 240% bigger!
Here's side view comparisons:
They all have crazy swayback (when the back is curved so your torso back measurement is shorter than your torso front measurement) with those C shaped spines, so similar there too.
Apart from the spine shape, I'm going to draw your attention to 2 things: DEPTH and SCULPT.
Mirror Mi dolls look pretty big in the lower body from the front, but from the side the front to back measurements both up in the torso and down in the thighs are the thinnest of all the dolls. She's definitely smaller in the girth measurements compared to the other dolls, which is good because she has a teeny bit shorter torso too and the combo keeps her body shape in scale with the other Petite Curvy dolls.
The other thing I'm going to point to is the sculpt. From the front, she looks like she has a pretty decent cup size, but if you look at her from the side you can see that her bust is almost completely smooth from the widest point of the bust to the underbust! She has almost no bust at all. All of the curve on her torso is on the sides and back, the front is fairly straight.
Here's some measurements: Bust 8.5cm, waist 7.5cm, hip 12.5cm, thigh 7.5cm. Rainbow High comes in at 10, 9, 14, and 7.5 & Rainbow JR High at 9, 8.5, 12.5, 6.75. Drac comes in at 9, 8, 13, and 7.5. LOL OMGs, 9, 7.5, 13, 7.
Here's some measurements: Bust 8.5cm, waist 7.5cm, hip 12.5cm, thigh 7.5cm. Rainbow High comes in at 10, 9, 14, and 7.5 & Rainbow JR High at 9, 8.5, 12.5, 6.75. Drac comes in at 9, 8, 13, and 7.5. LOL OMGs, 9, 7.5, 13, 7.
These are all really close! The most variation is in the waist sizes. Which is pretty easy, you can adjust the width of any waist darts if there are any or taper in your side seams from a | | shape to more of a ) ( shape but most of the time it looks fine in the original cut line.
Let's do a fashion show and see how it works out in practice!
Here's Shai in the Country Classic dress sewing pattern at 100% print size. Looks like it was made for her!
Here's Shai in the QiPao also at 100%. It's a little loose in the waist but unless you know the doll is smaller in the waist, you wouldn't know it from the look of her since the drape is smooth.
I think the spot that fits the least well is the neck, because these dolls have REALLY short necks! For any outfit with a standing collar or turtleneck I'd probably halve the height. That's probably me being nitpicky, but if I wasn't a perfectionist my patterns wouldn't be so good :)
Here she is in the suspender wide leg flood pants from Palazzo & Gaucho. Pants with a waistline at the hip/right above the painted on panty are great, but high rise pants gap a bit, which makes sense because of the nipped in waist. I'm not too fussed because her torso is so short and her legs are so long high rise pants look odd, like they're supposed to make her legs look longer and her legs are already REALLY long the style doesn't really look good anyway.
For pants you want to do the same fix as w/ Abbey, for full length stuff add 2cm or .75" to your bottom hems. That's all.
The main question I had for these dolls was what size is going to be the best size to print clothes for them at? 100% or 90%? She's a better match in the upper body to the smaller dolls but sliiiiiiighly bigger in the hips than the smaller dolls.
So here's my Rainbow Jr High girls in stuff sewn at 90% size to fit them as one does for the slightly smaller dolls:
And here they are on Shai:
First is Shai in a dress from the Level Up pattern (which is part of the learn to sew bundle so VERY important to know the best fit!) and I'm really loving it on her. It's nice and sleek through the torso, less overlap at the back than the dresses at 100%.
Here's Shai in the Cupcake Lolita pattern, and mm yeah the 90% fit is doing great on this blouse and pinafore too. Ok, yeah, 90% is looking really good.
Solution: For PANTS (literally only pants) print at 100%. For tops and dresses with poofy skirts, print at 90%. For dresses that are FITTED in the hips (like the QiPao) split the difference and do 95%.
Bonus!
I figured I'd be asked for more comparisons to other dolls.
Yup. You'll be able to steal a piece here and there, like tops from the basic Monster High girly bodies and maybe skirts from some of the other gals? But LOOK at that teeny tiny torso with legs the same length as all dem taller dolls!
Last thing: SHOES! Abbey can wear her shoes, but she cannot wear Abbey shoes, or at least not the Abbey shoes I have as they are slightly larger. She can't wear anyone else's shoes either. The feet seem to be the same shape but about 10% bigger than Rainbow High feet, but just too big to fit into those either (I can only cram 2-3 pairs of RH shoes on Abbey, who has bigger feet than RH but smaller feet than MM).
So yeah, shoes gonna be a problem.