Giant fashion personalities like Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour, and Donatella Versace have been shrunk down to some super cute packages. Mua Mua Dolls perfectly capture fashion’s most flamboyant characters with their hand-knit caricatures.
The mini-me-s have become a must-have status symbol. Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani and flamboyant Vogue Japan editor-at-large Anna Dello Russo have all been photographed with their knitted doppelgangers. Dello Russo’s doll in particular reflects her sense of style—although even Dello Russo never wore cherry hats and watermelon hats at once.
The dolls are the brain children of Ludovica Virga. Virga started making dolls of her own original, zany characters (a coke addict elephant and an ugly mermaid were two originals), but now focuses on the celebrity world.
In addition to fashion icons such as John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood and Miuccia Prada, she stocks everyone from Madonna and Katy Perry to Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama. Lady Gaga liked her doll, complete with pop can rollers, so much she included it in her Barney’s pop-up shop last Christmas.
Virga bounces between Milan, Paris and Bali, where local girls knit the dolls by hand, ensuring each one is unique. And while she boasts that the girls are able to save up for university from their wages, don’t think this is a charity project. In the U.K., e-retailer GiftLab.com is selling the dolls for a cool £85.00–$135 CAD. But hey, to own Prada, that’s a bargain.
