Robert Tonner  - New Visions, New Venues

by Pam North 

In the doll world, the power of play translates into huge profits for companies, provided the products are beautifully designed and strategically marketed, and with the introduction of each new doll line comes the tricky process of satisfying longtime collectors and tempting potential new customers. Robert Tonner’s name has been associated with high-end, high-quality fashion dolls for more than a quarter-century. with iconic fashion dolls such as Tyler Wentworth, Ellowyne Wilde, and Evangeline Ghastly in his wide repertoire of popular designs. 
Not content to rest on the laurels of the past successes of Tonner Doll Company (TDC), Tonner is pursuing new horizons and embracing change. He has re-challenged himself as an artist by taking a series of classes on anatomy, computer sculpting, program design, and state-of-the-art production capabilities, mapping out an exciting new strategy for the future. The result is Phyn Aero, a new doll company with exciting creative alliances. His mission will be to reflect design innovation and expression by giving select doll designers a venue to commercially produce high-level collectible work in collaboration with himself and toy designer Andrew Yang, a multi-media New York artist and creator of a popular line of high-end, high-fashion OOAK cloth dolls. Tonner hopes to bring fresh, new ways of looking  at collectible dolls and character figures, even negotiating with a rising New York fashion designer to create a vinyl and hard-plastic doll wearing copies of the clothing designs made with the same fabrics, a concept Tonner cites as possibly being done for the first time.
Phyn and Aero’s first release will be Annora Moret, a resin ball-jointed doll (BJD) designed and sculpted by Tonner. The doll has 19 points of articulation (double jointed at elbow and knee), and comes in three versions, with separately purchased sets of eyes, and three outfits.
Next year there will be Kadira, another resin BJD, designed and sculpted by Andrew Yang. Its styling falls somewhere between character dolls and fashion dolls, and each comes with its own storyline, which can be read on the company’s website. 
Another project is an 18-inch portrait doll inspired by Jazz Jennings, the teen transgender star of TLC’s documentary/reality series, “I Am Jazz”. It may be the first transgender doll on the market, and it made its debut at the New York Toy Fair last February. It is available on the Tonner Doll Company’s website and in specialty stores. Tonner has followed Jazz Jennings’ progress since she was 6 years old, after seeing her on a television interviewed 10 years ago. “She’s a remarkable child,” he explained, “and now a socially transformational teen - an amazing kid with amazing parents.” From her childhood, learning how to walk and talk, Jazz Jennings gravitated toward dresses and dolls, early signs that Jazz, while born male, identified as female, and she has risen to fame as one of the youngest people ever documented as transgender. The Tonner Doll Company often markets collectibles to adults, but this item is for children. The 18-inch doll, which has a “genderless” plastic mold typical of most dolls, is aimed toward kids aged 8 years and older; 
Then there is Tonner’s new DC Stars Collection’s Wonder Woman, an exquisitely detailed likeness of Gal Gadot, who portrayed the iconic super hero in the 2017 blockbuster movie version. The beautiful Princess Diana of Themyscira takes form as a 16-inch tall character figure of expertly engineered injected plastic and vinyl, and the body has 15 points of articulation. She comes alive with full-color imprinted and hand-painted facial details. The lifelike, dark-brown with auburn highlights, rooted saran hair is capped with a gold-tone metal tiara, and she wears the battle armor of the Amazon warrior she represents. The accurately sculpted depiction of her movie costume consists of a molded breast plate with a genuine leather pteruges battle skirt and belt, both with hand-painted accents. Her armband and gauntlets are fashioned of silvery metal with gold-printed trim, and her boots are made of red vinyl and resin with gold and brown details, gold studs, and brown vinyl straps. Accessories include a brown genuine leather scabbard with gold-tone metal hardware, and a gold cord lasso in a leather harness. Wonder Woman also comes with three changeable pairs of hands (open, fists, and gripping). The limited edition of only 500 pieces has a release date of December 27, 2017. The Deluxe Edition includes the Wonder Woman doll and accessories as previously described, as well as three additional accessories, including a silver-tone metal sword and bronze-tone metal shield, both with gold-imprinted accents, and a black plastic display stand with full-color imprinted Wonder Woman logo and black-painted metal support. The Deluxe Edition is limited to 100 pieces.
Tonner Doll Company will continue to make all of their established licensed products, such as DC Comics characters (the upcoming Wonder Woman), film classics (Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz), science-fiction series (Outlander), and fantasy (Fantastic Beasts); however, all of their proprietary lines, as well as Effanbee and Wilde Imagination, are being discontinued. 
Tonner has experienced a reawakening of his pioneer spirit, and is committed to an entirely new method of creating dolls and rethinking his offerings to collectors. He has taken this courageous leap  despite the realization of uncertainty being an accompaniment to reinvention. New directions are heady and delightfully exciting to a man who is determined to defy retirement, and he deems the risk as worth it to achieve the dreams of the many dolls still waiting to be created. 
Contact Information:
Robert Tonner
Email: tar@tonnerdoll.com
Telephone: (845) 339-9537