Doll Clothing Review: Yoga Chic (My Life As)

American Girl Kaya in the "My Life As" Yoga outfit.

I was wandering through Wal-Mart's toy section the other day planning to take photos of a ridiculous Barbie (the subject for a future post), when I spied the "My Life as a Yoga Instructor" doll on the opposite shelf.  I was tempted to pick up the doll just for the mini yoga mat that was included with her, but saner heads prevailed and instead I picked up one of the tie-in outfits, called "Yoga Chic".

The "My Life As" is a line of 18" play dolls that retail in the $25-$30USD range.  They're similar in size to American Girl/Our Generation/Maplelea/and other dolls of that style.  The individual outfits are generally less than $10USD, which puts them in a significantly lower price range than comparable pieces from American Girl, so I was curious to see how they would compare.

This particular set consists of three pieces of clothing: yoga pants, a tank top, and a jacket.  It also includes a two accessories, a pink plastic water bottle, and a purple hanger.

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The "Yoga Chic" outfit

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Since the dolls don't have jointed knees, the pose
on the tag seems a little misleading...

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The water bottle is a single piece of hallow plastic
with a sticker on one side.

The outfit itself is made of a fairly thin material, which means that one should be more careful when detaching it from the plastic ties than I was - I managed to create small rips in a couple of places.  Still, the fabric does feel like sportswear.  And the pants cling to the doll's legs in the same way that the human versions do, so points for accuracy there.

The full outfit.

The stitching on the outfit isn't the best: while the pants and tank are decent, there were lose strings all over the hems of the jacket.  And the decorate stitching that represents the fake pockets on the jacket is quite lose, which means that it catches on things, so  I can easily see that ripping off with regular play.

A better view of the shirt.

All three pieces of clothing are patterned with a flower/wheel motif, which does do a nice job of tying them all together.  The grey on the jacket's zipper also matches the shirt, and while the pink on the waistband of the pants doesn't quite match the draw string on the jacket, it's close enough.

With the hood up.

The hood on the jacket is functional (it doesn't go up all the way on Kaya, but that's because her massively long hair is in a bun - on a doll with less hair it would work perfectly), but as with the faux-pockets, the stitching is a bit loose and in danger of coming apart.

Putting the outfit through some yoga poses

Overall, while the outfit didn't particularly impress me, I still find it difficult to complain about it when it sits at such a low price point.  If you're looking to pad out the wardrobe of a doll of this size and aren't overly concerned about the fact that it may not hold up well, I think it's a great alternative to the more expensive options.

Indoor lighting (and you can see the rough hems inside the hood here).