A Poppets & Posies Review: Lea Clark First Impressions

Lea Clark has arrived at American Girl Place San Francisco!

Today's post is a combination first impressions Lea Clark review and AGPSF Flash store report.

Let me begin with my bold and biased opinion: Lea is one of the most stunningly beautiful GOTY dolls that American Girl has ever produced. I believe she rivals Kanani for sheer beauty.

What is new for Lea's face and hair is a new shade of caramel hair with highlights, a new color of hazel for eyes, and a brand new eyebrow shape!

While the wild colors and prints of her dress are not my draw, her compass necklace is absolutely wonderful touch.

And while I was not originally a fan of the yellow braided non-functional belt (it only goes to her sides), I did end up warming up to it in person.

Cute, unique sandals. A bit odd, too. I am curious if they will mix-and-match well with the rest of Lea's wardrobe or with other Truly Me outfits.

Lea Clark's Accessories (camera, braided headband, wish bracelet, passport and sea turtle magazine) are very well integrated with her Meet Outfit in the sense that I think I would go crazy with having Lea but not her braided hairband! Well played, American Girl! Though to be fair, the Meet Outfit does come with the messenger bag, which is a great extra for the doll and I imagine many would be frustrated if the messenger bag and braided hairband had been swapped.

Camera. Not sure I like how the straps attach to the camera itself.

Passport!

High quality printed mini magazine.

The wish bracelet with the turtle charm is perfect!

And we could not complete Lea Clark's head-to-toe without talking about her Beach Dress ensemble, available only as part of the bundled package Lea's Exclusive Collection. The exclusive collection includes the Lea Clark Doll, Lea's Accessories & Lea's Beach Dress all for $180.

The Beach Dress is a tie-dyed purple sun dress and comes with sunglasses, a butterfly hair clip, and simple lime green flip-flops.

Even I am smitten. The tie-dyed purple sun dress was my second favorite outfit of the leaked images--amazing how well American Girl "knows" its customers. But it is only available in the bundled set...

My thoughts on Lea's Exclusive Collection (doll, accessories and beach dress)? It is very very very tempting. While I kept to my original decision to not purchase poppet Lea or gobs of her collection on her debut day, there is much discussion among the poppets at home about adding Lea to the family.

As for the store itself on debut day, we arrived around 3pm. We decided between the California cold snap and generally not feeling well from an earlier bout of winter illness, to go later in the day rather than stand outside in line in the wee cold hours of the morning.

No giveaway handouts! Sadness! It was only 3pm, but the children's craft table had already been shoved to the side and if one did not know better, it felt like just another day at AGPSF. I have located the giveaway (Lea's Sarong and Turtle Craft) on the secondary market and hope to share pictures of it mid-week.

Inside the store was bustling and there was much evidence of heavy traffic inside the store all day--shelves were stocked but with merchandise but in disarray.

I need to check out the Messenger Bag for Girls (above with Lea's Meet Dress for Girls) for possible repurposing for an adult collector. :)

We did see lots of Lea dolls in the arms of little girls, already freed from their boxes! The hair salon and ear piercing station upstairs was doing brisk business. And the Meet Dress for Girls looked like it was also getting brisk business as well.

My first impressions of Lea Clark is that she is even more stunning in person than she appears in AG's print or online catalogs. Her long, glossy hair is sure to be a hit and I personally think her light hazel (green) eyes make her face look animated and alive. I have seen some breathtaking photography of this poppet by collectors and I have to say Lea is extremely photogenic!

Final thoughts for this first impressions review of Lea Clark and her Exclusive Collection? My birthday is in February. I don't think I need to say much more!