Our generation or design a friend doll

[Chimchimcharoo]

My daughter is looking at the our generation dolls and sets now smyths have sent out the brochure! I know Argos also do a similar design a friend selection. So are they compatible to mix and match from the ranges? Are they similar in quality? Talk dolls to me please.

My daughter had a combination of American Girl, Our Generation and Design a Friend dolls.
AG dolls are the best quality, but crazy expensive.
Our Generation quality is not far off AG dolls and they cost 1/3 of the price. Their hair and faces are lovely and the accessories are well made.
Design a Friend quality is not as good when you compare against the others. They are slightly smaller/skinnier and the clothes are OK but not great, hair got tangled easily. The accessories however have been really good.

Had she not had the AG or OG dolls already I think the Design a Friend dolls would have been played with more.

My daughter mixed and matched accessories but struggled with the clothing due to slightly different size/shaped dolls. I used ebay for cheap dolls clothes, if you're not pushed for delivery time there are some great Chinese sellers.

I think Design a Friend ones are the nicest. I have bought official Design a Friend clothes, Our Generation clothes and The Entertainers own brand versions and they all fit fine.

Recently had the same dilemma - ended up researching American Girl, Gotz, Our Generation and Design a friend. Eventually decided on Our Generation as it seemed the best value for money and the dolls looked better quality than DAF.
My niece has got both and the OG dolls withstand her playing much better,as the body is better stuffed. The DF dolls arms and legs have become loose now.

You can order clothes and shoes on Ali Express very cheaply but delivery takes ages so order soon. There’s very good advice on the bargain threads (second post at beginning of every thread) about ordering from China.

TK Maxx often have some of the older OG dolls reduced too. Of all the dolls we’ve acquired over the years, the OG dolls are the best made.

Ali Express ones may be fakes though that haven't been checked by trading standards for safety. I would be careful.

Is she into dolls already or just getting into them? I would suggest designafriend dolls as a starter as many of the dolls cost a lot less than the other brands and if she doesn't seem all that into them after then you won't have spent a fortune. Im sure they have a £30 build an offer in argos on some select dolls atm which includes a doll, then you can add on an accessory kit and another outfit x

We have designafriend

My generation look cheap and nasty to me and certainly not reflective of the price they sell at. They do have a lot of glitzy accessories though also not cheap

Mine have AG dolls and they've stood up to years of abuse. WE have had a mix of OG / AG / DF accessories / clothes and they've all fitted fine.

DD has a John Lewis Collectors Doll,which are the same thing. I'm not sure how quality and price compare, but it's lovely.
We get the accessories from both Argos and Symths. She makes clothes for it herself as well. The main Issue is shoes... The different brand dolls seem to have different feet.

Thanks everyone. She is 8 and has a wide barbie collection she plays with most days. She likes the look of our generation accessories and a bigger doll to play. She never really played with the baby dolls she had when she was younger though. I thought the design a friend on a 3 for 2 toy deal could be good. I’ll get myself to tkmaxx too!

Tk max I picked one up in there for £20, they do have some outfits on occasion but the discount is only a couple of pounds. They did have some glitter girls dolls too, they are smaller but looked quite nice and amazon sell outfits etc. I liked the look of those too

We have a fair few different types.
They are all fairly similar and can all share clothes, though some are a bit skinnier than others.

I think we have John Lewis, We Girls, Our Generation, Journey Girls (ToysRUs brand) and one we bought in France that smells of vanilla - my personal favourite, but I can't remember the brand.

Dd likes the John Lewis one best, and I think it was actually the cheapest too. And it has a nice body shape, not too skinny.
I definitely think the Our Generation accessories are the best - though John Lewis clothes good too, but quite a small range.

We have OG and JL Collector dolls and i think that the JL ones are far prettier than any of the others on the market and same size and quality but cheaper. We got the OG dolls and accessories from TK Max so much cheaper than full RRP.
I think Design A Friend dolls are slightly smaller, certainly the shoes don’t fit OG dolls

We have a few o.g dolls and 1 designer friend , i think o.g are vastly better than d.f .
I have seen o.g dolls and accessorises in homesense quite often ,also seen the dolls but not much choice of doll in the range.
I have bought the majority of dolls /clothes etc from smyths toy shop, very good choice .