Absolutely Deceased: Monster High x Off-White Symphanee Midnight by Mattel Creations

Sometimes you can just feel that you need to go for a doll because it's really special and you want to be one of the people who got it. This is that for me.

I knew nothing about Off-White before these dolls were announced and had never even heard the brand name. I guess I was just missing the whole conversation! Off-White is a fairly recent but quite prestigious designer brand/fashion house founded by the late Virgil Abloh in 2013, and is known for its striking designs that combine luxury and street-fashion aesthetics. Lots of famous people have apparently worn Off-White pieces. That's cool but means pretty little to me personally.

I have absolutely no idea what Monster High has to do with this brand or why this collaboration occurred (Off-White customers at stores with the dolls have been reported to be confused and not recognize them at all)...but the dolls are interesting. They re-create some real Off-White pieces, but since that's not the hook for me, I have to look at them as wholes.

The Off-White characters' names all include references to musical terms and tend to have deliberately-unconventional modern-name spellings. They don't follow the typical format of names referencing the monster type, with none of the four monster species being guessable by name. Each doll also uses heavy emphasis on green as a color all four share, and all four have wonderful black lipstick.

The first revealed and sold was Electra Melody, a sea monster deriving from Lagoona Blue, particularly her fin-mohawked Dawn of the Dance doll. Electra looks to use G1 Lagoona's head sculpt--easy to source since her Creeproduction doll put it back into production! Electra is the only doll with any orange, through her hair color.

Official Mattel photo.

Electra does little for my aesthetic tastes, but she's objectively pretty cool. At a passing glance, she doesn't look like the most lavish of the group, though, and strikes me as the least worth the extra-premium price these ghouls were given. While it makes sense to put the least doll first, she wasn't hyping me for the collection while she was the only doll revealed.

The next is Harmonie Ghoul, a Frankenmonster deriving from Frankie Stein, and who seems to use the same head sculpt as G1 Frankie.

Official Mattel photo.

I love her monochrome green body and hair, her creepy nail-through-the-neck choker necklace, her own take on heterochromic eyes, and her floor-length optical tiered dress. I don't love her red boots or the fact that her hairdo requires gel. It was hard to say no to Harmonie, but I truly couldn't justify more than one Off-White doll, and out of the four, she wasn't the top pick. 

Third is Raven Rhapsody. She's a gargoyle who's not very similar to Rochelle, with very minimal stone theming. Most of her looks organic.

Offical Mattel photo.

Raven has a different head sculpt from Rochelle, and it seems to be brand-new. She has unique giant wings molded with zero cutouts, making them the most plausible wings on any MH doll. I guess she has the budget for that! Her style uses red and black kind of like the gargoyle Fright-Mare Frets Quartzmane. I'd really only want Raven for curiosity and redressing, and getting a base body on the aftermarket, if anyone was selling one, would probably be nearly as expensive as the whole thing officially at launch. There were not good enough reasons for me to seek her out in any form.

Last is the ghoul of the hour: Symphanee Midnight, a green-and-black ghost boasting a true showstopper innovation for MH doll design-- a translucent head with a visible skull inside!

Official Mattel photo.

That was a monster-detail innovation so cool I simply couldn't miss it, and I really liked the rest of Symphanee's design. I'm a lover of all color, but I'm weak to green. And while her name participates in the "Meaghann McKaighlee" school of forced unique name spellings (couldn't she at least have an "o" in place of the "a"?), "Symphanee Midnight" still has a beautiful cadence and lofty Gothic mood.

I was in a pessimistic mood when entering the launch for Symphanee. Last time, with Jack and Sally, I clicked into checkout at the first available second, entered a long queue, and then after I completed checkout I was told sorry, actually, it's already sold out. I'd heard the problem was that people had set up bots to snap up dolls unfairly, so I was encouraged to see I had to solve a photo Captcha this time, with an abstract text prompt that image-recognition AI wouldn't be able to solve so directly. There was a heart-stopping moment, where upon entering launch, I was greeted with a "Sold Out" screen, but this was soon replaced with the actual shop page and the doll had not been instantaneously wiped out after all. I entered a queue again, shorter wait this time, and was, thank everything, able to secure an order. What a relief.

The Mattel shipping box was huge because these doll boxes are also huge.

Because I'm so brilliant, I had photographed the box with the shipping label right to camera.

Underneath, the package was wrapped in tissue and both the top and bottom had foam caps. One of them was still inside the box when I took this.

On top was the packet with the certificate of authenticity.

Under the tissue was the full case. It's made of very firm thick grey cardboard. There's a top sleeve with artsy circle window cutouts over a clear case, and the base and the top of the sleeve have embedded plastic accents with silver paint that feature the Off-White and Monster High logos and insignias--the Skullette, and an X made of arrows akin to a "fullscreen" icon. 

There was also a packet with an instruction sheet for unboxing the doll properly.

You can see Symphanee inside through the cutouts of the outer sleeve, and I bet this outer box would provide her some valuable sun protection.

Don't mind LDD Calico back there. She's getting her moment soon.

The outer sleeve lifts right off.

Inside, the clear case is thin window plastic like you see on other doll boxes. That feels a little cheap to me for what this product is. The dolls are posed inside standing up next to plinths with their own "glass" cases holding some of their pieces.

The effect is impressive, since they're not strapped to a cardboard wall like typical dolls are, instead being supported by an inconspicuous plastic "corner wall". The display looks advanced.

This case is impressive and dramatic...and huge and hard to keep. I'm gonna come out and call this what it is--price-point padding. As someone who doesn't buy into the mystique of fashion brands and labels, I think this case is overachieving and a little vain, in a way? This is excessive, and the fact that the case is designed to take up so much space seems to demand that it be set apart and have its own focal display dedicated just to it. I don't have that kind of real estate. I can easily allot Symphanee herself a little focal spot of her own, but this box is demanding and not particularly useful to me. Off-White, you ain't that special! 

This feels like MGA's brand of BS to me. Mattel has taken some good pages from MGA's book with modernist poppy designs like Neon Frights Frankie, and even bringing a real fashion brand into MH seems similar to how MGA has done with Bratz...but clunky overpackaging that not everybody is guaranteed to really want or have use for is a bad move, and I really think its biggest utility to Mattel is giving the price more dollars.

Here are the steps to unboxing. I appreciate that the illustrations appear to match each Off-White doll.

To remove the clear case, you pull the case and platform out of the outer base, which is a tray the rest slots into. 

The case uses plastic tabs which fold into holes on the side of the platform to stay on. Pinching these areas lets you pull the tabs out of the holes enough for the case to slide off.

I might have misunderstood a little and worked the wrong area, because I also partially completed the next step and half-detached the prop the doll is attached to as well!

Then, you open the back of this standing prop, which unfolds, to snip the ties.

The instructions highlight every spot to be cut, which is useful because Symphanee features plastic tags as well as thread for her hair and a black ribbon tying her waist down, which gave me a moment of pause. The instructions confirmed it was something to cut, not to preserve.

Here she is unbound. She still had a few elastic bands for posing and security to remove, like usual.

The display case on the inner plinth is held on with round clear stickers on opposite sides, and the purse is strapped in with plastic.

Under the inner platform of the box, there are some black tabs taped down. These have little pegs that twist-lock through the platform and into the bottom of the doll stand and the plinth, allowing those pieces to be separated and replaced within the doll case. It's a good system, but not one I'm likely to take much advantage of. I don't need the big box, or to reinstall them.

Symphanee's stand is a saddle to let her dress flow free, and is placed into a new minimalist beige square base. The stand pole seems to be the same as 2023 Howliday Skelita's, and while it's oriented toward the back of the stand, there's no danger of it toppling over backward because the stand base is a block that has been heavily weighted inside. I can't express how much I appreciate that.

The stand has the same fiddly issues as all saddles where Symphanee can tip off-balance and threaten to swing out of the cradle, which isn't helped by her shoes having small footprints and offering zero friction against the base. It can take a little bit of messing around to put Symph on stably, but this stand does work better for her than the short-base Inner Monster saddle stand I used in later photos to hide her means of standing completely.

Symphanee's hair is straight and styled in a very long high ponytail, almost floor-length. The front is black while the back is blended shades of neon green, with bluer and yellower tones mixed in. It's tied with a black elastic.

The hair is a little messy out of box, but it later boiled out beautifully. The hair falls in layers of thinning black that make the ponytail have an ombre quality. 

I also appreciate that the volume of the ponytail once dry remained pretty modest. I don't like a straight ponytail to fan out wider than the head. If it's tied back, it should look narrow!

Symphanee's forehead features a stark black triangle akin to a widow's peak.

I've heard it suggested this is meant to be her actual hairline, which is inexcusable, and, I think, impossible at this price point. If that was the case, Mattel should either root the hairline that way or just not design her with that hairline visual if the skull gimmick made that infeasible. My read, though, was that it was meant to be dramatic makeup shading that just looks really weird. However, it does complete her face and a mockup photo edit I made with the peak removed does look less striking to me. 

I'd 100% prefer this forehead peak to be hair and not makeup, but she needs it, so it stays.

It's fashion.

Her eyes are green with yellow highlights, and the makeup on her right gives her wide chunky lash shapes, while the left has more natural lashes. Both eyes are surrounded by heavy green with green bands of eyeshadow on the lids, and her brows and lips are black. Her sclerae are white rather than colored. Some other MH ghosts have had colored sclerae to make the eyes look translucent, but Symphanee's face is actually fully translucent, so that effect wasn't necessary here and would clash. 

The print on Symphanee's face breaks up into tiny dots. 

Now, Symphanee's skull...but first, some history.

MH has done translucent bone-in body parts before.

The idea was introduced with River Styxx in the Haunted line, a ghostly reaper with translucent forelimbs with bones inside and face-shading paint and earless, sharp-cheeked sculpting suggesting paper-thin skin over a skull. 

Mattel stock photo.

Her hands were translucent with bones painted onto the top, and her torso and the upper halves of her limbs were just very slightly translucent in the same style as the rest of the Haunted doll line's characters. The idea, I think, was to suggest that reapers as spirits gradually lose their skin as they mature, since the Grim Reaper, River's dad, is famous as a being who looks like bare bones! That's a really fun monster worldbuilding concept!

Translucent torsos with bones were then done with the Inner Monster dolls, whose skeletons could be accessorized with emotion charms that looked like organs. The bodies were two-part shells that enclosed the skeletons in the shape of the standard body sculpt. These skeletons were smaller than the Skelita Calaveras sculpt to be able to fit inside body plates the same size as the regular body. 

Skelita next to an Inner Monster.

The Inner Monster's torso shells removed.

I knew beforehand that Symphanee would not include bones all throughout her body and that she would lack a comparable visual. The Inner Monster or River concepts probably could have been adapted to Symphanee, but the neck peg would be very difficult to make nice--the IM peg is attached to the bones, and as such, is just a static knob that only offers swivel.

My biggest question with Symphanee was what her head would be physically made of. MH has only done hard plastic heads for some of the Ghoul's Alive! line due to their mechanical and electronic features, but surely they couldn't make Symphanee's head vinyl unless maybe the skull was a hard piece popped in and aligned under the outer vinyl? That'd resonate with real biology and make her face wipeable and repaintable for those who really really wanted to do that. There was also no visible rooting groove on her head like you'd see on a plastic doll, so I thought it might be vinyl outside. Somehow. The doll had all the intrigue of a magic trick!

So the way Symphanee's head actually works is that semi-realistic method which I thought wouldn't be the answer--there's literally two pieces, with a hard plastic skull shoved into a soft vinyl head! The head itself is a noticeably thinner and more flexible vinyl than other dolls have, likely a requirement to make it stretchy or soft enough when heated to pop the skull in at the factory. The color gets tinted white due to the skull, but the vinyl is the same pale greenish tone as the rest of her body, clearest when it's illuminated from behind. 

The skull itself is far more realistic than previous MH skulls or skeleton paint jobs, since Symphanee has a fleshy face layer and the skull doesn't need to look like a pretty living woman this time--it can be fully anatomical. The skull has defined eye and nasal sockets and hollows in the jaw, ears, and temples, as well as precise little teeth under her vinyl mouth! 

The eye sockets are pretty much entirely obscured by the eye paint and makeup on the outer head, though, which is disappointing. The relief of the skull sculpt seems to be a bit exaggerated with deep crevices so the detail comes through strong, and there's clearly some washing done to darken those areas too. Since her vinyl head can catch glare, Symphanee's skull is clearest under flat lighting where light won't bounce off her head.

The effect of the layered faces provided by her skin and skull is so mesmerizing and weird and very hard to wrap your eyes around--let me tell you, if I was hired to reproduce this visual in a painting, I'd tell you to just rob me to ruin and leave me to the streets. It's one of those confusing images that doesn't look real even when you're staring right at it.

You can see Symphanee's roots a little through her head, but it's not obtrusive and is honestly kind of cool. 

This is what the skull looks like on its own--not my photo or my actions! Now we have an idea of what the skeletons of monsters who aren't skeletons from the get-go look like!

Credit goes to the Instagram user monsterhighfiles, whose post I saved, as well as Instagram user stoneprocaccino, the person they've attributed it to in the description--I didn't see that original user posting it publicly on their own account, so I don't know if they're even the original owner of the image, but they're the first name I've seen for it. You can see there's a line where the sculpt effectively cuts off, likely because you wouldn't see anything that far back--it's under her hair.

The skull is a perfect idea because not only is it insanely wicked, but the skull covers up the neck peg and distracting internals you'd see with a head this translucent.

I could honestly see Symphanee as River Styxx's mom. She looks so mature and powerful and deathly that being the wife of the Grim Reaper could make sense for her. And she'd be a killer modern interpretation of the goddess Persephone after her marriage to Hades. Maybe River's mom would be Persephone. Or perhaps the MH G1 Grim Reaper would be the god Thanatos, not Hades. River does know Charon, who she calls uncle. 

Symphanee has two separate earrings. On her right, she has two neon green modernist chain links-- a perfect motif for a Monster High ghost, where chains are a consistent fashion element. 

On her left, she has a vac-metal chrome gold earring shaped like a mechanical nut.

I'd have put this on Harmonie out of anyone, but these dolls are dipped a bit out of MH canon and monster design rules.

Symphanee's earring holes are pierced into her skull as well as her vinyl head so the pegs have enough room to fit properly, and I'd wager that was done after the two pieces were correctly aligned so the holes were perfect.

Symph's necklace matches her earring, with smaller chain links in a choker shape. 

Symphanee's dress has tons of presence, mixing an old-fashioned aristocratic poofy silhouette with a street jacket and modern flair in such a way that she looks very mature. This is an adult woman to me. An executive. The style also works beautifully with a ghost, as it feels like a spirit who took a flowy huge vintage ballgown from her own time and modernized it to edgy current-day fashions. This is the drama a ghost like this fully deserves. It's making me understand why these two brands collaborated because a lot of Off-White works well with the G1 Monster High style really well.

This is the original Off-White costume Symphanee's look is based on. It already featured a chain element, likely influencing which monster type was chosen to wear it. I think Symphanee's bright greens elevate this design significantly!

The outfit also had several surprises. It looks like she has a top that's half-jacket, half-dress, with the jacket having only one flap and sleeve while the other half is a frill-shouldered dress. The jacket feels like windbreaker fabric. However, at the back, I saw some weird folds of clothing and I realized--she has a hood!

Unfortunately, Symphanee is not styled, nor really rooted, to wear this hood up, nor is the hood designed with a gap in back to get her hair out of the way, but I had to try just once. 

This would have been an awesome display option, and it's very Death, but I do prefer her hair up and the hood down, so I see why this was just left as an accent rather than a look. 

The jacket half of the top has a golden insignia reading "OFF" with a winged "O". This and the fake zipper are the only parts of her outfit which are not black. 

Symphanee has a green link bracelet on her right wrist which matches the choker and right earring. The green is kept to her right side this way. The bracelet hugs her wrist tight rather than spinning or sliding on it loose.

Then, I realized this outfit went together in an unusual way. Symphanee has an elastic ruched belt that opens with a snap, and the jacket half is actually a separate part! It slides off her arm, and the corner of the hood attaches to Symphanee's right shoulder with a small velcro piece! 

The velcro on her shoulder.

The jacket has a fabric tag marking this collector doll release.

This is what the outfit looks like without the belt and coat and jewelry.

Symphanee's skirt has a huge pile of waist frills, and is floor-length and made of a stretchy vertical-ribbed fabric in two layers. Under that is a layer of black tulle to give the skirt volume, and another tag. 

The length of the skirt was a great asset for photos, since, as mentioned before, when Symphanee is on the Inner Monster stand, the skirt covers it completely and makes her look totally freestanding!

Symphanee absolutely cannot stand freely on her shoes, though. They're pale flesh-pink heels with black soles and ruched vinyl fabric straps on each, and the heels are made to look like bent rods of metal. They're hard plastic and a little loose due to the fabric straps, and offer little footprint and no grip on a surface.

Symphanee comes with small plastic sleeves protecting her feet, though the shoes don't seem likely to cause abrasions. It's more likely that they're there to fit them on a little tighter for packaging.

And the skirt is also separate and optional! Symphanee has a whole skinny dress underneath, and this minimum layer makes her feel the most like playline Monster High to me.

I found it pleasantly easy to put Symphanee's costume back together. There was nothing confusing about the layers and things went together quickly. Because her belt is elastic fabric with a snap, it went back around her and stayed on easier than any MH belt I've ever encountered before! I'll enjoy it, because I'm due for a re-review soon with the absolute worst nightmare belt scenario MH ever gave me back in the day. The most difficult part of redressing Symphanee is pulling her skinny dress down through the skirt. 

The purse is neon green translucent vinyl with a static vinyl handle and a longer metal chain strap. The strap has a removable beaded chain attached to it with three dangles--a gold Off-White X, a gold Monster High Skullette, and a black vinyl fabric bag tag.

The purse has a simulated clasp in the Off-White X shape, but does not open. It's decorated with an abstract graffiti-esque paint job. 

Symphanee's body is entirely translucent and best described as "lime soda" in color. She has no bones in her beyond her head, though Mattel did appear to leverage the color of the elbow, wrist, and knee pegs by making them white to suggest a bit more of a bony element to the doll. 

While it would have been an engineering nightmare to fill her entirely, I wish they'd repeated River's forelimb bones at least. Her hands and lower legs have black ombre on them. Her right hand is forming a peace sign, which might be a new gesture for MH dolls. The only gesture hands I'm remembering are a "hang-ten" for Lagoona and a "love" ASL sign on the Feisty/Love Inner Monster (and I swear there was someone else I can't remember).

Spectra faded from opaque to translucent, while Symphanee is the first MH doll to do the opposite. Here, it has a similar effect to MH Cupid where it looks like she has hand gloves and stockings, though Symphanee is the first MH doll to have ombre on the hands, since previous dolls with skin fades started on the forearms and the hands were a solid color. The paint is pretty glossy and doesn't look too flimsy, unlike the spray gradients on mainline MH dolls, but I'm not going to be the one to try scratching her to see what happens.

Symph is the third doll to be fully translucent in the brand, following from the CAM Blob and Ice girls. All three obscure the head internals, though Symphanee using an internal skull to do so is far cooler than the other two just having more opaque heads. I still have Oozie the Blob, but she's a pain to dig out and unpack.

Symphanee still has that infuriating G1-style body with the nonremovable elbows, but while her pegs have tight spots in the rotation, they're not quite as sticky and unworkable as previous recent collector MH dolls I've encountered.

Now, fancy photos. Oh, you better believe I got the photos.

Not like she made it difficult.

I had to stage a simple ballroom setting for her with a green curtain made from a shirt tied with red rope. 

She played really well with the curtain and shadows.

Can you believe this doll???

Green light looked good on her, too. 

And a red backdrop was great.

And because she's a model, I channeled fashion shoots for a few pictures.

She is fashion, she is drama, she is death. You couldn't ask for a better combination.

And I have a great group of green dolls now!

LDD Wicked Witch to be discussed soon!

Is Symphanee Midnight a worthy $150 doll? 

Well...by Mattel standards, absolutely. There is genuinely a level of craft here that stands out, and she really is the fanciest MH doll I have. The outfit is layered with two optional pieces, the skull-in-head effect is a killer bit of extra engineering and sculpting that does feel next-level, fabric shoe straps and chain on the purse are fancier than Mattel usually does, and I appreciate that the packaging was designed to be as easy to disassemble and put back together as possible. Her design is also flat-out stunning. Perfect contrast, color, and styling for the costume, and an extremely dramatic and beautiful monster. She's one of those wonderful dolls who always looks great, and truly feels like an art piece. I don't care for the display case she has...but this is absolutely the kind of doll who deserves one. 

In the wider sphere? I don't know. MGA has put out clothing on a standard akin to Symphanee on much cheaper dolls, and the packaging and licensing had to have inflated the cost. I find the packaging to be pretty clutter that isn't really worth keeping. I also find the bony effect rather underwhelming because it's only Symphanee's skull and nothing else. She might have been the ultimate skeleton-inside doll, but instead she's just another alternate expression of the idea. There's a nearly-complete translucent bone-in doll if you mashed River, the Inner Monsters, and Symphanee together, but I really would have loved Symph to have it all. I just don't think she deserves to be the most expensive collector doll I own. (At original price. I'm willing to, and will have to, pay more than I did here to get several LDDs I want.) Return of the Living Dead Dolls Sadie is second to her at $30 less, and while the niche and appeal is quite different, I think Sadie offers more.

Even though she could have done more, it's really hard to argue with a fashion doll that has a realistic anatomical skull inside a translucent head. It's Gothic as all hell and proves that MH can still bring the bite as well as real monster innovation to doll design. It's an awesome achievement for the toys, and it's something wicked that never would have felt within the realm of possibility at the start of the doll brand. I feel like the team had been sitting on this idea for a while and were dying to finally do it, and found a venue where that would be acceptable, whereas maybe it wouldn't pass for release for young audiences. It's a shame this wasn't a more accessible doll release, even in the collector sphere, but my goodness, was I right to bite the bullet here. Symphanee is the showstopper of the Off-White collection for sure, and I'm sure she was chosen to be the grand finale by releasing last. I'm excited now for the 2024, entirely in-house Garden Ghosts designer series. While the first doll Lenore Loomington is not good enough for me to pursue, there could be some truly legendary things in store. And at a lower price than this licensed fashion collab!

This doll release has a bit of nonsense in the designer hype culture, and the fashion-collab aspect and packaging has no value to me...but just as a doll?

What a prize.