This is Monster High's second fashion-design collab, kinda another Skullebrity doll, and definitely their second genderqueer doll character after G3 Frankie. This is the Witch Weaver, modeled on the works of fashion designer Harris Reed.
I wasn't familiar with Reed at all before this doll, and was introduced to the designer through it, like with Off-White (see my review of Symphanee Midnight here). In my defense, I'm not at all in the world of fashion houses, runways, and designer brands. Harris Reed is a fashion designer self-described as genderfluid (though seems to be described with male pronouns by default, including on the Harris Reed website mission statement) and whose works play with gendered signifiers and blended silhouettes. The doll takes after Reed a little, with long red hair and a pale human skintone, and is dressed in his fashion.
It's...not exactly clear how to refer to the doll. The character is described as a witch (always a plus with me), but is a fanged monster, so what does that come from? Is it because this is a spider witch? I guess that would make this the fourth witch character (G1 Create-a-Monster witch and Casta Fierce and G3 Draculaura precede) and the second spider character after the more thoroughly arachnid Wydowna Spider. The gender of the doll is also unclear. The doll is (fairly unbelievably) built with masculine G1 doll pieces, but the styling is gender-ambiguous and nonconforming and the Witch Weaver wears a fully feminine faceup and a hairstyle that reads femme in context. The doll's body shape and the sheerness of the top indicate that this is an androgynous character, likely using they/them pronouns, who emerged from a masculine assignment and owns the body they were given. I don't think Mattel would build a doll of a trans woman with masculine doll parts, nor would such a character dress this way on the torso. The character is not meant to be literally Harris Reed in the Monster High universe (in the way Zomby Gaga was actually Lady Gaga) despite looking a bit like him, so I will treat them as their own entity and not use Reed's description to form the doll's. It does also slightly disappoint me that the character has only an epithet and not a proper name to refer to them by. I'm fine respecting that, but it would have been fun to see what this character would be named officially if that was the approach taken.
The doll's confident masculine elements were part of the appeal to me, certainly--it's wonderful seeing queerness depicted on any Monster High doll who doesn't present heavily femme, and I was happy seeing a nonbinary gender identity and feminine makeup depicted on somebody with a masculine body. It shouldn't matter, but it can feel like nonbinary representation in media is disproportionately AFAB, so I appreciate depictions that reflect the wider range of identity and which show anybody can step out of the structure if that's what's right for them. AMAB people who want to explore femininity and nonbinary identity deserve to have the cultural space to thrive and be seen, though I understand it's very hard socially for people perceived as male to explore femininity and that AMAB enbies may face bigger obstacles or dangers in presenting themselves than AFAB enbies can. Maybe it's disappointing that the only way we get a solo MH collector doll on the G1 boy sculpt is through a character who isn't a man, but it's also awesome that the Witch Weaver exists as proud and beautiful as they are and I won't take that for granted. Mattel being terrified to sell boy dolls is an issue under which the Witch Weaver might be another manifestation, but that shouldn't undermine the Weaver in the slightest. It's a shame they didn't really seem to grab people, though, hanging around in stock for months even after multiple sales. I don't want Mattel execs to blame the doll's stagnant sales on their queerness.
The Witch Weaver is described as a benevolent enchanter who uses magic to empower monsters to express their true selves. I think a couture-goth nonbinary witch mother is pretty much exactly the vibe that many queer and misfit monsters would look up to and adore as a helpful force, so the vibes are perfect. It's a generic story in some part, but the idea of an out-and-proud elegant role model helping other people find themselves and their confidence is still extremely touching.
This is also the first G1-styled witch doll since G1, and, alongside G3 witchcraft being a discipline/marginalized identity instead of a species, this shows how Mattel has changed their approach to the archetype. Gone is the classic (and potentially stereotypical) pointed hat and green skin and the classic Halloween vibe, and now, this witch is human-colored, slightly arachnid, and more gothic and grandiose in portrayal, without their portrayal speaking negatively to any human phenotype. I do love breaking from the "witches are all cis women" concept, and I appreciate the broadening of the witch concept to allow for wider interpretation that also doesn't carry uncomfortable cultural baggage like the classic Halloween witch G1 was referencing.
When the box arrived, I was impressed by the presentation. The box goes for a deliberate vintage-y matte finish accented by metallic print, and features a vertical palatial tone with lamplights and curtains. It looks like the cover for a book I'd be grabbed by at a bookstore.
The logos for Harris Reed and Monster High adorn the opposite thin sides of the box.
The box and doll both feature very frequent motifs of a four-pointed star with a circular bead or pearl in each corner.
The Witch Weaver's hat is backdropped by a second plastic window on the back of the box.
The art on the back of the box shows more of the window, framed by a Skullette, and the blurb on the back confirms that this character is described with they/them pronouns! This elaborates more on the love and acceptance enchantments the witch creates, weaving a spell of gossamer spiderweb over the city they're in to free the monsters it touches to be themselves. I love people empowering others to find their voices after finding themselves. It would still be sweet, but perhaps less powerful, if this monster wasn't from a demographic that goes through that process of self-acceptance and discovery.
The backdrop insert has flaps on top which make it easy to pull out. This is what the scenery looks like removed--curtains with mystical symbols and harlequin diamonds.
The certificate of authenticity is on the back, and the stand pole can be seen peeking through--it's hidden behind the curtains on one side in the front.
The certificate's wording is vague about who exactly designed the doll--just the collaborative effort of designers and artists at Mattel. The doll is not advertised as personally designed by Reed, suggesting it's an imitation of his works which got his sign-off once presented for approval.
Getting the witch out was a bit tricky because their hat is sandwiched between plastic discs, and their head tags are on the lower layer, requiring the removal of the plastic presentation brackets from the box.
Even after getting all that, their doll stand was hard to extract due to being tucked under the curtain popouts. I had to cut the backdrop from the back to be able to slide the pole out.
Their doll stand is entirely normal G1 fare. I might have expected a custom-sculpted doll stand here.
Here's the doll unboxed.
The Witch Weaver's defining piece is a Harris Reed signature--a big hat. This is a flat huge-brimmed piece where the brim is a cutout spider web with strands of beads and the doll's star symbol, and it's so large and angled as such that it looks more like a mystical halo than a hat--which might well be the intention. The web is made to look irregular in an elegant way while being framed in a perfect circle.
In theory, it's the same style of hat as Lydia Deetz or G3 Draculaura, the latter of whom is also a witch, but it's quite a different effect being so large and ornate.
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| G3 Draculaura's hat was not made by Mattel; this is a 3D-printed fan model closely based on the cartoon. |
It also doesn't look as good to me angled down like Lydia's hat. It makes the costume turn bulky and shrugged in a defensive way, while the outfit flows carefree when the hat is turned back.
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| There's something suddenly insecure about the witch with the hat worn this way, which isn't the right feeling. |
The hat isn't fully loose, and has a comb built into the hollow, but this isn't exactly the finest comb or the easiest to slide into the hair. The hat hugs the head better when the comb is on the bottom half, but then it can't grab the hair. I'd have liked a much finer-toothed comb that slid in better, or no comb at all, because it doesn't seem to functionally stabilize the hat or make it easier to put on.
This is one of those where a built-in headband or prongs, almost sliding on like a pair of glasses on the wrong side of the head, might be the more functional helpful option. The witch's hair is long enough to disguise that.
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| Like so? |
For a few photo poses where I didn't want to worry about the hat slipping, I put a pin in through a gap in the back and through the scalp so the hat would be held on.
The plastic of the hat is translucent. Here's a detail shot.
The hair itself is deep red leaning orange, very long and center-parted, and tidily waved down the length in a way that makes it shaped but not especially voluminous. The hair is saran and comes out of the box mostly tangle-free, but will be getting washed and combed.
The Witch Weaver's skin is a pale human color with an added shimmer effect, and their head sculpt appears to be new. It's stamped 2024, when they were released, and I don't recognize their features distinctly as a previous doll's, though an older sculpt could have been edited. Their face sculpt is truly neither definitively masculine nor feminine in form, but the visual effect of the sculpt and makeup isn't an abrupt visual of a woman's face on a man's frame. This does convey a face with some masculine aspects that got glammed up in fully feminine makeup, but it's less "a boy doll's face sculpt painted feminine" than I had expected. I think it looks good, and I think the doll's face sculpt being more gender-ambiguous is to the benefit of the concept.
The face paint is elaborate and features feminine lashes and lipstick and subtle golden-brown eyeshadow. Curling spiderweb markings in black are prominent, featuring on the upper edge of their left eye, the lower edge of their right eye, above their left eyebrow, and even hidden in the black stroke marks texturing the brows themselves. Only their left eye has full lower lashes, which are the same brown color as the under-eye outline, while the web shaping fully replaces the lower lashes on their right. Their irises are blue and green with radial highlights, and four-pointed stars and dots serve as eye reflection designs. The doll has dark red lips and white fangs, likely an arachnid aspect of their monster nature. It's nothing on Wydowna Spider, but it's nice that the doll doesn't just look like a human in a fantastical outfit. That's not what we come to this doll brand for.
The Witch Weaver's ears are human-shaped and their earrings are symmetrical, depicting the star symbol with Skullettes hanging from them, and are chrome vac-metallized silver.
The Witch Weaver's costume is a flowy sheer harlequin top, a strapped waist-only corset layer, and trousers with flared bottoms trimmed by tulle at the ends. The outfit has vintage and high-end tones along with mixed gender signifiers from the shirt-and-pants cut being given lots of flounce, plus the corset. Perhaps I see a bit more circus (even G1 Freak du Chic in specific) than witchcraft here due to the printed pattern, and maybe I'd have liked a cape somewhere, but I can't say this outfit is unsuccessful or not an intriguing aesthetic.
It didn't pass anybody's notice that the Witch Weaver is wearing the same fabric for their top as Off-White Harmonie Ghoul did for her dress. I think that's more of a neutral fact than a positive or negative. I still like Harmonie, but the big factor stopping me from getting her was learning that the nail through her neck is faked by being mounted on a choker necklace. If she had it through her neck for real, I'd have to get her. Now, if I sought another Off-White doll, it might be Raven Rhapsody, whose head sculpt and wings make her more of a novelty, but I don't like her outfit and would be perfectly happy getting the doll loose and undressed with her wings for pure restyling purposes.
A brooch matching the earrings' top half features at the neck. The collar of the top is a vertical ruffle, trimmed by the brooch and a thin black ribbon tied in a bow.
The sleeves are puffed with two gathering points, creating two bulbs before the flared sleeves which hang over the hands when the arms are lowered. These can be hard to work with for display because the puff of the sleeves and frill of the cuffs really obscures the shape of the arm or its pose, making some poses look less elegant thanks to the shirt.
The fabric is sheer, and the cut of the costume does show off a bit of the chest in a way that indicates the Witch Weaver likes the frame they have. It's an outfit that works more because their torso is flat and either neutral or masculine, however they see it, because this would be a breast display and considered indecent on a feminine frame. While this isn't a man's torso per the identity of the character, it's not feminine breasts being barely obscured.
The chest is further highlighted by this corset or harness, which has two shoulder straps and sits below the upper chest, focused more on the waist. The piece has metallic gold patterning, while the color doesn't appear elsewhere, and comes off as a separate piece that velcros in back. I might have preferred the print being metallic silver.
I think the doll works without the hat or corset for a slightly less formal look.
The Witch Weaver has rings on both hands, sliding over their third and fourth fingers as single pieces that convey different rings being put on each finger. A Skullette ring features in each piece. Their hands also have black dots painted across the backs, and their left hand has spiderweb tattoos that continue to the forearm. Like with Operetta, the tattoo is broken into two distinct flourishes that don't touch, one on hand and one on forearm, ensuring the rotation of the two arm pieces doesn't disrupt the design. If there was a line that connected across the designs, turning one piece or the otber would break the design in a jarring way. Operetta's tattoos were on her forearm and upper arm and weren't on her hand, but followed the same principle.
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| The right hand looks like it has rings connected across fingers as part of the design. |
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| The left hand looks like it's depicting separate rings for each finger. |
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| I like the "dewdrops" on the web unique to the design here--the webs on their face don't have the droplets. |
The pants are a separate piece from the top and pull up so the top is tucked in. The pants are a satiny fabric with a subtle metallic web print. The ends are bell-bottomed with slits up the back, and ruffles of black ribbed tulle cover lower legs over the satin.
The Witch Weaver's boots are basically completely hidden! They go up the shin with a stitched spiderweb texture and the platforms and front have a crumpled crystal-like sculpt. This is the first time a doll built on the G1 boy sculpt has worn heels, but the Witch Weaver's hinged ankles have no trouble fitting in them and they slide on and off with ease. The custom fit of these boots does give them Bratz-like proportions that a femme-bodied MH doll wouldn't create.
The soles have webs and Skullettes on them.
Paired with the tall body sculpt and the hat, the shoes add to the Witch Weaver's towering presence.
Here's the Witch Weaver undressed. There wasn't any more paint detail to discover, and their body sculpt is nothing new, being the same as the majority of G1 boys. G1 boys who didn't have this were those who added monster sculpt detail to this frame (Gil and Neighthan and that's it) and those who broke from this frame (Finnegan, Manny, and adult character Hexiciah Steam). I find the witch's head to be a bit proportionally smaller than I'm used to for this body sculpt, however, and not in an unpleasant way. I'd be totally fine with Monster High having more balanced head/body proportions on the whole. Again, I think the doll walks a tricky line of neither feeling like a man in women's makeup nor a woman's head on a male body. The proportions of the head are atypical for this body, making it feel a little strange, but I'm just not used to MH heads scaled this way and I'm inclined to prefer it.
The molding on the bottom of the witch's head socket is really messy.
At a basic level, the Witch Weaver is more visually mixed in terms of gender signifiers, while MH's other nonbinary doll, G3 Frankie Stein, is easier to mistake for a girl with their visual presentation not breaking from their body shape much. That's not actually a problem, though--at least, it's not the character's problem, because anybody deserves to present their gender however they like, and within whatever relationship to expected norms that they want. Enbies don't owe people androgyny or gender-warping, and while gender signifiers can be used to let people get your status without asking, what's wrong with clarifying or asking? If someone looks like a girl, has a body that would be assigned female, and loves to look like a girl but simply doesn't think they are a girl, then fantastic! Let them do that and respect their pronouns. The Witch Weaver gets it. Their magic spell inviting monsters to find themselves isn't one saying they have to do X or Y to achieve it. I'm sure they adore G3 Frankie and are so proud of them.
I spent a long time building a set to photograph the Witch Weaver in, utilizing the back wall of their box as part of the scene so I could put starry paper and a blacklight inside for a magical glowing round window--which worked really well! I was thinking of some kind of cozy apartment high up in an old historical city building, and seeking to match the box art enough for it to integrate well as a feature wall. I rested the Witch Weaver on a sofa (a bench draped in velvet) dressed in their corset with no shirt and no hat for a casual downtime look. I really like the atmosphere I got. To give them the kind of romantic witchy modern-vintage look, I used more patterned papers that suited them and mood lighting to make the scene vibrant. I guess I was going a bit for a ContraPoints vibe, if you're familiar with Natalie Wynn's YouTube channel and aesthetic.
I'd have put them on the sofa with their halo on, but it was too big in diameter to let them pose reclined in any stable manner.
Here are some upright modeling shots in this basic look.
Then I dressed them back up fully for more portraits.
Then I took some simpler portraits against flat surfaces. I played with the Ghouls Rule Skullette prop, which they held pretty well for some pictures.
Then I put them against a floral background, sitting down with a rose.
This pattern worked well for simpler portraits too, since the Witch Weaver kind of sinks into the pattern.
And against a golden-leaf pattern.
Despite the doll being so heavily focused on black and white, the box art really signaled to me that this was a doll to immerse in all the colors they aren't wearing, and I think that's ideal. There would have been such a different tone if the box was all greyscale, and I wouldn't have liked it as much. I wasn't compelled to go very goth or black-and-white vintage with them, but they certainly work with that tone too.
Beautiful. I had a good time with the Witch Weaver.
The doll's design is very "fashion" in that I don't understand or agree with all of it, but I still think it works well at the end of the day. The puffy shirt shape hides the arms a bit and makes some poses lose some grace they would have had with a sleeker look, and the corset doesn't make complete visual sense to me, nor the tulle leg puffs, but it's fine and does come together. My bigger issues are that the hat comb isn't a very effective way to put the piece onto the doll, and that the doll's head had a sloppy mold around the neck socket. I also could have done with a custom doll stand. The normal one feels a bit blah for them.
Still, the doll was a lot of fun to work with, and I appreciate their overall visual aesthetic as well as their presence as a genderqueer nonbinary doll on a masculine frame. We get some beautiful pairing of masculine and feminine elements and the doll still has some subtlety and grace in the way the paint and sculpts and costume come together so the intent of fluidity or genuine androgyny is conveyed. I also just love the mystical vintage theme to their visual, which, granted, is pretty common in decor items as a current trend, but it's still pretty and the Witch Weaver does it well. They really suit ornate and lush environments with rich colors or staged details that give them a sense of fancy fashion. Much like the last fashion-collab MH doll I reviewed, I felt like the character was a model born for high-fashion photoshoots.
Here's the Witch Weaver and Symphanee together.
While no Monster High collector doll is justifiably priced, including the Witch Weaver, it does at least feel fair that they weren't as expensive as the Off-White dolls. For sure, the more normal doll packaging and standard doll stand had a good deal to do with that reduction in price, but even as base dolls, Symphanee feels more elaborate with her costume and internal skull and chain purse strap. Could she have been sold for much less? 100%. But I'm glad at least that in the unfair pricing scale, the Witch Weaver wasn't asking as much as Symphanee, because they wouldn't warrant it. They're a good doll, but not deserving of a higher price than they have, if even that.
I'm glad a doll like the Witch Weaver exists. The connection to Harris Reed means nothing to me in particular, but the content of the doll, as a glam vintage avant-garde gender-defiant doll on a masculine body, depicting a witch with a loving and empowering mission, just makes me really happy. The Witch Weaver is slightly less groundbreaking than G3 Frankie in the sense that they're marketed to an adult audience that's already widely established itself to be queer or queer-friendly, but they're still a proudly nonbinary doll that's visually nonconforming and has canon they/them pronouns on their box. That means something.
What I wouldn't give for my own magical cozy apartment beneath the stars and a glittering web of positivity shimmering across the city.
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