Opinions on realistic closures?

I'm curious what kind of closures everyone prefers on doll clothes and if they think realistic ones are worth the effort!

Lately with my personal doll sewing I've been finding hook and eye closures kind of overly finicky, and I really don't like the bulk of snaps.

Would something like a realistic button hole + buttons be worth making for doll clothes?

Or shirts and things that would need to be pulled over the torso (head removed), is it too inconvenient?

I'm trying to find a balance between garment structure and ease of use I suppose. I haven't decided what to go for permanently yet for myself.

What do you all prefer to make, or buy?

The only thing I know for sure is that I really really don't like velcro lol.

I kind of want to try making a row of functional buttons on a blouse but I wonder if that's a little too ambitious.

It definitely depends on the scale you're working in. Both the scale of the doll, and how big you want the buttons to be on the garment. I personally use snaps for my garments and have non-functional buttons, but I do think you could absolutely do functional average-sized buttons on a 1/3 doll. Whether it's reasonable as the actual closure though......I have pretty fine motor skills, but chronically shaky hands, and I don't think I'd have the patience to try and use those buttons. Especially if it's on a garment that would frequently come off and on.

I'm a snap user!

For 1/3 and 1/4, I also use zips, admittedly not as often as I'd like because I need to find a zipper foot for my machine. They work best for items like dresses which have a long back closure.

8 hours ago, meltychoco_BJD said:

Or shirts and things that would need to be pulled over the torso (head removed), is it too inconvenient?

I don't find it inconvenient at all. It actually makes dressing easier, keeps the wig out of the way and untangled.

22 hours ago, PlasticJester said:

It definitely depends on the scale you're working in. Both the scale of the doll, and how big you want the buttons to be on the garment. I personally use snaps for my garments and have non-functional buttons, but I do think you could absolutely do functional average-sized buttons on a 1/3 doll. Whether it's reasonable as the actual closure though......I have pretty fine motor skills, but chronically shaky hands, and I don't think I'd have the patience to try and use those buttons. Especially if it's on a garment that would frequently come off and on.

I pretty much only sew in 1/3 now because I realized I just don't have the patience for anything smaller 😭 I definitely wouldn't attempt real functional buttons on anything below 1/3.
I didn't think of it at first but I get what you mean with taking the garment on and off. I sometimes have trouble with using buttons on my own human sized clothes even so maybe doll sized buttons would be a bit of a nightmare lol.

 

14 hours ago, meteorite said:

I'm a snap user!

For 1/3 and 1/4, I also use zips, admittedly not as often as I'd like because I need to find a zipper foot for my machine. They work best for items like dresses which have a long back closure.

I don't find it inconvenient at all. It actually makes dressing easier, keeps the wig out of the way and untangled.

I also like back zips for dresses! I think zips work really nicely when the garment is already pretty structured, otherwise I find the zipper makes some stuff kinda stiff. If I could just put zippers on everything without that issue, I honestly would. Bendy zippers when??

I used to use snaps a lot for all scales, but I only use them now if I can find super tiny ones. It's probably user error on my part, but I consistently have issues with them ripping out after moderate use, though.

I am in the camp of snaps and zippers for how clothing closes up mainly because the metal hooks and loops seem to break or come loose way too fast compared to snaps and real doll sized buttons are very difficult for me to use due to my large hands.  I have several Volks outfits that I love because they look amazing but I hate putting them on girls because it takes me 15 minutes to button up the shirt!  LOL  Seriously, I have bear claws for hands.  😛 

Some of the metal hooks and loops make sense like when you have clothing that is supposed to fit several different sizes of bodies but 98 times out of 100, manufacturers cheap out and only have the metal hook part and use just a small bit of thread as the loop.  These ALWAYS break or pop on me and it drives me crazy.  I understand cost versus value but come on!  If you use metal hooks, use the metal loops too! ( I'm looking at YOU Volks! )   Otherwise just use multiple snaps.  They're so much easier to deal with than everything else!  😉 

 

Billy

7 hours ago, baldylox said:

I am in the camp of snaps and zippers for how clothing closes up mainly because the metal hooks and loops seem to break or come loose way too fast compared to snaps and real doll sized buttons are very difficult for me to use due to my large hands.  I have several Volks outfits that I love because they look amazing but I hate putting them on girls because it takes me 15 minutes to button up the shirt!  LOL  Seriously, I have bear claws for hands.  😛 

Some of the metal hooks and loops make sense like when you have clothing that is supposed to fit several different sizes of bodies but 98 times out of 100, manufacturers cheap out and only have the metal hook part and use just a small bit of thread as the loop.  These ALWAYS break or pop on me and it drives me crazy.  I understand cost versus value but come on!  If you use metal hooks, use the metal loops too! ( I'm looking at YOU Volks! )   Otherwise just use multiple snaps.  They're so much easier to deal with than everything else!  😉 

 

Billy

Oh yeah hooks do seem to come loose kind of often, while snaps and zippers never really do for me. I think in terms of sewing, I also find it hard to make sure the two sides of the hook and loop are actually aligned properly.

I feel like they look nicer visually but they have a lot of downsides too!

I'm lucky I've never encountered a lazy hook and loop installment with just thread as a loop though, that sounds awful!!

I've also had metal hooks/loops come loose after a while, but I've not had that problem with snaps so far.

@meltychoco_BJD I buy my snaps off AliExpress. I don't have it near me to check, but they're either 6mm or 8mm sized snaps, made of metal, and you get way more per pack than the ones at local shops.

I've heard Taobao is good for sewing supplies too, but I've never learned how to navigate it ^_^"

 

I Discovered the Sew-On Metal Snaps not long after i took interest in Doll collection/customization twenty years ago, and i haven't used anything else since.

As a Matter of Course, i replace the Velcro closures on any prefab fashion that comes my way that i intend to keep...

On 12/7/2024 at 8:57 PM, meltychoco_BJD said:

I'm curious what kind of closures everyone prefers on doll clothes and if they think realistic ones are worth the effort!

 

Snap's are the easiest, but real buttons aren't too bad to do up in doll scale except for the top one. 
 

14 hours ago, baldylox said:

LOL  Seriously, I have bear claws for hands.

Is that the real reason Rei needed horror mace? Get those bear paws off of me bub, I can change my own underwear!

 

7 hours ago, meltychoco_BJD said:

I'm lucky I've never encountered a lazy hook and loop installment with just thread as a loop though, that sounds awful!!

Volks uses those when the outfit needs to fit multiple sizes. Like tops that need to fit SDGr, DD, and DDS, will have three rows of loops for the hooks that do them up. If you used 3 rows of the metal loops it wouldn't work well and they'd be visible on the outside of the outfit when it was on the larger dolls. The threads blend in well. 

They did that on the stripped underwear sets they released recently, so the bra fit multiple doll sizes

 

8 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Is that the real reason Rei needed horror mace? Get those bear paws off of me bub, I can change my own underwear!

8 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Is that the real reason Rei needed horror mace? Get those bear paws off of me bub, I can change my own underwear!

Pfft.  She never lets me help her with her clothing unless it's a complicated outfit with lots of accessories or things that need to be tucked where she can't reach.  But that's still far and between since she has Sango, Katerina and her twins Reiko and Reika around all the time.    My little Battle Maid leader is all grown up now!  

 

Billy

52 minutes ago, baldylox said:

She never lets me help her with her clothing unless it's a complicated outfit with lots of accessories or things that need to be tucked where she can't reach.

Mine just gnaw on me while I change their outfits, it's like trying to give a cat a bath; except Kikuchi Makoto, she becomes quite tranquil when called Makoto-hime.

 

I do think the hooks are really useful for complex outfits. For example, if you have something like Rin Shibuya's full-set, you have a bustier that has a Velcro closure and a corset that goes over it with a hook closure. You wouldn't want a snap closure on top of a snap closure. I think they did something similar with Altria where her shift hooks closed in the back and then her outer dress zips closed in the back. The hooks lie flat and don't ruin the line of the outer dress. 

25 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

You wouldn't want a snap closure on top of a snap closure.

I bought a DollHearts outfit recently that has hooks on top of hooks (hooks to close dress and hooks to close bolero) and I found it super awkward and clunky, so this is definitely something dressmakers should keep in mind. I get that they were trying to make it fit multiple sizes, but they really should have alternated between zippers and hooks here.

23 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

I bought a DollHearts outfit recently that has hooks on top of hooks (hooks to close dress and hooks to close bolero) and I found it super awkward and clunky,

I think the ones I have from Volks are always one type on the bottom layer, and a different type on the top layer for clothing on the same part of the body. E.g. Velcro on layer A and then hooks on layer B for Shiburin's top. I can see how two layers of hooks could be annoying if the layer A hooks kept coming undone as you did up layer B.