Sasha Festival 2024: Rosie Shortell’s Dolls and Dawn Law’s Pram Collection

The Saturday morning displays at Sasha Festival 2024 brought together several strands of Sasha doll collecting: artist-made outfits, memorable festival pieces, miniature paintings and a remarkable group of prams. Their short run made the morning feel like a concentrated show-and-tell, with familiar objects returning alongside specialist collections. The displays were dismantled before many visitors could take them in, and the photographs here preserve only part of what was on view.

Among the tables were tributes to Rosie Shortell and her work, Dawn Law’s prams, a Course doll display, a Studio doll display and outfits by UK-based Sasha seamstresses. The displays weren’t announced, and the time available to photograph them was limited. Some tables may have been free later in the day, but the displays had already come down. That left the morning’s photographs as a partial record, rather than a complete catalogue.

Rosie Shortell’s dolls, costumes and paintings

The tribute to Rosie Shortell drew together dolls in outfits she made or organised, along with pieces that recalled earlier festivals. Four dolls wore outfits associated with Shortell, and the photographs also show a Japanese-inspired outfit and a cowboy playtime outfit. One doll and outfit brought back a memory of the 2012 festival. Charlotte, the 2013 Raffle doll, appeared with a drawstring bag made for her by the photographer’s daughter.

The display also brought Shortell’s work as an artist into view. Artist supplies and an easel accompanied a painting, with another miniature painting shown nearby. These small details gave the table a sense of the artist’s practice as well as its finished doll costumes. For collectors, that combination can make a display especially rewarding: the dolls show how the outfits were worn, while the tools and paintings add a glimpse of the work behind them.

One particularly welcome return was Shortell’s set of costumes for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The five dolls and outfits had appeared at the 2012 Sasha Doll festival, where the display centred on characters from the play. Seeing the costumes again 12 years later offered a chance to revisit a past festival presentation through the dolls themselves. The photographs identify Puck and Oberon, Titania and Moth fairy, and Cobweb fairy among the characters.

That passage of time gives the reunion its appeal. The costumes connect the 2024 gathering to an earlier moment in the festival’s history, while the dolls make the theatrical theme visible in miniature. The images don’t provide a full account of how each outfit was made, so close details and construction methods can’t be confirmed here. They do, though, preserve the group arrangement and several named characters for anyone who remembers the original display.

Dawn Law’s prams, including an unusual early model

Dawn Law brought a collection of prams that formed another highlight of the morning. The photographs show several groupings, including three, four, five and six prams. The most unusual example was described as a very early Doucet pram with two wheel sizes. That detail makes it stand out within the collection, and a comment by Catherine French adds useful context while keeping the identification appropriately qualified.

French noted that Les Arts Decoratifs, a French museum, has a pram of this type in its archives. The museum gives an approximate date of 1935–40, but French said this may be incorrect: the belief shared in the comment is that production did not begin until the 1950s. French also mentioned a photograph of an early 1960s pram with the same hood and apron fabric. The model may have been made as a special item for the Au Nain Bleu toyshop in Paris.

Those details leave the dating open rather than settled. The museum’s approximate date, the later production belief and the comparison with an early 1960s example are separate pieces of information, not a definitive provenance record. For collectors examining a similar pram, the hood and apron fabric may offer a point of comparison, but the source doesn’t establish that matching fabric alone confirms a date or maker. The two wheel sizes remain the striking visual feature noted at the festival.

UK couturiers and the other doll displays

The UK couturier display featured outfits by Sasha seamstresses based in the UK. Photographs show the display on its own and in the foreground during Frank’s talk. The original account says that little was captured of the other tables, so the images can’t supply a full record of the Course doll or Studio doll displays. A photograph of the Studio display being dismantled underlines how quickly the morning’s viewing window closed.

Two dolls also appear in a quieter moment beside the Studio Doll display. Trudi, the photographer’s Studio Doll, was sitting nearby on Saturday morning. In another scene, Florence and Reuben talk with Jocelyn’s Ella about the pram, before Ella’s hair was replaited. These candid moments add a personal scale to the event: the dolls weren’t only arranged for display, but also part of the conversations happening around the collection.

The morning’s strongest record is therefore a collection of glimpses: Shortell’s returning theatrical costumes, the artist’s miniature paintings, Law’s prams and the UK couturiers’ outfits, with the Course and Studio displays only partly documented. Together, they show the range of work and collecting brought to the festival. The practical takeaway for future gatherings is simple: when displays are scheduled to be brief, a clear timetable and a little more viewing time would help visitors document and appreciate them before the tables are cleared.