Disney Store 2017 Classic Belle doll review

"Jenseits der Nacht/ Jenseits der Angst, /Holt kein Schatten uns mehr ein."

Literally: Beyond the night, beyond fear, no shadow can reach us

From the musical Rebecca by Sylvester Levay and Michael Kunze

 It's the counterpart song to the one I quoted in the Pocahontas doll review. Belle gets her happy ending and Pocahontas gets a bittersweet ending so thes get matching quotes. Also they are good friends in my dollworld.

Belle is one of my Chrismas dolls as well I wanted to add her to my collection for years. There was a Belle doll here who came together with Hannah Rapunzel, Diana Jasmine and Susanne Ariel. (And some of the boys as well but they are not interested in blogging, they asked me not to include them on the meeting site. I may have to make an exception for Hans. Now enough, back to Belle.) But... things happened. I do not have that Belle anymore. So I put a Belle doll in my basket when I bought my Christmas stuff. But I have an old photo of the older Belle so I put the two pictures of the two Belles together to compare them.

It looks like one photo (it was mistaken to be one picture) but it is two photos combined into one picture. The one on the left is the 2015 version - no glowes, no Chip, no real ribbon on the dress but one made of glitter - the one on the right is 2017 version , the one I own and I'm about to share my thoughts about. The hair is packed differently, too, the one on the left has two big curled locks, the one on the right has two wavy sections.
As she was a long awaited doll I already had a name for her. She is called Daphne after the authoress of the book Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. The film adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock  is quite well-known and I choose a quote from the musical version of the Rebecca story.
So let's get to the doll itself.

She has a box in the same simple style as all the 2017 classic dolls have. A Disney sign in the upper left corner, the characters name and the movies title at the bottom.
The fancy one is the movietitle and the plain one is the characters name - it is good to know in cases the name is also the title. (Mulan Pocahontas, I'm looking at you two)

One side shows Lumiére, the other Belle with Mrs. Potts and Chip with books, probably in the library.

I would't have chosen ballgown and reading combination but that's my problem. :) Hasbro uses the same combination, they have a very cute ballgown Belle artwork for their Little Kingdom Belle, which shows her with her nose in a book.

The back shows Belle in her ballgown, again with Mrs. Potts and Chip but this time it looks like they are in the garden of the Beasts home since they have the castle as background. But now it's time to free this mademoiselle who is said to be peculiar.

There is the usual amount of ties, some for the hair, hands, waist, feet and more. The ones in her head were not tight and quite easy to cut.

During deboxing I accidentally pulled one of her gloves partly off. What scared me was that there was something hard in the thumb part of it. I thought Belles thumb broke off. So I pulled it completely off. Her hand was all fine, what I felt was the seam - because it is so small  and the two seams are so close to each other. Putting it back was not that bad but I don't think I'll repeat it often. It can be helpful while dressing them into a long, tight-sleeved top.

Belle fresh out of the box

She has two sections of hair but I arranged her hair for this picture so it looks like she has only one. The shoulder part of the dress is a bit darker than the bodice, the glowes are the same color. The skirt is a bit more yellow and less golden and is covered in glitter and so are Belles legs. The ribbon on the dress is maybe a bit lighter than the bodice.

It goes all around the dress but at the back there are only two sections, and that is because there is the velcro, where the dress closes. There is also an ugly hole where the skirt and the bodice meet, that's where her waisttie was. It'll take some time till it is flat. I wanted to make that a bit faster and pulled her skirt so it lays nice so she can sit down and sit on that part so it straightens out. (Pocahontas did not have this problem, thanks to the fabric they used for her outfit) Then I found out that the sections of the skirt are actually gathered with the help of elastics. So it goes right back where it was as soon as I wasn't pulling the dress. I did not know that but thpught it's a clever idea to make the dress.
This year the ballgowns are shorter than usually, they are all showing their feet and Belle is no exception.

Belle had a good amount of tissue paper under her skirt.

This paperboa now serves as a stylish accessoire for holiday Elsa.

Belles shoes are visible and they kind of point upwards which I think is quite odd. She has flat feet and wears yeallow flats. An odd choice for Belle in my opinion but apperently Disney gave this year flat feet to all the girls I got. Flat feet-klick knee combination just doesn't work. She has of course articulation at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, the articulation the usual classic princess dolls from the Disney Store have. My Belle has a bit of a problem with her hip and she sits like her neighbour, Dolly, the Frozen Fever Anna doll, who has hard plastic legs and uhm doesn't sit really elegant. She has a bad influence on Belle. :)
Belles dress is very pretty and I think it is quite movie accurate, only the skirt could be a little longer. In the movie it touched the floor, here is a reminder:

No shoes visible, even if she sits down.
She has her hair styled in a half updo, similar to the movie.

The middle section of her hair is used for the actual bun, using some hairsections from her hairline on both on the left and the right side. That's why she comes with her hair in two big sections.

The upper part of her hair and the updo is quite soft but the ends of the two big locks I mentioned are hard because on the amount of hairproduct used on them.
Like during the last few years, she comes with her widows peak. She has a lovely face, subtle makup, green eyes (I would call it green but it is mostly called hazel) and a slight blush on her cheek.

She looks a lot like her mini counterpart that I got a year earlier. Mini Belle looks high up, though, so she doesn't look the same in the picture.
If you are curious of the Belle dolls from the earlier years, here is a link to a review of the 2016 Belle doll by Beastsbelle with comparing her to all the Belle dolls starting from 2010. She looks pretty similar to this years Belle.
http://nevergrowupdollguide.blogspot.hu/2016/07/2016-disney-store-belle-doll.html
The big Belle comparsion and Belle lineup can be found at the end of the post.
Chip came with Belle thes year as well. As far as I can judge, he is exactly the same as last year.

I think I got a fairly nicely painted one. He is up next to Mushu, just behind the girls.
Belle is also up on the shelf, next to her new friends.
Merida and Aurora are the ones left, plus a 2015 Jasmine. Who shall be next? I've one Little Kingdom girl left as well, waiting to be reviewed. ;)