7. Held Hostage for a Ransom!

During this debacle I have been researching and networking to find a manufacturer who can product the quality of our prototypes. I found a potential company, Jay Mao, a facility employing a woman as a liaison who lives in Taiwan and travels back and forth to their Hong Kong plant. This company produced doll face samples for us exceeding my expectations in quality and beauty, with beautiful eyes and glued-on eyelashes. As luck would have it, they are only 40 miles from First Union.

I approached my contact at First Union to obtain an agreement to cease their effort and return my assets to my custody. This permission was granted and written down in an email.

However, when the senior partner, Mr. Kam Huang of First Union, decided to get involved, the ancient issue of the Chinese “losing face” surfaced, which was magnified because he had lost face to a woman. He nullified the agreement to release our property, cancelled the commitments and refused to release our assets without excessive fees, knowing full well that his employees did not have the skills needed to produce the SophiaDolls™. These demands totaled far in excess of the original, agreed-upon negotiated manufacturing cost of the entire SophiaDolls™ order!

At this time, I receive no response to my calls and emails to Mr. Huang of First Union. He has, however, responded to my husband’s emails with ridiculous one-sided offers.

We are currently working to find a solution to this unbelievable dilemma. We have contacted several people and are asking the media to bring exposure to how unfairly businesswomen and men are treated in China. We have heard several stories that verify that similar experiences continually occur. Few are talking about this major issue. Well we are! Small companies and start-ups cannot afford the massive legal fees and negotiations required to solve these sorts of difficulties.

7. Now the Work Begins

While First Union was creating the doll molds, I spent the next six weeks working with their staff in finding suitable fabric and colors for the costumes and the completion of acceptable costumes. The first batch of costumes was horrible – too big and poorly sewn. They were sewn for the mass market instead for a high quality collectible doll. I refused this clothing and worked with the First Union supervisor for months, teaching what was needed for the clothing line.

The doll wigs became an issue, because they were poorly made and, though brand new, actually fell apart! Correct sizing of wigs was also a problem, most being either too large or too small for the dolls’ heads.

Custom-made doll eyes had been negotiated and promised by First Union. The doll faces and heads samples were produced with eyes having the appearance of being “possessed.” They looked like Halloween figure rather than goddesses. After much frustration and failure to achieve the desired look, First Union gave me permission to outsource the eyes and wigs, as they could not meet our quality standards.

The doll faces were poorly painted. The samples received were distorted, again, to the point of being scary in appearance. Our prototypes had eyelashes glued on the dolls’ eyelids. First Union insisted it was impossible to glue on eyelashes and assured me that they could paint lashes with an acceptable effect. To my dismay, the painted eyelashes appeared to be tiny spiders crawling on eyelids.

As if I could stand another surprise, First Union manufactured all of the doll fabric into outfits or costumes. This first order was to have been only for the test market in case changes needed to be made for mass production. Instead, all the fabric was sewn into costumes. First Union admitted to making this mistake, yet insists that we purchase all the costumes. We have not seen, and therefore cannot know, the quality of this unauthorized work.

In the middle of August 2006, I gave up being able to offer dolls for the Christmas season, yet still continued to seek a better source of workmanship. Missing the Christmas season created great financial loss for SophiaDolls™, and has negated the opportunity to test the dolls in the market at a premium time.

7. Manufacturing a Doll

Up until this stage, I had prided myself in the amount of knowledge I had gained over the years in getting these prototypes completed. And while I thought there was nothing that could be as complex as producing the prototype doll, nothing could have prepared me for the next step I was faced with – manufacturing the dolls.

My original wish was to have the dolls made in the United States. I was told point blank that it would be too cost prohibitive to do so here, but I wanted to give the business to one of the few struggling doll manufacturing houses left here in hopes that a successful product might breathe new life into a dying industry. I contacted Middleton Dolls and worked with them for over a year, only to have my project rejected because of so many layoffs. My attempts with other small dollhouses were also unsuccessful and I was forced to seek manufacturing options in China.

My long-time friend, Tony Gianadi, referred me to an agent in Massachusetts who had been working with a Hong Kong manufacturing client for over 20 years. This manufacturer produced dolls for several high profile doll companies. My husband and I decided to move forward to work with this man and the company, First Union Industrial. I sent off my precious prototypes, now seeming like children to me, as well as the original master molds. I was assured by our contact here, as well as First Union that they could duplicate the quality and appearance of our prototypes.

In February 2006, we signed a contract with First Union Industrial and wired them money to complete the molds for Athena and Demeter. They committed to a product delivery date of mid-September.