Sylvia Natterer was born in Oberstdorf and raised in the French-speaking Switzerland and moved to Vils after meeting her husband Klaus in 1991.
She started to make dolls after a difficult time when Klaus lost his job and to support her family. She opened a small shop and gallery in Schwabing but it is in 1981 in Frankfurt Spring Fair where she exhibited her collection that she became a famous Doll-maker when her entire collection was sold out within an hour.
Rapidly expanding, she purchased an old School in Vils to set her porcelain doll factory and her dolls were purchased and exhibited in galleries and museums around the world and got a huge number of international prizes!
Soon after Toy companies battled to get the license to produce and distribute the famous dolls. Today only Petitcollin in France has the license for those amazing porcelains!
Quickly, Michael Jackson became one of her customers. “He discovered and ordered one of my dolls in a magazine in the USA. Another one, the little boxer, he saw and bought in Vienna. The actress Demi Moore also has a doll of mine,” says Natterer.
Sylvia has stopped the doll production in 2009 and now 72, she retired in a smaller home near Lake Geneva after the passing of her husband Klaus.
You can buy some of her dolls HERE