A few posts ago, Raging Moon put up one of her Random Dolls posts. In the post, there were three dolls that I used to own. I told her I'd put up a post showing pictures of them, and I'm finally posting it. I had a few roadblocks; RM has already put up two new posts! But better late-ish than never. The first doll is the updated Holly Hobbie who made her appearance in the 2000s. I had a mini version of her, but she fell of of my desk and I can't find her currently. :( I'm very down about losing her, but I found a pic of her included in a random pic of my desk from 2007. I also have a picture from 2006 of me with the "real" Holly Hobbie.
Xanadu mentioned that she had seen an older version of Miss Hobbie, and indeed, there was a line of Holly Hobbie dolls that came out in the 1970s, at the height of the first Holly Hobbie craze. I have the four different dolls from this lineup, bought second hand, since I never got them when I was a kid. Some are waiting to get their clothes and shoes washed, since they were out of packaging, but here's one of Holly's friends, to show you what she looked like. I posed her in between old school Stacie, Barbie's little sister, and mini American Girl Caroline. She measures 6" tall, and came with shoes, and also a sunbonnet.
The next doll is actually a group of three dolls, the Wee 3 Friends. One of the girls was Stacie, who was supposed to be the same Stacie as Barbie's little sister, above, but she and her friends, Lila and Janet, measured around 10" tall. This made it easier to give them more detailed fashions, as well as easier to make all of the accessories that they came with. I had the set Snow!Snow!Snow!, which included ice skates, pets, snowballs, and hot cocoa. I did do one photo shoot with them, where they were excited about seeing the new green shoots of spring coming out of the ground. I eventually decided they didn't inspire me very much, so I sold them off to Rachael, since she had said once that she liked them. I was afraid that if I donated the set to a thrift store, all the little pieces would be lost in no time, and I thought that would be a shame.
The last two dolls are also by Mattel. They were part of the Teen Trends doll line. RM read that they were also supposed to be competition to the Bratz dolls, but I don't remember them being marketed like that. Of course, I don't remember them being marketed at all, which is probably a reason why they didn't last very long. They were 17" tall, just an inch shorter than American Girl, but a lot more slender in build. I bought Courtney at Toys R Us, where I first saw these dolls. Sadly, my Courtney has not aged very well. Her hair is super dry, and her legs got sticky, to the point where they stained her khaki pants. Courtney was the "preppy" girl, and I always liked preppy fashion. I also liked her shoes, which were like the Dr. Scholl's which had been the rage when I was younger.
As I was deciding what to do with Courtney about a decade on, I made the perhaps ill-advised decision of buying her a friend. The one I chose was Gabby, the "girly" one. Gabby's silver-toned chain belt became blue-green and stained her white pants. The small round pendant on her silver-toned necklace also turned the same color. Here's a picture of Gabby in her case, which each doll came in. Each case was different to suit each doll's personality. I also have her out of box, and in one of the separate outfits that Mattel made for her.
Since I was talking to MonsterCrafts on her blog about Barbiecore, I wanted to add two more pictures. Here in the US, Barbie: The Movie was a huge event. Women wore whatever pink items they had in their closet, or combed the thrift store to get the right Barbiecore style. They were also greeting perfect strangers at the theater, saying "Hi Barbie! Hi Barbie!" I saw a picture of these pink mules in a thrift store shortly after the movie left theaters, and texted my daughter, asking her if she thought somebody had bought them to wear to the Barbie movie. She replied, "For sure they did."
I also got permission from my daughter to post this picture of her at the movie, taken in a special photo booth. I feel she got the old school Barbie "karate chop" arm down perfectly.
I will admit it was fun to talk about these dolls, which are usually far from my current blogging subjects. My doll collecting has certainly changed too!
