Silken Flame

Vintage Barbie illustrations, built environment, clones and more

Visions of After Five

The new Silkstone doll. Source: Mattel.
Sketch from a 1962 booklet. Author’s collection.
Barbie jumbo trading card #154. Source: joeslist.com.
A fashion from a 1962 Whitman Barbie paper doll set superimposed on a 1963 Whitman Barbie paper doll, both as reproduced by eBay user onceagain34
1963 Barbie and Midge lunch box. Source: member_12364 on eBay.
Illustration included in a 1963 Whitman Barbie, Midge and Ken paper doll set as reproduced by eBay user onceagain34
Excerpt from the 1964 JCPenney Christmas catalog. Source: christmas.musetechnical.com.
L: Black and white photo of model in full-skirted, calf-length dress, apparently black, with a cropped, short-sleeved, boxy black jacket with wide sheer white collar, long black gloves, closed-toed shoes, and wide-brimmed "picture" hat. R: color photo of Barbie in a dress whose skirt is of similar length and volume, with double-breasted bodice having small white buttons, wide white collar in sheer material, and picture hat in the same white sheer with black ribbon accent. Shoes are black open-toed and she wears no gloves.
L: Christian Dior 1950s design; its similarity to After Five was highlighted by BillyBoy* in Barbie: Her Life and Times. R1990 Barbie trading card, source: eBay user river_creek_designs.
The author’s “bubble cut” dolls, one dressed in After Five, in front of a background belonging to Bill Cotter
Human-sized reproduction by Unique Vintage.
Blonde Hair Fair mod Barbie head on made to move body, posing in a navy blue fit-and-flare dress with red and white trim, including a wide white collar with a red bow and two bands around the skirt bottom, plus white gloves (look like elbow-length but pushed down), wide-brimmed white straw-type hat, white shoes with pointed toes. In the foreground a wooden sign reads "Legoladas."
In 2024, RBA of Spain reimagined After Five as a sort of Hollywood-fantasia sailor dress. Beautifully documented by LegoLadas on youtube.

Where to next? Have visions of Solo in the Spotlight, or of Midge; envision After Five one more time in the Keys to Fame board game; or go up to the Table of Contents.

sheathsensation

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4 responses to “Visions of After Five”

  1. Hello world! – Silken Flame

    […] Visions of After Five, the 1962 Barbie ensemble […]

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  2. Barbie’s Keys to Fame – Silken Flame

    […] wears the 1965 Miss Astronaut ensemble right up to the end, then attires herself in 1962’s After Five for a ticker tape […]

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  3. Barbie’s Fashion Shop (1963) – Silken Flame

    […] above, the customer, Miss Barbie, is seated watching a shop model show Senior Prom, while Midge in After Five works the sales floor. In other catalog images we may see another shop model, or the shopper may be […]

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  4. Who wore it best? – Silken Flame

    […] Credit: Theriault’s. L: Christian Dior’s New Look, 1950s; R: Bubble cut Barbie in After Five (1962) from a ’90s Mattel trading […]

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