Doll Carrying Cases (1961-1972)

The Barbie carrying cases of the mod and vintage years certainly packed a lot of style. From the earliest examples, with limited palettes used to depict Barbie posed before jazzy, off-kilter colored quadrilaterals, her poses mirroring those found in the early fashion booklets, into the full-color phase, with floating heads and sparkle trails, during which Midge and Skipper come on scene, and into the kaleidoscopic mod years, when the art styles were as changeable as Barbie’s circle of friends, we’ll sample at least a flavor of the endless possibilities of carrying case illustrations during their first ten or so years. Fashion Doll Guide also has a nice summary of case collecting.

The very first cases, released in 1961, tend to show Barbie modeling her various fashions before colorful quadrilaterals. The silkscreened graphics use only a handful of hues per case, although the palette is switched out from case to case–meaning we get to experience familiar fashions in a variety of surprising shades. As mentioned in the introduction, the poses here are the same as the ones in the fashion booklets–redrawn, but possibly traced–though the color schemes may be unfamiliar (as in the image above, where Sweater Girl, Enchanted Evening, and Let’s Dance all get fresh paint jobs). The one “original” fashion that I have seen shows Barbie in profile, in a full skirt, holding a roundish case of her own. This pose may have been traced from Sweet Dreams in the 1961 fashion booklet–a highly similar stance for a totally unrelated fashion.

Sometimes, the similarities between the 1961 illustrations in booklets and on carrying cases can help us identify an ensemble whose details were changed or simplified for the case illustration, as in the example below, where we can establish that the top Barbie fashion on the Ken case is Cotton Casual, rather than the somewhat similar Suburban Shopper and Movie Date fashions, based on the model’s pose: arms akimbo, face shown in profile.

Now that we’ve seen it once, it’s easy to recognize Cotton Casual when it appears on the ’61 record totes shown below. But what about the polka dotted dress below that? It reminds me of Party Date, which didn’t exist yet. Pose analysis indicates that I was close: the figure is copied from Silken Flame as it appears in the booklets (and you can see another color-altered Silken Flame on the Ken case above).

In addition to doll carrying cases and record totes, the same imagery appeared on lunchboxes, pencil cases, scrapbooks, children’s luggage, and more.

In the 1963 iteration of the cases, Midge joined the scenes and both she and Barbie adopted all-new poses. Sometimes the color palette was expanded to allow richer illustration, but not always. Sparkle trails and floating heads replaced the off-kilter rectangles.

The set of three pieces of children’s luggage below, still utilizing the limited color scheme, feature Sorority Meeting in three different color combos made from mostly the same colors (teal with white trim and reddish hat and shoes, orange dress with teal sweater, shoes and gloves, orange dress with teal sweater but no gloves), while Movie Date, on Midge, is consistently pink.

The case at lower left raises a question: was “Travel Pals” a sort of euphemism?

Even with unlimited colors available, sometimes the outfits were recolored to add visual interest, as happened to Sophisticated Lady, below right, and “Red” Flare in the image that opened this post.

Starting in 1965, the mod years came in with an explosion of color and form, as the sparkle trails and floating heads were supplanted by colorful art-nouveau-by-way-of-Swinging-London flourishes:

In the above collage we see, amid a wealth of details, cases that perpetuate the lie that Color Magic ensembles will fit Francie, as well as one or two spots where Francie bears a strong resemblance to Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie on “That Girl.” Where have we seen these themes in the past? Ah yes–a 1967 Francie Casey paper doll set.

Out of step with the Barbie carrying case aesthetic of these years, one 1967 lunch box was decidedly non-mod:

That’s because the Campus Queen lunch box, above, is not licensed by Mattel. Though the resemblance to American Girl Barbie, Ken, and Queen of the Prom was undeniable (the back of the box features a little “board game” played with magnetic pieces, and the sides show scenes of characters engaging in dress shopping and other activities), this item has no Barbie affiliation whatsoever.

Back in Barbie’s milieu, it was during the mod era that Sleep-n-Keep cases were introduced. One half of the case resembled a standard carrying case, with compartments for dolls and hanging clothes and drawers for accessories, while the other half was painted up to look like a bedroom, with vinyl bed(s) and tables that folded down from the wall like elements in a pop-up book.

The first Sleep-n-Keep case we’ve observed is the ’68 Barbie and Stacey case shown above. The catalog text at left asserts that the room is “So pretty you can be sure Barbie and Stacey had their interior decorator plan their room.” It wasn’t so pretty that the girls wanted to keep living there, though, because by the following year they had a new “Romantic Victorian bedroom,” per the ’69 Sears catalog (not shown).

Barbie and Stacey’s interior decorator was not consulted about the animal print carpet seen in the eBay listing above.

In 1970 Barbie was rooming with PJ in the neon-bright bedroom below, and Jamie had a case room all her own–a single. Then in ’72 Barbie and Steffie were back living in the Victorian bedroom Barbie had shared with Stacey previously. You can see the Jamie and Steffie cases, with other examples, over at barbieworld.it.

Why did Barbie have so many different roommates? Was she difficult to live with? I choose to believe that these rooms represent some of her many pieds-a-terre, as her swinging modeling career and jet-setting lifestyle took her from London to New York to Pairs to LA, where she had dedicated space to crash with pals, all while maintaining her idyllic suburban lifestyle in some less fashionable burg. But who knows?

I like to go out on notes of sparkles and rainbows, when possible:

Where to next? Check out our post on off-brand carrying cases; see more portable homes in the Many Abodes of Barbie; get into Basic and Dressed Doll Boxes; or make your way to the table of contents to view more options.