Silken Flame

Vintage Barbie illustrations, built environment, clones and more

The built environments of mini vintage Barbies

Brunette Casey doll in red sailor dress with teal trim, matching hat, and teal shoes (the Land Ho!! ensemble) stands in front of Barbie's original Dream House plaid sofa, blue chair, and wood-look coffee table (all chipboard). On the table sits a miniature chipboard house--mostly just a long wall of a house with a couple pieces jutting out on the far side. It shows a yellow single-story exterior with brick and greenery elements. Near the illustrated front door of the tiny house on the table stands a small figurine in a red suit and hat, carrying a wide black portfolio (representing Barbie in Busy Gal at 1:6 scale)
Casey gestures toward the mini New Dream House that came with Skipper’s bedroom. Bandai mini Busy Gal stands outside.

One of the last key topics we have yet to cover in Barbie’s 1960s built environment is this one: miniature environs suited for Barbie-scaled vintage Barbie dolls. Since Barbie is 1:6 scale and 11.5″ tall, we’re talking about dolls that are 1:36 scale relative to a human, standing just a hair under 2″ high. Note that we draw a distinction between mini vintage Barbies and vintage mini Barbies: under the heading of mini vintage Barbies we include mini dolls that were made as recently as this century, but styled like Barbie of 50+ years ago. The Bandai mini Busy Gal, shown above, is but one example.

In the category of vintage mini Barbies, mini dolls manufactured 50+ years ago, there is only one example: the red-swimsuited, swirl ponytail doll Francie holds at right, below. The doll was sold in several sets for Skipper and Tutti; when purchased as part of the “Me and My Doll” Skipper ensemble she included a tiny, elastic gingham skirt in red or pink, as shown below.

And in the category of vintage mini Barbie houses there is only the miniature New Dream House, front and back views of which are displayed above and below. This is one of many delightful little chipboard accessories that came with Skipper’s 1965 Dream Room. Although lacking furniture and with simplified structure and screening, this mini house is on the whole a pleasing adaptation.

The mini new dream house sits on the Dream House coffee table, with sofa and chair still in background. The mini house is flipped around to show its interior, which resembles the full-sized house's with some simplifications. Most of the house is a single long piece of chipboard, but dimensional sections are inserted to represent Barbie's wardrobe and the kitchen counter with pass-through window (pass-through is not operational). In the foreground, two Francies sit on the floor, one holding a mini original ponytail Barbie in her chevron/zebra/debut swimsuit, and one holding a mini swirl ponytail Barbie in her original red swimsuit with a red-and-white cloth gingham kneelength skirt. The Francie at left wears a velvet-textured navy dress with pleated skirt and yellow buttons and trim (Pleat Neat). Francie at right wears a pink dress with white crocheted collar and cuffs, white lace tights, and pink heels (Dance Party, but with Iced Blue stockings). She also wears the white lace hood with pink trim but it's mostly hidden behind her head.
Francie and Francie brandish the vintage mini Barbie and the 40th anniversary mini Barbie in front of the mini New Dream House.

Decades would pass before another mini Barbie environment was produced.

A square wooden table holds a mini case room lying open with its interior displayed. The interior consists of colorful, modern-style molded plastic furniture anchored in place on screened floors and walls. Francie stands behind the table, holding a miniature American Girl Barbie just over the top of the mini house. Casey sits on the sofa, at left, holding a mini blonde ponytail Barbie in Silken Flame in front of a mini case with Red Flare sculpted onto the back as if hung. At right, A second Francie (in Dance Party) sits on a blue chair and holds a mini brunette ponytail Barbie in Enchanted Evening in the mini house's living room. At her feet is a closed mini carrying case illustrated with a bubble cut brunette Barbie in Enchanted Evening--and a smaller one wearing Friday Nite Date in the background, surrounded by a starry trail and the Barbie logo on red background.

Above, we see the 2007 miniature Barbie Family Deluxe House from Hallmark. This is purportedy an ornament–like, for a Christmas tree–hence the little metal loop poking out of the miniature American Girl doll included in this set, wielded by Francie above center. It’s also an accurately-scaled, strikingly faithful downscaling of the ’66 original case house that only makes us wish Hallmark would venture into the vintage abode game more often. They did produce a pink Dream House in 1999 that reflected Barbie’s lifestyle at that time, but its ceilings are less than 2″ high, slightly cramping mini Barbie’s style. There’s also a series of cases with dolls, molded wardrobes and working accessories drawers, examples of which are seen above and below.

Six miniature Barbie accessories lined up on and in front of the Dream House sofa. At rear, on the sofa, left to right are a piece of black vinyl luggage in a hatbox shape with colorful Barbie illustrations; a blue carrying case illustrated with Titian bubble cut Barbie in Red Flare, a black vinyl boxy shaped luggage piece with ponytail Barbies illustrated in front of skewed rectangles. Front row, left to right: the Enchanted Evening case from the previous image; the mini Barbie Family Deluxe house exterior, with faithful representation of the full-sized house's front cover; and a small red plastic case with American Girl Barbie's head screened on along with the Barbie signature in white.
The Hallmark Barbie Family Deluxe House ornament, bottom center, within the case ornament milieu, alongside a couple Barbie-scaled Hallmark luggage ornaments and, at lower right, a vintage mini Barbie case for Tutti (sometimes identified as a lunch box, it’s just a bit too small to hold vintage mini Barbie).

Next, let’s turn our attention to the World’s Smallest Dreamhouse, which is based on the verging-on-vintage A-frame Dream House.

A white and yellow two-story house sits on the brown wooden table in the same setting. Casey in Land Ho! sits in front holding a tiny Barbie, just bigger than her hand, with a blonde ponytail and zebra-stripe swimsuit. Blonde Casey in Iced Blue, a blue dress with white lacy ruffles down the front and white lacy tights, stands and hols a second tiny doll near the house' roof. At their feet sits a hot pink miniature case, about the same height as the house, with Superstar Barbie illustrated on the front.
Casey and Casey demonstrate the World’s Smallest Dreamhouse, along with a World’s Smallest Superstar case and the dolls–ponytail Barbie and Malibu Christie–that came with them. Inside, the Superstar case is divided into 3×3 compartments to hold the little dolls.

Maybe it comes with the territory of being World’s Smallest, but this house is too small for Barbie-scaled Barbie dolls. Keeping with the Seventies context, the accompanying dolls are more Dawn-scale than Barbie-scale.

To achieve 1:6 scale, this house needs to roughly double in size:

Two panels show Francie on a plain white background dtanding next to the Worlds Smallest Dreamhouse. The house has a brown peaked roof and two stories. From this side, the exterior is screened with doors, windows and potted plants in yellow, white, blue, brown and green. In the left panel the top of the house comes about to Francie's hem, while at the right it comes to her waist due to digitally compositing two differently-sized images into one.
Francie with a back view of the World’s Smallest Dreamhouse, left, and with a digitally resized version, right. If it existed, the version at right would be the correct 1:6 scale.

It’s also not as faithful a representation as Hallmark’s work: as shown above, the mini version has screened walls on the back and is completely open in front, while the real version’s front and back are fairly similar, with various door and window openings, movable wings, and no screening. The World’s Smallest version does include some furniture in sticker form (not shown).

The last option for mini vintage Barbie environs that we’ll cover is DIY. The blog Dutch Fashion Doll World is the undisputed ruler of mini chipboard play set DIY; I linked an overview but you can poke around the site to see other articles detailing their approach. Does their mini Skipper’s Dream Room include a mini mini New Dream House? It totally does.

I’m not so skilled or dedicated, so for my DIY project I decided to make some paper dolls. This method is super easy because you can find PDFs of the vintage paper doll sets (I picked mine up on Etsy for a couple bucks), print them small, and you’re pretty much done! Our piece on paper doll environments contains many tempting candidates for a Barbie-scaled paper doll scene, but I opted for an old favorite: the Friend Ship. Here are Francie and Casey riding on the Friend Ship, playing with 1:6 scale paper dolls from the Whitman paper doll sets Barbie’s FriendShip (’73) and New ‘n’ Groovy P.J. (’70):

As described in the text. Two dolls sit in a vintage airplane play set interior, on rows of chairs that face each other across a table. Windows showing the sky and ground below like the background. On the table a paper doll "folder" stands with an

In this instance, the built environment is the Barbie’s FriendShip paper doll folder propped up at the back of the table.

We’ve previously demonstrated the paper doll sets’ potential as environments for fully dimensional Barbie in addition to her paper doll form, and that applies in miniature, as well: your dolls can use mini paper doll folders as environs for their other dolls, too. Below, Francie helps vintage mini swirl ponytail enter a 1966 Barbie, Skipper and Skooter dressing room folder to try on her lone garment, while Bandai Busy Gal is posed before the fashion designer’s studio from a 1963 Barbie, Ken and Midge set.

As described. The dressing room folder is wood-look with an illustrated rack of clothes, three-way mirror, and other items. The fashion designer's office includes an angled drafting table, a chest of shallow drawers, rolls of fabric, and sketches of Barbie garments lining the walls. The dolls and "folders" are positioned on top of the Mattel Modern sideboard and a Francie doll stands to either side.

Setting aside our paper doll sets for the moment, Barbie-scaled vintage Barbies are scattered throughout this post. Before we wrap up, let’s quickly review our dolls’ doll options.

As described in the text.
Mini Barbies occupying the World’s Smallest Dreamhouse and checking out the vintage case/lunchbox. In the house, top row: Silken Flame from the Hallmark Red Flare case and vintage swirl ponytail mini Barbie. Bottom row: Lunch on the Terrace from the Hallmark Barbie Family Deluxe House; 40th anniversary mini Barbie in her reproduction box; Bandai mini Busy Gal; a Fairytopia Little Lands doll and Mini Barbie Land (Barbie Movie) mini doll that are smaller than Barbie-scaled Barbie but larger than World’s Smallest Barbies; and World’s Smallest Malibu Christie, the smallest of them all. Next to the vintage case are World’s Smallest Barbie and Ken, who can easily occupy the box as a carrying case, and a second Mini Barbie Land Barbie, who can fit in the case if she bends.

While there are about a million different Barbie Land mini Barbies, if any sport a vintage look we haven’t spotted them (though actually, there’s an astronaut with rocket ship that might be passable as 1965’s Miss Astronaut). Another non-vintagey line of mini Barbies, that are the correct Barbie-for-Barbie scale, are the Y2K-era Tomy capsule toys. While not mini vintage Barbies by our definition of “vintage,” a couple could be used to fill out crowd scenes for your dolls.

Francie in Pleat Neat is seated next to the Hallmark case house. In her hand is the mini Hallmark Barbie in Lunch on the Terrace. In and in front of the house are two mini Barbies in generic bare-shouldered evening gowns, one pink and one blue. THeir hair is ashy blonde, similar to Francie's. One wears hers long, down her shoulders, and one in a bun updo. The end of a hot pink box with pink and orange stripes and the Barbie logo is just visible behind the house.
The American Girl Hallmark doll (in Francie’s hand) invites a couple Y2K Tomy mini Barbies to her case house. One of the Tomy doll boxes, which clearly indicates the dolls’ era, is just visible at back left.

Though we show just one or two examples, Hallmark and Bandai have produced five or six vintage-style mini dolls apiece, while the two Mattel 1:6 scale Barbies we show are the only two they’ve made at that scale, to our knowledge. Both Hallmark and World’s Smallest also produce larger Barbie figurines, around 3″-5″ tall; we love the nostalgic Hallmark ones but don’t quite see a role for them in full-sized Barbie’s world.

A slight tangent: while most of the vintage-style mini dolls stand straight, the Bandai minis have more expressive poses that wouldn’t have been possible for the stiff-limbed originals. Inaccurate for actual vintage dolls, these poses are based on the fashion booklet illustrations corresponding to each ensemble!

Since some non-vintage dolls infiltrated that size comparison, let’s address the elephant in the room: yes, your doll’s dolls can occupy the mini Barbie Land Movie houses, but no, they have no vintage atmosphere. Like the movie, they are pink, opulent, and oversized, and they have slides. Here’s the most restrained one in the series:

Blonde Casey leans over a two-story house that doesn't quite reach her waist. The structure is made of white plastic with one hot pink roof and wall, tan floors, a yellow slide from the roof to a second-floor pool, and a clear turquoise elevator stuck to one side of the building. To the left, a pink convertible with bluish windshield and a Career Girl mini figure stand. To the right, a "bed" made of plastic plants and flowers and a yellow fairy doll stand.

Scaled a little small for 1:6 scale Barbie, but with high ceilings and plenty of square footage, we grudgingly note them as a multistory alternative to the too-small World’s Smallest Dreamhouse.

At left in the above image, Bandai mini Career Girl demonstrates how the Barbie Movie mini convertible might pass for a vintage Austin Healey if you squint.

Above right, the Fairytopia mini doll dragged her preposterous bed into the shot to try to suggest that Fairytopia Little Lands could serve as a built environment option for your mini vintage dolls. They cannot. Even though the little Fairytopia figures are smaller than Barbie-scaled Barbie, their play sets are absolutely enormous, in addition to falling squarely outside the vintage theme. Unless your dolls are Richie Rich types, they’re not playing with these “little” environments:

Two dolls are posed with plastic Fairytopia play sets from the early 2000s. One in the foreground is "jewel"-like translucent plastic. The Hallmark mini Enchanted Evening stands at the front door of a structure and is roughly the same height as the doorway. The playset in the background looks like a row of flowers and is even taller than Casey, who stands next to it.
Francie reaches for the Hallmark mini Enchanted Evening doll in front of Jewelia’s house, while Casey brandishes Jewelia near Peony’s house at back.

That’s really not the vibe we’re going for here… Let’s dial it back a notch.

Five mini houses are lined up on a white background. In the foreground L-R are the A-frame, the Hallmark house, and vintage mini house for Skipper. In the back, L-R are the Barbie movie house, this time facing backward with white, pink and purple plastic walls visible with a hot pink frame and yellow slide from the roof; and the Fairytopia Azura's Cottage, which is a cartoonishly-rounded single-story structure with purple roof and arched door, teal stairs winding up, and plenty of height for mini dolls. The movie car is parked at right front, with the 40th anniversary and Bandai Busy Gall dolls prostrate in the two seats. The Hallmark case room doll stand in front of her house, blocking an illustration of the same character screened onto the front. Two other Hallmark mini dolls, Silken Flame and Enchanted Evening, stand before the A-frame and look about head-and-shoulders too tall to fit into the house. In the back, Bandai Career Girl stands in front of the movie house and the vintage swirl ponytail in her red gingham skirt stands on the stairs. Since this doll has no means of standing independently, the back of her skirt is actually trapped in the slightly-ajar door, although not too noticeably in this smallish image.
Serious and silly mini houses with vintage-styled occupants

Where to next? This post is about Barbie’s early built environment. The most recent post in this category is part three of the Barbie’s Seventies Travelogue series, and the most popular are those on Mattel Modern and Susy Goose furniture and on penthouse apartments. Otherwise, the overall most popular posts on this site are about Barbie shoes, 1959-67, and about Mattel fashion booklets. Or just head up to the Table of Contents to see more options.

sheathsensation

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One response to “The built environments of mini vintage Barbies”

  1. Taswegian1957 Avatar
    Taswegian1957

    I haven’t seen any of these minatures before. So interesting.

    Liked by 1 person

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