Category: illustration
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Sidebar: Barbie’s Baggage
Following are vintage illustrations of Barbie and other characters sporting baggage. For a rundown of vintage and nostalgic luggage suitable for Barbie dolls, check out the previous post. …and some not-Barbies:
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Sidebar: Window Shopping
A recurring theme in fashion doll illustration… …plus a bonus: when the shopping gets real. Happy holidays from Silken Flame!
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Sidebar: Miss Lively Livin’ game (1970)
Because of its gorgeous design, we’ll briefly pause to appreciate one last Barbie board game of the vintage and mod eras, even though its art uses photographs in lieu of hand-illustrated characters. The whole package is such a sumptuous rainbow that it’s irresistible. Look closely at corner squares on the board to see shots of…
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The Barbie World of Fashion game (1967)
We’ve noted before how the lush illustrations of the Queen of the Prom and Keys to Fame board games enriched the world of Barbie visuals in the early-mid ’60s. In the mod era “lush” was less on-trend, but 1967’s Barbie World of Fashion game, with its travel-focused play, was illuminated by bright, bold interpretations of…
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Illustrated fashion packaging
Barbie’s early ensembles were sold in boxes with cellophane fronts that neatly displayed the contents, along with black-and-white illustrated backs featuring a bit of snappy text. Only for a short while did Barbie appear alone on any packages; once Midge was introduced, even the earlier fashions still in production came in updated packaging that included…
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Sidebar: Go-Together furniture sets, illustrated
Our write up of Barbie’s Go-Together furniture for the many abodes of Barbie series pauses to appreciate the immersive representations on the sets’ packaging. Let’s revisit that imagery more comprehensively. The first box art featured ponytail Barbie. Two sets featured the Fashion Queen. In one illustration Barbie is a bubble cut, while another appropriately features…
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More crafts and hobbies (1963-1971)
In past entries we’ve seen how Whitman broadened the early Barbie illustration space through their paper doll sets and coloring books, but those are just the tip of the iceberg; here are some other Whitman products that helped define Barbie visually during the first dozen-ish years. “Barbie and Ken” jigsaw puzzles were produced starting in…
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Sidebar: Mattel Fashions for Julia
Among Barbie’s 1960s celebrity pals, Julia must have had the biggest star turn. Witness: the dolls are still plentiful 50+ years later, implying brisk sales; and of the three “personality” dolls, only Julia received both her own line of fashions and a re-release as a Talking doll (Twiggy also had a fashion line, while Truly…
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Dell Comics (1962-1963)
From May of 1962 to August of ’63, Dell Comics released a 5-issue run of “Barbie and Ken” comic books. Contemporaneous with the Random House chapter books, the comics introduce a different vision of Barbie. Whereas the chapter books’ protagonist was a high school student, the comics’ Barbie is an adult with numerous careers: flight…
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Sidebar: All the Barbie and friends illustrations on mod house exteriors
Note: the character illustrations on the ’67 World of Barbie house above also appear in “World of Barbie Fashions” booklets from 1966-67, and the same illustrations and positioning are used on the exterior of the (otherwise differently designed) elusive German case home, Villa Barbie. For more habitable case illustrations, see the Sleep-n-Keep section in our…
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