Category: illustration
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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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Queen of the Prom, AKA the Barbie game
In 1960 Mattel developed a gorgeous board game for its brand new character, Barbie, and her boyfriend Ken. Titled “the Barbie game” upon its 1961 release, it’s better known by its subtitle, “Queen of the Prom.” Never mind that the Barbie close-up on the box lid and the fashion illustrations–of Enchanted Evening, Silken Flame, Let’s…
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Basic and dressed doll boxes
Basic Barbie boxes The first boxes in which Barbies were sold came decorated with illustrations that were simultaneously more detailed and softer in style than the fashion booklets of the time; where the booklet sketches employed heavy lines, the illustrations on the first dolls’ packaging were mostly without lines, except where needed, as in their…
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Barbie’s Keys to Fame
Illustrations from the Keys to Fame game. Source for all images in this post: statestpac2011 on eBay. A funny little mid-Sixties board game, Barbie’s Keys to Fame illustrates a number of possible futures for the one-time Teen-Aged Fashion Model, each emblematic of a “key” to fame: the stamina of the Ballerina, the style of the…
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Fashion Booklets
The first, foremost, and most famous source of vintage Barbie illustrations is, of course, the fashion booklet. When we assess the drawings on items like carrying cases, doll packaging, and sewing patterns, our evaluations often center on similarities to and differences from the booklet versions. Within the booklets, there are hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations to…
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Clone Carrying Cases
We previously discussed some of the gorgeous fashion illustrations that graced the lids of Barbie’s early carrying cases and other various totables; concurrently with these, an assortment of off-brand and competitor cases boasted similar stylish graphics. Like Barbie’s official carrying cases, they also offered alternate color palettes in otherwise identical cases, as you may find…
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Random House Books (1962-1965)
Starting in 1962, Random House released a series of books set in the Barbieverse, and naturally, those books were illustrated. By themselves, the books’ covers, like those above, form a nice collection of illustrations; however, the interiors have even more to offer, and we’ll detail a few favorites here. Almost unique within the annals of…
