Tag: 1961
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Sidebar: Busy Gal Fashion Sketches (1960)
One of Barbie’s earliest careers–besides being a Teen-Age Fashion Model–was as a fashion designer, as reflected in the 1960-61 Busy Gal ensemble and its portfolio. (A few years later she was a JUNIOR fashion designer.) Shown above are the miniature fashion sketches (measuring about 3.5″ on the diagonal) found inside the portfolio. The designs don’t…
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Vintage Sewing Patterns
In 1961 Barbie’s fashion horizons expanded in the form of Advance sewing patterns, whose illustrations fit the style of the era’s fashion booklets. Unlike the carrying case illustrations, they don’t seem to be traced; but the art styles are, to say the least, in harmony. Here are examples of early fashion booklet sketches that resonate…
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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…
sheathsensation
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A chronicle of Barbie shoes, 1959-1967
Recently, while sourcing various, specific vintage shoes for a custom project, I began to realize there were basic facts about Barbie’s early shoes that were not known to me. What year was Barbie’s first pair of closed-toe shoes produced? (The answer surprised me, but maybe you already know.) What were the most common “gold” open-toed…
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When Barbie turned 21
It’s a paradox: she was a teen-age fashion model in 1959, and she turned 21 in 1980. For Barbie, both are true. And in 1980 Barbie held her 21st birthday bash, where else? in a nightclub: “Hurrah” in Manhattan, a “new wave disco,” per the Charlotte Observer. Befittingly, the party was punctuated by a fashion…
sheathsensation
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Sidebar: Barbie Sings! (1961)
I stumbled across an interesting eBay listing over the weekend: a set of 45 rpm records from 1961, “sung” by Barbie and Ken (the back cover identifies the real singers as “lovely Charlotte Austin” and “handsome young Bill Cunningham”). The record jacket and lyrics pages are illustrated and make for a nice mini-update. Jodi Benson,…
