Tag: 1967
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The “built” environments of Whitman Barbie paper dolls
We talk a lot about Barbie illustrations here, and we talk a lot about Barbie’s play sets and furniture, but what about the built environments within Barbie illustrations? In our posts on Whitman paper dolls we featured some paper doll folder interiors that show Barbie’s home or place of work; in fact, there are many…
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Who wore it best? Mary Quant edition
In her 1965 memoir Quant wrote, “When you break a rule, you automatically arrive at something different and this is fun. Take stripes, checks and polka dots. For years these were worn on their own or teamed with a plain colour. Nobody asked why. I believe in mixing patterns and colours wildly. So far as…
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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 structure, Villa Barbie. For more habitable case illustrations, see the Sleep-n-Keep section in our entry…
sheathsensation
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Who wore it best?
Hat tip to BillyBoy*, who highlighted the above similarity in his 1987 book, Barbie: Her Life and Times. Hat tip to Paris Refashioned: 1957-1968 by Colleen Hill for featuring the Yves Saint Laurent and Christiane Bailly designs above.
sheathsensation
1960, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1968, after five, balenciaga, betty grable, black magic, cardin, christiane bailly, courreges, dior, enchanted evening, francie, how to marry a millionaire, intrigue, marilyn monroe, solo in the spotlight, stefanie powers, the girl from U.N.C.L.E., twiggy, vintage barbie, vintage francie, yves saint laurent -
The Many Abodes of Barbie, Part V: 1967-68
In Barbie’s mod housing saga, the parade of small houses continued in 1967 with additional Sears exclusives, the “House-Mates” for Barbie, Francie, and Tutti: These cozy quarters, with their few furniture pieces mostly nailed to the floor, inhabited a grey zone between house and case room, with a couple aspects differentiating House-Mates from Sleep-‘n-Keep cases:…
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Sidebar: Color Magic Illustrations
The Color Magic line was a juggernaut for Barbie circa 1966, and with it came a raft of illustrations used for advertising and instructions. The image above is a run-of-the-mill fashion booklet spread like all ensembles merited in those days, but do a little more digging–from the dolls themselves, to the fashions, to the Sew-Free…
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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 show Barbie posed before jazzy off-kilter colored rectangles, her stances 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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Deluxe Reading Dream Kitchen (1963)
Barbie’s earliest abodes may suggest that she was not much of a cook: neither the ’62 Dream House nor her ’64 Campus dorm room provided kitchen facilities (predictably, in the latter case); the Go-Together rooms offered a dining room, but no kitchen; and the ’64 New Dream House had a very minimal kitchen in the…
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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…