My Collection. Part Eight.

 I have a sore, swollen eye and can't really see properly, which unfortunately means I can't do bloody anything, but I'm bored. So I thought I'd write a short post about some new arrivals. I'm sorry if my pictures or spelling are dreadful.

These girls have been on my wishlist for a while, but they don't show up that often in Australia. They're all in need of a little TLC (which,  let's be honest, me being me, they might get in thirty years or so), they're not good examples, I would like to have better ones eventually, but these were cheap, so they'll do for now.

This first girl is Kimberly by Tomy. Kimberly was made in the early 1980s. There was a blonde version and an African-American version. She had a lot of different outfits, mostly sport themed. A school outfit, a soccer outfit, roller skating, ice skating, jogging, cheerleading, jeans and a t shirt, a party dress, a casual outfit with a skipping rope, a nightie, and a dressing gown. There was also a "Gettin' fancy Kimberly" that had a different sculpt with an open mouthed smile and wore a prom dress. 

When I was little, one of our neighbours had a roller skating Kimberly on a shelf in her room. It had obviously never been played with and I always wanted to play with her but was too shy to ask. A long time later, (about ten years ago), I tried to find out what that doll was. And whenever I described her, everyone thought I was talking about Baby Skates, which is similarly dressed, but a toddler, and motorised, which Kimberly is not. I was really, very pleased when I found out she was real and not just something I'd remembered wrong.

Kimberly is about 16 inches tall, with a strung hard plastic body and a cute face. This one could probably do with being restrung, but I'm not even going to think about tackling that right now.

This particular Kimberly has some scuffed and smudges in her face paint, which means I won't feel bad if I decide to repaint her. And while Kimberly is known for having really nice hair, this Kimberly has a terrible haircut and her hair is absolutely filthy. Actually I've already cut it off and thrown it out. She's going to need a wig. And new clothes.

These other two girls are My Beautiful Doll by Hasbro. These are from the late 1980s and I hadn't even heard of them until a year ago. Interestingly, they were sculpted by the same lady that sculpted Kimberly. There were eight different dolls in this line, each one came with a locket and a comb, wearing a party dress. And they all had names. I think my two are Brenda and Rosemary. They're 17 inches tall, with a strung hard plastic body, similar to Kimberly.

Brenda.

Rosemary.

I would have preferred to get at least one that wasn't blonde but these three were sold as a group. You can see more about the My Beautiful Doll line here. I'm not sure if they all have the same face sculpt or not. In the pictures I've found, Rachel, in particular, looks like she might have a slightly different face. I actually even contacted Stefanie Clark Eskander (@stefdesignstoys on Instagram), who designed this line, and asked her. She couldn't remember but she thought some (particularly Rachel) looked a little different, but that may have just been different face paint. I guess ultimately I'm going to have to get a Rachel (another blonde unfortunately) so I can compare them.

These girls are in better condition than Kimberly, but Rosemary has loose stringing too and they're banged up enough that I won't feel bad if I repaint them or scalp them and give them wigs. I actually haven't even been brave enough to take their hair down and see what kind of condition it's in yet.

 

This shows the different bodies of the two kinds of dolls. I'm pretty sure they could share clothes, at least to an extent. Somewhere online it says the My Beautiful Dolls can wear BFC Ink clothes, but looking at this post from Planet of the Dolls, I don't like the way they fit.

I'm not really sure what I will do with these three. As I said, I'd rather have nicer examples someday, but even if I never do anything with them, they're a reminder of a time when dolls had sweet, little, girl faces and nice, little, girl clothes.

 

Doll Count: 81