A couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite sellers contacted me asking if I wanted some of the dolls she was letting go. There was one in particular that caught my eye and I wondered where I’d seen her before. Of course, she was the Barbie Millicent Roberts Collection Perfectly Suited doll (that’s one long name) that I admired when I first started collecting. At that time I focused my attention on dolls like Happy Holidays or the 80s classic Barbies, so Perfectly Suited didn’t quite suit my collection. I really liked the collector’s feel about her though and she hopped on my wishlist so pushed away by other Barbies that I eventually forgot about her only to remember her three years later. There she was, gorgeous in glory, but alas …I picked another doll. This time, however, Perfectly Suited wouldn’t let me forget about her, she lingered on my mind and nothing would do but I had to get the doll and now I’m mesmerized.
Perfectly Suited belongs to the Millicent Roberts Collection that Mattel produced in 1996-1998. The series comprised 3 dolls, 9 fashion packs and 5 accessory sets. Of course the more I saw of the series the more I wanted. Those gorgeous dolls feel very much grown-up with their short haircuts, except my Barbie, but she makes up for it with the color of her hair. The dolls look like they were inspired by Day to Night, not in the playline kind of way though. The three Barbies present a perfect balance between career and private life. They come with two sets of outfits or at least the parts that can create two looks. Just look at the gorgeous, absolutely spectacular Matninee Today. She’s my favorite of the three but unfortunately she commands a hefty price.
So Mattel created these three excellent dolls, but the series offers much more. The fashion and accessory packs look really tempting when I browse for them on eBay. In the Final Touches accessory boxes you can find three pairs of shoes (!), bags that very likely do open, sunglasses, scarves, gloves, stockings, pantyhose, oh my! The fashion packs in many cases offer two looks and a bunch of accessories that are very hard to find otherwise, just look at the Green Thumb and all those gardening tools, how I would love to own a Barbie shovel! When I close my eyes I have a lovely fantasy: I own all this and I play with it – in the grown-up kind of way, because if any collector series of Barbie was designed to be unboxed and played with, it’s Millicent Roberts Collection. Below you’ll find a list of all that I could find of the series.
Barbie Matinee Today 1996
Barbie Perfectly Suited 1997
Barbie Pinstripe Power 1998
Date at Eight Fashion 1996
Goin’ to the Game Fashion 1996
Picnic Perfect Fashion 1996
City Slicker Fashion 1997
Gallery Opening Fashion 1997
All Decked Out Fashion 1997
Court Favorite Fashion 1997
Green Tumb Fashion 1998
Snow Chic-So Chic Fashion 1998
Final Touches Jet Set 1997
Final Touches Signature Series 1997
Final Touches Spectacular Spectators 1997
Final Touches Red Hot 1997
Final Touches Lime Time 1997
My research on the Millicent Roberts Collection made me realize that my Barbie is only a starter to the series. I’ve made some plans to get a little more of what it offers, but that may take me another 3 years to accomplish because I’ve just fallen in love with Japanese Licca-chan dolls and their cute universe as well as the vintage Barbie reproductions. How statuesque they are! How could I ever think of them as uptight or pretentious. They do have that attitude about them, they just look like they don’t give a damn and I love it now. Since there are two whole new worlds for me to discover, the Millicent Roberts Collection might have to wait a little. Anyway, Perfectly Suited Barbie comes dressed in a nice, lavender form fitting jacket and a matching pencil skirt. I expected the fabric to be the nasty, plastic polyester, but it’s soft, silky and good quality. Barbie was full of surprises and the first of them was that her top has long sleeves and that it’s not a top at all but a bodysuit! She’s wearing black pantyhose and if you were to give her different shoes and a belt, she would look like Penny from Dirty Dancing!
Barbie complements her business outfit with the right kind of jewelry- she’s got a plain pair of earrings, a matching ring and a necklace (there should also be a bracelet, but I purchased my doll out of the box and she’s missing it). Barbie's wearing the other necklace that I actually like better. Now, I’ve been very lazy and putting on those necklaces is a real surgical job that requires two sets of tweezers but it’s nice to have them. Barbie’s wearing a pair of black pumps that appeared in the 90s, I believe, they’re a bit skinnier than the classic Minnie Mouse shoes that I love. Now, a real business woman needs a phone and this one is really bulky – we’re talking the 90s after all. Barbie’s briefcase was a little disappointing because it’s just a cardboard box covered with faux leather and some ribbons that for the effect of chrome details. Apparently, the designer decided that a regular, plastic, opening Barbie suitcase was too large and awkward. I would’ve preferred that one, but oh well... Now Barbie should also have her organizer/notebook but it’s gone too. I used to have one just like it when I was a teacher. Losing it meant the apocalypse! How else would I remember all the dates of tests and homework submission? Since I have the most horrible handwriting in the world, positively hieroglyphic, I was the only one who could decipher the mysterious little scribbles in it.
My Barbie may be missing some bits of the set, but she came with a broach that to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t belong to the package. The broach is made of polished metal, it’s heavy and as a real Barbie fan – I’ll be wearing it. To a “non-dolly” person it doesn’t even look like a Barbie item I guess. I won’t be wearing it too often though because having three small kids I prefer a casual look: a pair of blue jeans, a hoodie and sneakers is what you’d wear to chase a little kid who has just learnt how to ride a bike, right? I’m so unlike my smart looking Barbie here who … apparently can’t do without a hanger, and it’s a nice, lavender, almost ornate looking hanger that is an indispensable accessory in a busy executive’s corner office closet…. Ok I need to digress here. When I changed professions I had a very nice job that required little of my attention after office hours. Just a perfect thing when you’re a working mom. I didn’t have a posh corner office, rather an open space I shared with about 200 other people and we all spent our days pressing our keyboard keys incessantly. Click-click-clickety-click was all you could hear, or not because we were allowed to listen to music with headphones to make our clicking more cheerful. Our office building was all glass, just like a proper modern office building should be. The glass got dirty very often and then THEY would appear – a group of fearless, muscular, tattooed men with just the right amount of stubble and a proclivity for climbing. They operated the cleaning utensils with ease, grace and speed and when they did, the volume of clicking sound would go down by about 50% because all of the ladies, and a few gentlemen would stare mesmerized as they did their job… We would of course exchange views on the results of their work on our coffee break. The quilt on our faces would speak what our lips would not, we all had dirty windows. Is there anyone who enjoys that particular chore? I would feel extremely lucky at those times – hubby does the windows in our household!
Will I ever finish this post? I keep digressing … Anyway, my Perfectly Suited Barbie in my imagined world does have a corner office, spotless windows, a closet and in that closet – a lavender top for a date with Ken. Barbie’s busy and she doesn’t have too much time to alter her outfit so she puts the smart looking jacket on the said hanger so that it doesn’t wrinkle, she replaces the black body suit with the opalescent top (that is defined as “shell” on the box), she puts on white stockings and a pair of lavender pumps and a nice, sparkly necklace. A lovely Chanel purse compliments the outfit. The purse should come with a beaded strap but the thread that held them probably broke, the beads got lost and now Barbie has a clutch! So that’s all. Wait! I forgot the panties! Our Barbie is a decent girl. There’s only one tiny detail for me to mention and that is the total absence of Velcro which speaks high quality of the entire ensemble! I just love the metal snaps!
The whole set is splendid, all those stockings, shoes, necklaces and metal snaps almost made me forget about the doll herself and she’s lovely too. For one thing, I just adore her blue eyes and although this is not my favorite type of facial screening, far too detailed, I like it on this particular doll. Barbie’s hair also deserves attention, it’s not brown, or red, it’s more like burgundy or dark wine. I remember the color used to be incredibly fashionable back in the 90s and women would go blonde, red, brunette or burgundy! My mom used to die her hair like that too. Lip liners were a big thing too around that time. There was one rule concerning the lip liner and it said the lipstick had to be just one shade lighter than the liner!
I’m really distracted today and can’t seem to be able to put together a cohesive post. My uncle, who used to be my teacher and who taught me creative writing a long time ago, would be appalled at the sight of it! He was the one who also said once that you never, ever put any new information in a closing paragraph but simply paraphrase the beginning! Should you do that, the punishment might be severe like burning with fire or making you watch Britney Spears video clips for 10 h when you prefer Apocalyptica. Coffee deprivation might serve the purpose too though it’s as cruel as it can be. Anyway, I was just about to break that rule and say that I’ve just read Ruth Handler’s biography. What a woman! My new Barbie reminds me of her. I’ve read a few biographies in my lifetime but none has ever kept me so engrossed! Ruth has now taken an honorable place on my bookshelf and she’s in a good company – Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain are flanking her. To those few of you who managed to get this far in this post, I want to congratulate – you’re very, very, very patient. Until next time!
