United Colors of Benetton Barbie 1990

08.01.2019

Christmas is long over, but I still have one gift to open, it’s a little late because the package took some time to arrive. To be perfectly honest, I bought it for myself, because I’d been a good girl all year so I’d earned it. Seeing the United Colors of Benetton Barbie has brought some very happy childhood memories, because many, many, many years ago my mum got her for me when I was still a little girl. Oh how I adored that doll and everything about her – her voluminous, soft, crimped hair, her incredible outfit and her smiling, red lips. So when I saw her available on Ebay in a great condition and with her stock apparently complete, I grabbed her before somebody else did because this doll is very popular and when she pops up, she never stays available for long.

There’s been at least three Mattel x United Colors of Benetton collabs to the best of my knowledge and the first one took place in 1990. Three dolls reached the US market then – Barbie, Christie and Kira and Europe was treated preferentially – two more dolls were released there – Ken and Teresa. Teresa is widely sought after for her obvious beauty and commands higher prices than all the rest taken together. One funny thing- Kira was called Marina in Europe for some inexplicable reason. All 5 dolls were dressed in bright, colorful clothes whose pieces seemed to conflict with each other but when you took two steps back and looked at it again, it all worked! And if Barbie wanted to change into something else but equally spectacular, the two companies released a line of fashion packs. I love the one designed for Ken as it’s Formula 1 inspired. That’s because in 1986-2001 the Benetton Group owned the F1 team that was called the Benetton Formula. In 2002 it changed its ownership and the name into Renault F1.

the source: the Internet 

2 the source: https://en.todocoleccion.net/barbie-ken-accessories/conjunto-barbie-benetton-anos-90~x142873952

the source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/65290859@N05/5995260866

In 1991 the two companies joined forces again and produced 5 equally lovely dolls- the same characters. The dolls were given new outfits and facepaint and I’d love to have them too as well as the amazing playset that accompanied them – the United Colors of Benetton Boutique. Then in 2005 more dolls under the same logo left their factories, but my knowledge on them is very limited as they’re past the Superstar Era. These dolls’ outfits were no longer so lovely and they were supposed to reflect some fashions characteristic of big cities such as New York, Paris or Stockholm. They were packaged in clear plastic tubes like socks or knickers. The below commercial presents them. 

the source: the Internet

 the source: the Internet

My Benetton Barbie isn’t new but her hair is still very soft, shiny and crimped and a conditioner even brought the crimps further. A bath also helped to tame the crazy bangs that looked very much Wet’n Wild. Barbie’s face doesn’t seem to differ very much from any other dolls of that period, but to me she’s instantly recognizable. I love how simple her eyes are kept, they’re striking blue with a detail of tiny lavender moon crescents. Her navy blue mascara, eyeliner and shadow make her eyes really pop and her red lipstick and the chocolate brown eyebrows give her a very feisty look.

I’m a little disappointed with her outfit though. The red velvet jacket and the mini skirt are a little faded as are her blue floral leggings and her pouch but that’s the reasonable compromise I had to accept to get the doll at all. Benetton Barbie is very popular amongst the collectors worldwide and this is reflected by her price and availability. I may in time get a better condition outfit for her, but for now I’m happy that her stock is more or less complete. The jacket is blue trimmed and has a nice floral detail to it. The yellow half turtleneck should have the application too, but I guess it’s a replacement. I remembered the jacked and its every detail but somehow I can’t recall the navy blue floral leggings or the pouch that’s made of the same exact fabric. The knee-high socks that Barbie’s wearing over her leggings are pretty interesting and so is her pink bandana scarf. To complete the look, Barbie’s put on a pink felt hat and some pink sneakers. The outfit is really spectacular and the idea seems to be crazy, but that’s the United Colors of Benetton and their unique style.

A collector is and insatiable creature and I’m already making plans to purchase Benetton Christie 1990, she’s such a cute doll. In the meantime, here’s my little childhood Barbie collection that consists of Super Star Barbie 1988, Toys’r’us Cool Looks Barbie 1990 and of course, my lovely Benetton Barbie 1990!

Toys'r'us Cool Looks Barbie 1990

22.11.2018

It’s freezing outside, there’s a thin layer of snow on the ground and I’m sitting by the window like a 5-year old looking out for Santa to bring her a Barbie. Well, I’m a bit older than that and I’m awaiting a courier, not Santa, but the anticipation is the same and well … he’s to bring me a Barbie. I’ve waited a long time for Cool Looks Barbie whom I purchased from a lady form Illinois over two weeks ago and I’ve checked her progress with alarming regularity about twice a day and at long last she sure came, my Neon Queen! My Barbie’s previous owner has taken her out of the box, but she arrived in it and the doll, her outfit and her accessories were in a very good condition.

Although the box doesn’t indicate that, Cool Looks was produced in 1990 in collaboration with Toys’r’us as their special edition and a single doll, no friends to accompany her. On the surface she may look like a very much generic doll, and her being the “special edition” is not at all impressive. Just another doll for another chain of stores. But to me she’s very special, and a long awaited, top-five-doll because I used to own her once as a child when my family from NY bought her for me along with some clothes and sweets and before putting them all in a cardboard box, they photographed the goods and placed the photo amongst them and I’ve recently found the photograph but I didn’t really need it, I remembered Cool Looks Barbie very well. For a doll wanted as much as this I was willing to wait a little longer with the purchase, but I decided to bring it forward as with Toys’r’us closing business their exclusives have been getting a lot of attention lately and this may in short time be reflected by their prices. So my classic 80s had to wait for their turn.

Mattel gave my Barbie a very sweet, innocent look, an adorable, smiling face. Some other dolls share the same facepaint of her eyes because Mattel can be repetitive at times, and I’ve seen such happy looking eyes several times already, Western Fun, Capri and Cute’n Cool have them too. But it’s easy to tell my Cool Looks from them, she lacks the green triangle in her eyes and her lipstick is very dark. There’s a tiny paint chip by the way, but I’m still pleased with the doll. Her hairdo is pretty unique and it looks like her hair stylists couldn’t make up their minds and were torn between crimps and curls so they gathered her hair in two asymmetrical pigtails, crimped one of them and curled the other one plus they gave her the bushy bangs. Pretty interesting indeed.

For a generic doll, her outfit is really well put together and consists of as many as 5 separate pieces and not 4 as her box informs us, but anyway, you can mix and match them as you wish. The colors of her outfit are vivid, crazy neon apart from her vest that’s black with green polka dots and colorful music notes all over it. Under the vest, there’s an orange t-shirt with a decal and a plastic snap and I remembered the plastic snap so clearly, I must have hated the vile Velcro since early childhood. Under the t-shirt there’s a surprise – a short green top. In the 90s it was high fashion to wear short leggings and a skirt together and Barbie followed that fashion of course. The leggings are not very interesting but the skirt is great - a cascade of orange and pink frills and a yellow plastic detail that I remembered equally well. Strange, how your brain registered the tiny details while I forgot the way Barbie’s hair was styled or her facepaint altogether. She’s also wearing simple pink sneakers that discolored her feet slightly and hot pink geometrical jewelry that I’ve also seen somewhere else, Style Barbie perhaps?

Cool Looks also comes well accessorized and these were put in a plastic bag by a Malaysian hand and glued to the inner cardboard and so they remained for 28 years until I took them out and decorated them with the stickers that were still in the box. But before I did that, I stopped for a minute and wondered about this little plastic bag and decided that I’m really fond of the lazy, imperfect way Mattel once displayed a doll’s accessories in the box. Now every tiny piece is placed in a clear box in an orderly way so you can see them all easily. That’s fine and I like the esthetics, but there’s no surprise and I remember how I enjoyed discovering what curious little things my doll came with. But anyway, her accessories include a journal, a pen, a phone, a can with something to drink, a triangle alarm clock for some inexplicable reason and a round hat case sort of bag to store some of it. I’ve seen such accessories before, Teen Time Skipper and Cute’n Cool Barbie had them too. One of the pictures comes from the ebay auction because I opened the plastic bag before taking any pictures.

For a 90’s doll you would expect her to come with her classic Barbie brush, but instead she was given a comb that once belonged to the Spectra and the Shimmerons doll line. Spectra and 4 of her friends were released in 1987 (produced in 1986) only to be discontinued a year later. Spectra was a happy looking doll with pink hair and heavy make-up dressed all in lace. She was actually an alien that came from the planet called Shimmeron, her body had the articulation of the Bend and Move type and it was made of a strange, metallic looking, shiny plastic, her head was the regular, skin toned vinyl. It looks like the consumers were not ready for Spectra and her gang and she sure was ahead of her times, but right now the dolls are highly appreciated by collectors worldwide and the dolls themselves as well as their fashion packs, accessory packs and a single playset tend to be very expensive. But back then it looks like Mattel had a stock of combs they produced for discontinued dolls so they put them where they could and so my Barbie comes with one.

I knew it would be a very long entry, but what can I do when the doll is so magical to me that even a simple comb is worth a separate paragraph. My doll may be hardly recognizable, not at all appreciated, but for me she holds some very happy memories and she’s one of the dolls from my childhood that I really wanted to own again. Now, I’m only missing the United Colors of Benneton Barbie, but this girl is unfortunately very much popular and hard to get in good shape and for a decent price so it may take me some time, but I hope that sooner or later, she’ll join Cool Looks and Super Star 1988 and the rest of my collection.

Moving houses

21.09.2018

Today’s entry is going to be a bit shorter than my standard ones. I’m currently packing all my belongings as well as my daughters’ and husband’s. That’s lots and lots of boxes to be filled. Me and my family are moving to a new house and so are the dolls, naturally! I didn’t plan to write this entry, but as I took them out to pack them, the ladies and my two gentlemen still on their stands with their boxes piling behind them, I couldn’t just help myself, I had to take some pictures!

So here they are, without any particular order just standing on my coffee table all smiling and lovely! Soon I hope to get them an appropriate accommodation in a form of a glass cabinet so they don’t get dusty. At the moment, they’re all craped occupying two shelves in my closet, that is usually closed of course, but from time to time, I just slide the door open to admire them. Aren’t they lovely? They sure deserve to be displayed properly.

Moving houses is a good opportunity to sort stuff that accumulates over the years and to get rid of those that take up much of one’s living space just because they may come in handy at some point in the future. This also applies to some old boxes I haven’t opened in the last 5 years. And in one of those, I found a very old photograph. I guess it was taken in 1992 as the dolls that are in it would indicate.

The photo shows some gifts that my US family sent me once. They had that weird thing about taking pictures of the stuff they bought for me just before packing and sending them. Odd, but at least I have that one souvenir, a past promise of some very happy moments when I’d get my new dolls and all the accessories for them. I got such a parcel twice a year tops, but I always waited for it, longing… My family would always inform me of the parcel progress – first that they were going to go shopping, then when they bought everything – never revealing any particulars, and then they would tell me they sent the box filled with goods- “and oh, there’s a doll inside you know”. Cruel? Nice? I don’t know.

I wasn’t a demanding child, when they asked me “what kind of Barbie would you like to get?” I’d answer “any Barbie would do, perhaps the one with bent arms would be great, but straight ones are fine too” – easy to please? Then I’d probably add “and oh, some clothes for the doll would be nice too”. I always asked them not to buy me a fake Barbie, I’d recognize it immediately, but in the US they didn’t know any fake Barbies, Barbie was Barbie, always genuine.

The photo shows two of 4 Barbies I owned as a little girl – the insanely tanned Sun Sensation Barbie 1991, the gorgeous neon queen Cool Looks Barbie 1990 (one of my favorites, I hope to get her sometime in the nearest future perhaps). On the left there’s a mountain bike set with sports clothes (I would never forget that funny one-piece outfit) and on the right there are two fashion packs. Of course, I remember the dolls, the bike and all that came with it, but somehow, I can’t recall the fashions. I’ve identified one as Flower Surprise Fashion 1990, but the other one is a mystery.

Oh well, it was supposed to be a short entry… and a short break! Now back to boxes and packing, the happy gang needs to be secured with wires and tapes – those few that have their own boxes, the rest will get replacements. Shoes must be taken off and packed diligently not to get lost. I’m happy to observe that all ow my dolls do have shoes, most of the ladies have their stands, and only my Skipper dolls are still missing them. Now, there is still no Internet connection in our dreamhouse so I won’t be posting for some time now, but I’ll be back!

Sentimental Journey

25.07.2018

I’ve recently been on vacation to my hometown. Little did I know that my holiday would turn into a sentimental journey to the places and times I strongly associate with dolls. Three charming ladies accompanied me on my journey to the past – the Midnight Princess 1997, Happy Holidays 1990 and Royal Romance 1992 and although I didn’t take any doll with me, I happily acquired the three Barbies while I was away. I consider my vacation very successful in every way, dollywise as well – the first two dolls had been high on my wishlist. The third one was purchased simply because I couldn’t resist, I mean, who would?

There’s a charming little park in my hometown. When passing its gates one can see an ancient tree that, to my mom’s horror, I used to climb frequently when I was little. On the right there’s a large pond with a fountain at its center. The waters of the pond reflect an 18^th century manor. There used to be a preschool there that I would go to as a little girl. The manor is quite impressive, however, it sadly turns into disrepair now that it’s no longer accommodated or used in any way.

I grew melancholy upon the sight of the slowly dilapidating manor, however it brought some happy memories as well. I remember bringing my very first Barbie to the kindergarten. At that time, owning a genuine Barbie was a privilege in my country and every little girl dreamt of having one or at least a clone that would substitute the luxurious Mattel doll. My first Barbie doll was the gorgeous Super Star 1988.

I was fully aware how lucky I was to own her and with that in mind I did my best to take a good care of her, as far as a child of 5 or 6 can. The doll had to endure a lot, I would bring her to preschool in my Little Mermaid themed backpack where she bumped her head on numerous object of its most indispensable equipment, such as a Barbie brush, crayons, sticks and stones, and a lunchbox with a sandwich that I would never ever eat.

My Super Star would climb the ancient tree with me and she would participate in bike races round the mansion. The doll was my faithful companion in so many play activities for years. Later other Barbies would join her, such as the United Colors of Benetton, Sun Sensation and Cool Looks. An unidentified Pocahontas and a winter-themed Steffi Love also had their episode, but Super Star was always special and my all-time favorite.

As I grew older, I owned my dolls rather than played with them (an early collecting tendency?) until I finally decided it was time for me to grow up. I was a teenager after all. So I reluctantly handed my dolls over to my little sisters (much younger than me) who weren’t quite so gentle with them as I was. I’ll omit the most painful details, but let’s just say my sisters were curious little girls and decided to fully investigate the leg bending mechanism… Oh well, it wasn’t their fault, they were brought up in different times and reality when Barbie dolls were more widely accessible and not so much objects of luxury anymore. Since my sisters were so destructible, at least I didn’t have any scruples and I would often and without any inhibitions check their Bratz dolls … for any damages, of course.

I wish I brought my new Super Star with me. She’d look spectacular in the shades of the tree and with the mansion in the background. I will one day, but until I do, the three beautiful ladies will take her place in front of the camera looking all glamorous and magnificent.

So many years have passed since I last brought a Barbie doll to the park. I no longer play with them strictly speaking, but my dolls give me every bit as much joy as they used to, back in the past.