My dolly plans for this month were disrupted by
a sudden disappearance of my dream Ken doll – the mucho macho one with tattoos
and hairy chest. Yes, the Harley Davidson Ken II edition. That’s him. Well, I’ll get him some other time,
but now, I’m not a very patient person, so instead just one man, three new ladies
joined my collection. One would be a glamorous, Holiday Barbie, currently
waiting for snowfall. Another one is probably unknown in the US, a mysterious lady
with a broken neck. I’ve no idea how I’m going to deal with that because the
doll is still on her way. The last one is my new Teresa, the Party Time Teresa
1994.
Party Time Teresa is a lovely doll with a very
boring name that doesn’t relate to the doll, not in the least! To cover up the
obvious lack of imagination on the part of her creators, the doll came with two
watches – one for the doll and one for her owner. I’ve replaced the battery and
discovered, to my utter astonishment that the watch actually works! Wow!
Anyway, Party Time is obviously a budget series, crated upon request of some
market chain, unknown and unindicated on the box, but it’s clear enough that
the dolls are pretty basic. That they may be, but they’re gorgeous! Three dolls
comprise this series: my lovely Teresa, a blonde Barbie that I want and an
African American Barbie that I just need in my collection, and desperately too!
And here’s the bad news, she’s hard to get! All three ladies are dressed with
simplicity, but their dresses couldn’t get any lovelier and they all got
crimped hair.
the source: https://www.amazon.in/Party-Barbie-African-American-Watch/dp/B004MOI4TY
Party Time is a budget line and Mattel didn’t
promote it in any way that I know of. Yet my Teresa is so gorgeous. But it
there are many striking Teresa dolls that can be found in somewhat more obscure
series, like the amazing Jewel Glitter Teresa! Those are the jewels that you
find by accident and that was the case of my Party Time Teresa. I was actually
flipping through the pictures of Hollywood Hair Teresa when I came across Party
Time and I thought to myself: that’s one of the most beautiful Teresa dolls
ever! And then I completely forgot about her. So when she just appeared out of
nowhere and I had some ready cash, I sure made the deal. The lovely Teresa is a
girl of the 90s, so she’s got some huge, expressive eyes, full lips and crimped
kanekalon hair in great abundance.
Teresa’s dark hair and complexion were paired
with pastels of her pretty dress and accessories. There goes the faux denim
again, but I kind of like it, and it’s foam green with white lace trimming and
pink bows. Teresa’s earrings are bow-shaped, just like the ones that Perfume
Pretty Barbie wore. Teresa’s got a pink watch with a prismatic sticker for a
dial. No wonder she’s beenlate for the party
these 25 years! With a watch such as this it’s hard to be punctual.
Teresa’s got just one blemish – her legs are in
a permanent open stance and that’s due to the fact that she was improperly
displayed in her box. It’s not a big deal though the imperfection couldn’t be
more visible. Well, I’ll put her next to my Paint’n Dazzle Barbies and they’ll
be doing a synch dance together. Before they do, I just took all four of my
Teresas for a group photo and now it’s clearer than ever that the redhead Jewel
Glitter Teresa would fit perfectly. I’ve got to do something about it and soon.
It’s a fact that when we’re not looking for
something, it comes to us on its own. And if you happen to be a doll collector,
your grail dolls usually appear when you’d spent far too much money on some
other dolls and now you’re impatiently waiting for payday. That’s exactly how
it was with my Hollywood Hair Teresa 1992. I’ve lost many auctions and I
rejected so many others because the doll was just not acceptable. Either
Teresa’s glorious hair was butchered mercilessly, or she was just ridiculously
and groundlessly expensive. I hate it when a seller describes a doll as being
in “great condition” although her hand or foot has been chewed off. It appears
that a loss of limb doesn’t decrease her value. She’s expensive just because
she’s old, she’s a collectible/ vintage / rare and so on. Once I was utterly
desperate and ready to buy her though she was ratty and nude. Well not exactly nude – she
was wrapped with her own hair like in a cocoon of some sort. I didn’t manage to
close the deal because someone else had done it before me. So I bought a
Mexican and an Italian instead and I thought these two have answered the
nagging question “And what about Teresa doll?”, but when I saw Hollywood, I knew the
answer was not full without her.
I’ll soon move on to my Teresa, but before I do
that, I’d like to focus a little on the topic of long hair on Mattel’s dolls. I
know that this topic has already been addressed many times, but it just gives
me a great pleasure to rediscover it, so here it goes. Mattel manifested their
soft spot for really long hair in the 80s already and you can clearly see that
in Twirly Curls 1982 and Tropical Barbie 1985 but it wasn’t until the early 90s
that they went all the way, no holds barred and so we had Totally / Ultra Hair
Barbie 1991. This girl needs no introduction, if you are Barbie collector
surely you know her and probably you own her too. She’s the best selling Barbie
of all time and her hairy friends were a hit too – Barbie the Brunette, AA
Barbie, Ken, the Toys’r’us exclusive Skipper and Courtney and the European
Exclusive Whitney. The girls had ankle length hair, crimped too and you could
brush it and braid it and decorate it with hair accessories and even put on
some hair gel. Long hair, short dress, they had it all and was there anybody
who didn’t just adore those dolls? Me! The hair was just too long and a little
messy. Now that I’m all grown up I appreciate her for her influence and I begin
to grow fond of her little by little too. I mean, the facepaint – it’s amazing,
and the dress is so crazy and psychedelic! I may end up buying her or the repro
at some point. After all, the hairy Teresa did win me, didn’t she.
Mattel would attempt to repeat the success of
Totally Hair for the next several years exploring the topic of extremely long
hair and what could be done with it. Each series would mark their existence and
would be heavily advertised. In 1992 Mattel sites would produce the Hollwood Hair
series – Barbie, Teresa, Skipper and Ken. Ken’s hair would be molded and covered
with temperature sensitive paint, the girls would get ankle length hair and a
bottle of spray to change it pink. You could sprinkle pink stars all over the
hair! The dolls were and still are widely liked but not quite as much as
Totally Hair.
the source: https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/68961438018428280/?lp=true
Mattel seems to believe you can’t go overboard
with glitter and they decided to bring that belief to life with the Glitter
Hair Barbie series 1993. Four dolls comprised the series – a blonde, a brunette
and a redhead – all superstars and an AA Barbie with the Christie face. The
girls wore skimpy dresses covered with glitter. They also got a tube of
glittery hair gel with a special applicator. You could make the hair all
glittery and sticky with it and then you probably needed to wash it off. The
dolls are pretty for sure, but even with all that glitter they didn’t shine
quite as brightly as Mattel would’ve liked. Yet the company was determined,
they would make another top selling series with super-duper long hair no matter what.
They went all drastic and created Cut’n Style Barbie in 1994. Again there were
3 superstars and an AA and you could cut their hair! Not that it’s very
inventive, kids had come up with this idea way before, but this time Mattel
gives them a sharp tool – the dreaded scissors! Now what if an amateur
hairdresser gave Barbie a pageboy look within 5 minutes from unboxing her?
Mattel thought of that and so the dolls had Velcro at the back of their heads
so you could stick an extension to it. If that was not enough, you could buy
some more extension packs and even experiment with different hair colors if you
wished to do so.
You would imagine that Cut’n Style would cut
the topic of long hair. After all, apart from brushing, braiding, putting on
sticky glittery gel on and cutting off, what else could you do with ankle-long
hair? Well, you could make it even longer! This may sound a little unnatural,
but mermaids are allowed. So in 1995 Jewel Hair Mermaid Barbie, Teresa, Midge
and Christie were produced. Their boxes spelled “The longest hair ever”. What
could you do with it? Whatever you wanted. Of course, that’s not the end, there
are contemporary examples of extremely long hair on Barbie dolls, but that’s past
my favorite era and so I’ll leave the topic here and move on to my lovely
Teresa.
I purchased Teresa used, but well-kept and
still dressed in her 3-piece stock outfit which consists of a sleeveless jacket,
a bodysuit and a skirt. Mattel used to make great clothes for their dolls. They used various types of fabrics. So here we have golden lame and
net as well as fiercely orange lurex. How I adore this type of fabric that I
remember so well from the 80/90s. It’s glossy, silky and soft. It had its flaws
though – it often got damaged by Velcro and lame would flake off in time so I’m
amazed at how great condition Teresa’s outfit still is. It’s a pity lurex is
not so widely used by Mattel anymore. Now we get this awful plasticky kind of “fabric”
heavily printed with glitter that gets all over you and the doll when you touch
it! Yuck!!! Anyway, Teresa’s outfit is complete but her shoes are replaced and
one of her earrings is broken. The seller included it in the package when I
asked her to but so far I haven’t figured out how to assemble it. Her ring is
still in place but it’s so loose I’m afraid I may lose it at some point.
Teresa’s selling point is her hair and I’m so
happy it’s not been tampered with in any way. I’m still struggling to
distinguish between saran and good kanekalon (the bad one I can tell easily),
but Teresa’s hair is most probably saran as it reacts well to boiling water. It’s
also unique color. Teresa dolls would usually get dark hair, but Teresa’s is 2
shades of golden blond! I can also recall Camp Teresa who’s also a blonde, and
there’s a reason for that. Both dolls’ hair works and the result is more
spectacular on blonde hair. HH Teresa’s package included a special spray that
you could sprinkle her hair with to make pink stars appear. They would go away
when the hair dries. This wouldn’t work on other dolls’ hair though. My doll
came with a bottle of magic spray but I was afraid it may damage the glorious
hair so I haven’t found courage to use it. And in any event, I’m not a big fan
of all those tricks that you could work on dolls’ hair. I almost forgot –
Teresa still has her stock ribbon in her hair.
But it’s not only Teresa’s hair
that makes her unique. Her
facepaint is just stunning and beautiful in its simplicity. Her eyes are large
and chocolate brown and there’s but a whisper of green eyeshadow. Her lips are raspberry
color and she has glowing, sun kissed complexion. HH Barbie is pretty but
Teresa surpasses her in terms of beauty. I’d go even further than that and
say that to me she’s the most gorgeous Teresa doll ever made on this headmold.
So here’s my three most favorite dolls with
Teresa headmold and the next girl to appear on my blog will also come from that
same time period and … it won’t be Barbie.
As I’ve promised, I’m showing you my new
Miexican Barbie 1995 today. My small collection of DotW is steadily growing in
numbers and I’m already tracking some other dolls in this line. But let’s focus
on the beautiful reality now which is the Mexican Barbie 1995 and I’d dreamt of
her ever since my eyes opened and I finally appreciated the lovely Teresa 1990
headmold. Now I had to wait for my Mexican girl a little, which is a good thing
because waiting always makes me appreciate a doll more, but in the meantime I
read every single piece of information that I could find on the doll. It’s
turned out that the Mexican Barbie – the second edition as she’s sometimes
called, was also released as a Christmas Tree ornament by Hallmark. How
wonderful it would be to have a Christmas Tree all decorated in Barbie
ornaments. I dug even deeper and found some pictures that brought my childhood
memories back – the McDonald’s Happy Meal Barbie toys. Those dollies were
surprisingly good quality. Most of them had rooted hair, some elements of their
outfits were textile, some of these dolls had articulation and stands and their
faces were pretty and detailed. These dolls were really good copies of the
regular scale Barbie dolls to the extent that a McDonald’s miniature could go.
the source:
https://www.amazon.in/McDonalds-Barbie-Dolls-World-Complete/dp/B007INRFQE
the source:
https://www.ebid.net/us/for-sale/hallmark-keepsake-ornament-mexican-barbie-1998-174478374.htm
There’s been so many Mexican Barbie dolls
released that to cover all of them, I’d need a separate entry. I made life a
little easier for myself and divided them into two groups. The 80s and 90s
releases are covered herealong with the review
of the first edition Mexican Barbie and todays entry will focus on the more contemporary
productions. So let’s begin. In 2004 Mattel created a fabulous doll – the Princess
of Ancient Mexico inspired by the Aztecs. The doll belongs to a branch of Dolls
of the World series called the Princess Collection, she bears the Goddess
headmold and she’s simply spectacular! Then in 2006 in another DotW subseries –
the Festivals of the World - Cinco de Mayo made her appearance. The doll is to
celebrate the Battle of Puebla and the victory of the Mexican over the French.
Now in 2011 the Mexico Barbie was produced much to the discontent of some part
of the wider audience. The doll was considered stereotypical and even racist to
some because she was accompanied by a Chihuahua and she got a passport. Now I don’t
believe it was Mattel’s intention to hurt anybody’s feelings and inflict even a
greater injury to themselves in the process. To me the doll is beautiful and
she’s not the only one to come with a passport and an animal but I’ll let the
topic rest because I only see her through my own perspective and experiences.
Not discouraged by the negative feedback that Mattel received on the
Mexico Barbie 2011, in 2014 they went on to release the Mariachi Barbie. As you
can see, there’s quite a number of them and if any has been missed, please do
correct me. And also please excuse me if
the release/production dates aren’t exactly accurate. I talked of the dolls
that I actually don’t have and my source has been Google.
the source:
https://barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/princess-of-ancient-mexico-barbie-doll-c2203
the source:
http://www.banderasnews.com/0704/nw-barbie.htm
The source:
http://yousense.info/6661636573/faces-in-the-world-of-pink-kattis-dolls.html
The source:
https://barbie.mattel.com/shop/en-us/ba/barbie-dolls-of-the-world-south-america/mexico-barbie-doll-bcp74
I purchased my Mexican Barbie 1995 NRFB and
this time I managed to take some pictures of the doll still in her box, which
is quite an achievement for me and it required a great deal of self-control.
The box itself is in an excellent condition. It’s amazing to think that the
doll spent 24 years in it and that both look as if the’d been just produced!
The back of the box gives you some information on the country of this doll’s
origin and there are the pictures of some other releases. There’s my Japanese
and my Irish girls and the Norwegian that I don’t have but I’d like to. The
doll’s accessories are her saddle stand, her shoes and her brush.
Mexican Barbie 95 is a cute girl.
She’s based on the Teresa 1990
headmold. Her cinnamon complexion and her natural facepaint give her a very
youthful look. Her eyes are chocolate brown and there’s just a whisper of flesh-
toned eyeshadow. Actually, the doll’s only make-up is her red lipstick. When I
compare the Mexican and the Italian Barbie dolls that are in my collection, I
can see how different looks you can get out of the same headmold. The Mexican
Barbie has beautiful, jet black saran hair styled in two twirly braids with
some green ribbon woven into. There’s a single flower in her hair and her
jewelry is also flower-shaped.
The doll’s outfit is a one-piece. The adorable
dress is in Mexico national colors and it’s very detailed. I especially like
the top with the lace trimming. The lace that you can see has some flowers
printed on it. I'd gladly wear a blouse like that myself. It looks so
realistic. The bottom part of the dress is very colorful and there are many
different patterns that go surprisingly well together. There’s some glitter
there too, but the amount isn’t distracting. When I took the doll out of her
box, the glitter was all over her face, you can see it in some pictures. The
bottom of the dress is also trimmed with lace and the doll’s wearing some black
classic Barbie heels of the 90s.
I think that Mexican Barbie 95 is
just adorable. She’s so subtle
and pretty and modest. She’s one of the brightest jewels in my DotW collection.
I’m so happy to finally have her, I feel almost fulfilled in terms of the
Teresa 90 headmold and I’m only missing the Hollywood Hair Teresa to achieve perfect
happiness in that respect for some time and then I'll yearn for more because a collector is such an insatiable creature. But that’s in the future, the reality is equally
beautiful when I look at my two Mexican dolls, same origin, yet so different.
