Emerald Elegance Special Edition Barbie 1994

If I were to sum up the entire post in just one sentence, it would be „December calls for ball gowns”. That’s when I like that type of dolls the best. Their splendor suits the holiday season perfectly and their voluminous dresses seem a little lighter at that time. In fact, splendid and spectacular dolls like the Happy Holidays Barbies were the beginning of my collection and I had initially meant for them to be its core but as I went on, my tastes and interests altered and now they occupy only one shelf in the cabinet. Now, Emerald Elegance Barbie doll isn’t a Happy Holiday, but she’s spectacular and fits with the season just perfectly.

Emerald Elegance mesmerized me at a time when a cabinet full of dolls felt unreal at all and could only be considered a daring dream, but I promised myself that if that cabinet ever came to exist in reality, Emerald Elegance would take a place of honor on one of its shelves. I truly have no idea what kept me from acquiring her so long. Perhaps it’s the wide and easy availability of the doll on Ebay combined with her low price that made me put her off in time and focus all my efforts on getting the rarer ones. Or perhaps it was my indecisiveness that was in my way – I couldn’t make up my mind which doll I liked better – the redhead or the African American. But I do know one thing for sure, I’m happy she arrived and her timing is just perfect.

I do sometimes see Emerald Elegance on collectors’ blogs, she’s hard not to notice but for a relatively popular doll, not much is known about her and I cannot be sure if the information I’ve dug out is reliable in any case. Maybe there’s not much to be known about her but her name and/or her box suggest 2-3 other dolls, all of them having been released as Toys’r’us exclusives. These will be Radiant in Red 1992, Emerald Elegance 1994, Purple Passion 1995 and Sapphire Sophisticate 1997 (production dates). As you can see the names are all about colors, the dolls are dressed in the same style, the box of Emerald Elegance and Purple Passion is pretty much the same and the four dolls were available each in two versions – a redhead or AA with the exception of Sapphire, she was a brunette or AA. They are all excellent dolls and I’d be glad to own the entire line. So far, I’ve managed to collect two of them, the other one being Purple Passion with the gorgeous copper colored saran hair.

                       Source: https://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Purple-Passion-African-American/dp/B000PKQ6H6

Source: https://gameplayforvideogames.ecrater.com/p/18504352/barbie-collector-doll-toys-r-us

Source: https://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/sapphire-sophisticate-barbie-1997-kolekcjonerska-i7161891689.html

 

So on the surface, Emerald seems to be just another ball gown type of doll, but what tells her apart from all the other dolls just like her is her hair. It’s kanekalon styled with simplicity but the color is just amazing. The hair is soft but not to be brushed. I’ve seen Emerald with hair damaged beyond repair and I don’t think that was due to the doll being mistreated. Her hair is just not the best quality to be honest, you just need to be gentle with her. As to the color of her hair, it’s very warm and pleasant and it contrasts with the cold of her make-up. It brings some other dolls to my mind and those are the girls from Barbie and the Rockers and Fashion Play Barbie 1988. Barbie with her make-up is so bold, daring and extravagant, and she likes to accessorize. Just look at that opalescent flower in her hair.

There’s another flower of that kind on her dress whose design I like a lot, but I wish some better quality fabrics had been selected for it. Still, the dress is really impressive. It may, however, seem a little out of date with the drop waist and the large collar at the jacket. There’s some tackiness to it and I fear for my good taste because I like it. As far as the design and the accessories go, I wouldn’t change a single thing, well, I’d give her some panties, but that’s all and since we’ve already discussed what’s underneath her skirts, let’s talk about the shoes. These are just the classic 90s Barbie pumps but I love the color with just a touch of pearly coat to them. Barbie’s name refers to emeralds and she’s got them in abundance.

The occasion calls for a group photo. Emerald Elegance and Purple Passion look so amazing together, but let’s add some more color in the place where Radiant and Sapphire are lacking. Perhaps Royal Romance and Happy Holidays 1990? Yes, that’s better.

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.