Fun-to-Dress Barbie 1987

 The story behind Fun-to-Dress Barbie 1987 is simple and uncomplicated pretty much like the doll herself which I never meant to purchase and add to my collection although she’s a very well- known Barbie in Europe and my country especially and many collectors speak of her fondly. Of course I knew her and I thought she was pretty enough but somehow she didn’t seem like a material for my collection. Neither would she blind you with the neons of the 90s nor would she throw you to your knees with the glamor and elegance of the 80s. She’s not the over-the-top, slightly tacky, Happy Holiday type of doll either. It wasn’t my intention to get the doll, she arrived by mistake as a Fashion Play ’88 Barbie’s companion you might have read in the previous post. She was that ‘doll-free-of-charge-for-the-inconvenience-and-criminal-delay’. I expected a completely different ‘doll-for-free-and so on’ but the seller made a mistake and sent me this one instead. I had every intention of sending her on her way back but I took a closer look at her and realized she was a very pretty doll. I offered to buy her (I was still hoping to get the right doll for free) and the lady took my first offer, so she stayed.

Fun-to-Dress 1987 is a starter Barbie. She came packaged in a slim pink box with nothing but her underwear on. As far as I know, not even a brush was included and neither were any shoes. The whole idea behind Fun-to-Dress was that you get the doll and you buy some fashions for her. That’s it. Fun-to-Dress was produced in two countries and came in three variants. One has a very gentle, subtle face paint and saran hair and is of the Philippine make. The other two were manufactured in China, their face paint is much more distinct and their features prominent and they came either with saran or kanekalon hair. Mine is a China make with saran hair and she happens to be my favorite version. The hair was a decisive factor, if she had had kanekalon rooted, she would have gone back to her previous owner. There was also an ethnic variant – an AA Fun-to-Dress, absolutely stunning, but she was never sold in my country.

 

the source: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fun-to-Dress-Barbie-1987-Mattel-4558-New-in-Box-/173367682860

 

 

the source: https://shopee.ph 

 

 

the source: https://archiwum.allegro.pl/oferta/mattel-1987-fun-to-dress-aa-african-american-nrfb-i7530701662.html

In 1988 and 1989 the line was continued and the whole concept remained the same. The dolls were still pretty, blonde or AA and in 1989 also Hispanic and they wore pink lingerie. They still had no shoes, no accessories, no additional outfits. They still had straight arms without the movement to the sides but they were absolutely lovely. After 1989 the line was apparently dropped because customers expected a little more which they got in 1992 when the series was reintroduced. This time the dolls weren’t so pretty anymore and someone at Mattel’s decided a towel was slightly more decent than lingerie. Strange. There were many variants of this doll available because she was produced in China (kanekalon) and in Malaysia (saran) and there were 2 ethnic dolls (AA and Hispanic). There were also two versions of the towel itself – blue or pink and if this was a little too little, you could also purchase Barbie as a Fashion Gift Set with two additional outfits and shoes. It appears that only the blonde one was available in the pink towel or as a gift set.

 

the source: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/diff-fun-dress-barbie-dolls-1988-nrfb-1912346323 

 

 

the source: https://picclick.com/Vintage-Doll-Lot-Barbie-FUN-TO-DRESS-Gift-292491251464.html

That will suffice for a Barbie encyclopedia excerpt, now to the doll herself. She arrived in a state of neglect and partial undress. She was wearing an ugly rag that once probably belonged to a clone doll. Now it was literally falling apart and as soon as I paid for her, the rag went where it belonged – to the trash. Barbie’s hair wasn’t damaged though it was a little thin. Whoever owned her as a child must have valued the therapeutic properties of brushing Barbie’s hair and she lost some of it in the process of relieving her owner’s stress however, it remained soft, silky and shiny and the color is simply lovely. Barbie’s face paint is very unique and she’s easy to identify. The pale, peachy lipstick and lavender, almost white eyeshadow make her instantly recognizable. The Philippine variant may be prettier, but it’s definitely more common looking.

Unfortunately, my Barbie’s lost her stock outfit – the simple white and pink underwear. I’m a completionist and I’m currently looking for it but in the meantime I dressed her in one of my favorite fashion packs and decided it was a good opportunity to extend my Barbie wardrobe a little bit. If any Barbie was created to change clothes, it was Fun-to-Dress, right? In the photo below, Barbie’s wearing a Weekend Collection Fashion that is dear to me. When I was 5, my Mom took me out shopping for my very first Barbie. At that time in my country, a Barbie doll was a luxury product, very expensive and available only at a very special store called Pewex. There was at least one Pewex in every major city in Poland. There was also one near to where I lived. After I chose my Barbie from a group of 5 or 6 dolls available at that time, my Mom surprised me with another gift – I could select one furniture playset. There were 2 to choose from and I picked up a Sweet Roses Roll-top desk with bookcase. The Barbie that was featured on the box was wearing that same fashion pack! It’s sooooooo 80s!

I got two fashion packs for my Fun-to-Dress that I had had my eye on for quite some time. The first one is very basic, but I love the colors of it. It’s the 1989 Fashion Finds that consists of a pair of purple shorts and a multicolor, striped top. There are no shoes included, which is a shame, but the colors are so vibrant they make up for the obvious deficiency in the shoe department. I like the entire Fashion Finds series that you can see on the back of the packaging. You can mix and match them easily and they seem to have been designed for it.

The other fashion pack has many more pieces and it’s the 1993 Happening Hair. The idea behind the series, that consists of 4 sets, is that you play with the outfit AND the hair. The outfit is so happy and colorful as well as soft and pastel I just had to have it. It consists of a pair of shorts, a striped top and a vest. There’s a pair of sea foam green tennis shoes too. The hair accessories include a hair pick, two bows, a hair accessory I have difficulty defining (looks like a shoe lace shaped like a spring, Totally Hair Barbie had one too) and a packet of long expired hair gel.

Shopping for clothes for Barbie is every bit as much fun as it is a torture! The seller I got these fashion packs from had a great number of lovely sets. It was hard to make my mind up so I hope to go back to her store anytime soon. I’m also planning to get more fashions rather than dolls because I ran out of stock of my doll stands and my “sitting shelf” is full. Kaiser stands have become hard to get in my country, I’ve ordered a dozen Chinese ones and well see what they’re good for, so Fun-to-Dress should appear again sporting some new clothes and hopefully, her own stock as well!

Fashion Play Barbie 1988

 I guess you have no idea who this lovely lady is but she’s well known in Europe and many Barbie collectors from Poland feel very nostalgic about her. She’s the 1988 Fashion Play Barbie also known as the “Pink Dress”. Fashion Play line was produced between 1983-1991 and it has nothing in common with the US series under the same name available in stores in the 90s. The dolls were fairly basic but incredibly graceful and they were considered as budget Barbies. Back in 1988 Mattel produced two dolls belonging to the series, one was dressed in pink, the other in blue. They look great together, but I was strangely drawn to the pink one. She quickly became a very special doll for me and I had to get her asap. What is even stranger is the fact that I have no idea why she is so special to me!

The Pink Dress feels very familiar, but I didn’t own her growing up and neither did any of my friends or cousins. Yet when I saw her picture for the first time as an adult I thought to myself “I know her!” Where did I meet her? It was as if I was seeing the face of a good old friend. I was forcing my brain for scraps of memories of the doll to no avail. Now, only one possible scenario comes to my mind, namely, I must have seen her in that store where my Mom bought me my first Barbie. Both dolls were produced in the same year so they might have hit the stores together. Or maybe FP’88 simply reminds me of my SuperStar 1988? There’s some similarities between both dolls – their dresses are the same soft pink, their make-up and their hair look much alike (the saran variants). In fact, FP’88 seems to be a more basic, less extravagant version of the SuperStar ’88.

Whatever may be the reason, the doll climbed to the top of my wish list and I knew no rest until I tracked her down. This leads to a transaction that cost me a lot of stress and took almost a month and a half! A certain lady put out some dolls for sale through a popular portal. I contacted her and bought one, but since it was weekend and I wasn’t busy I was thinking about some other doll the lady had, or should I say, her dress. The dress belonged to FP’88 and I thought, perhaps if she has the dress, maybe there’s the doll who owns it too? There was, I swapped the doll I bought for FP’88 and … that’s where the problems began. First there was a significant delay, then apparently the doll was sent to the wrong address, then another delay. The lady offered a doll for free to make up for the inconvenience and we decided together which doll it should be. She sent them to the right address this time, but there were more mistakes to be discovered upon their arrival. The envelope contained my FP’88 without her dress which was a part of the deal and the “doll-for-free” wasn’t the one I asked for. The lady promised she’d send the right doll and the dress asap … but she broke her leg (come on!). I almost lost hope I’d ever get the doll and the dress that I actually had paid for, but then she contacted me and I offered I’d pay for the “doll-for-free” because nothing ever comes for free. When I did, she posted them both … after a due delay of course. What made the whole situation even worse was the fact that the lady wasn’t very responsive. I’d send her a query and then she’d reply three days later, or never.

One thing I have to admit though. The lady might have irritated me many a time, but she wasn’t sort of a person to take your money and then show you the middle finger. She didn’t try to cheat me and she was fully aware I paid her every time promptly and it was her turn to do her part of the deal. That leg thing I don’t believe, I’ve heard such stories already and neither do I think she is a collector like she said she was. A collector doesn’t keep her dolls in the state you’re about to see, and knows a little more about dolls in general. This lady was clearly convinced all dolls with straight arms were Fashion Play, which obviously isn’t the case. But she remained calm and polite and tolerated my increasing impatience and repeated questions and nagging with much kindness, I reciprocated with equal tolerance of her unreliability, constant delays, lack of replies and silly excuses. She also had a number of interesting dolls for a good price and I would have become one of her regular clients had this transaction gone smoother. 

Anyway, the doll’s here and so is her dress. The dress looked fine to begin with, but as to the doll, well she needed a lot of help. When it turned out the lady did have the FP’88 in her possession she assured me the doll was in perfect condition but sadly had no pictures of her at that moment. After 10 days of waiting I finally saw the doll I was about to purchase and it turned out that the term “perfect condition” leaves much room for interpretation and that we obviously don’t define it the same way. Barbie’s hair was awful! Awful, heavily played with kanekalon! It meant a great challenge to my restoration abilities if not a full re-root. But I really, really wanted that doll and I’d been searching for her these past two years and I only managed to find 2 dolls except for this poor thing – one was still boxed, she had kanekalon hair and was insanely expensive for a “budget” Barbie and if she had saran hair, maybe I’d save up for her and got her evenutally. The other was a corpse, heavily overpriced, naked corpse that I wasn’t willing to resuscitate. Not at that price. This one was potentially problematic, but she was affordable and she had her dress in a great condition. Sold! That’s what she looked like when she arrived.

I scrubbed her with dish soap and baking soda and then I put her hair in fabric softener. I find that fabric softener works miracles on kanekalon hair. I usually let the hair soak for at least 24 hours. After that time I wash the hair and there’s no point doing that before, because the hair needs to soften a bit for the dirt to be removed easily. It really makes a whole lot of difference but it requires much fabric softener – a glass at least plus half the amount of warm water. I washed and conditioned the hair and it finally surrendered to the force of gravity that it previously defied with all its might! It was also a nicer color, not so dull and gray as before. But it was still far from perfect so I boil-washed it and I was much more nonchalant doing that than I normally am. I dipped it in almost bubbling boiling water and I combed it with a fine tooth comb still hot and dripping. I repeated that process about 10 times until the hair became soft and sleek. Then I poured a generous amount of diluted gel for more shine, worked a little bit on the part line and when the hair dried it became silky and shiny and very, very straight. I tried curling it twice but it was a disaster so I just left it like that.

Barbie had to wait for her stock dress for over 3 weeks but it was worth it. Simple as it may be, it’s really pretty and since it has no Velcro whatsoever, it’s still in a great shape. I love the soft, baby pink and the overall design of the dress. It’s made of the most Barbie-ish fabric there can be – lurex. The peppelum is two layers of tule the top one adorned with a silvery thread that’s a nice touch and makes it a tiny bit more elegant. My Barbie should also have some classic 90s pumps – baby pink with pearly sheen but they’re long lost. I’m a completionist and I hope to find those someday in the future.

I’m so glad Fashion Play ’88 finally took her rightful place in my cabinet. I wasn’t sure this would happen and I almost lost hope I’d get her dress but they’re here. The dress, as you can see, is identical to Special Expressions Barbie’s save for the color. You might say I got both 1988 Fashion Play Barbies because Special Expression is a redressed “blue” Fashion Play 1988. Pink FP’88 is so pretty I would be very glad to have a duplicate of her with saran hair but she’s even harder to get than the kanekalon one so it’s a fat chance.

Barbie Bake Shop and Cafe 1998 and Sweet Treats Barbie 1998

 I’m a coffeeholic and that’s a fact. So while I was waiting for the new Barbie Coffee Shop 2020 to appear in my country, I decided to track down a particular playset that I had had in mind for quite some time – Barbie Bake Shop and Café 1998. It so happens, this playset is rather hard to come by. I’ve seen it on eBay but it was usually missing most of its accessories. But then I found it and I got it through my local shopping portal. The transaction turned out to be a bit disappointing though.

Barbie Bake Shop and Café was produced at the time when the Superstar era was almost at an end. Changes seemed inevitable. A lovely Superstar face smiles at you from the box photos, that’s true, but she’s got the Shani body sculpt and her facepaint seems a little too detailed. I’ve found out there were two different boxes for the same playset and these were dated 1989, 1999 or 2000. The sets were almost identical save for the colors of some of the accessories. Mine seems to be the earliest one.

                               the source: https://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Bake-Shop-Playset-Pieces/dp/B002UP780S

the source: https://barbados.desertcart.com/products/6833461-barbie-bake-shop-cafe-playset-more-than-75-play-pieces-1998-arcotoys-mattel

Barbie Bake Shop and Cafe has some features characteristic for both the Superstar and the Generation Girl eras. You can see the appliances look very realistic and so do some of the utensils, though soft pastels still dominate providing a very pleasant frame. The table is molded to resemble real wood, but the color is too yellow. However, the evidence that the Superstar standards were still there is visible in the number of accessories. Apparently, there were people at Mattel who thought you really need a lot of stuff in the kitchen and supplied it accordingly.

I really like when a playset that is supposed to pretend to be a building really looks like one. That is to say, it has a roof and a floor, throw a couple windows and a door in and I’m satisfied. They give you a sense of dimensions and space. Now, Barbie Bake Shop and Café does have many of these elements and it folds up saving you limited display space. I really hate it when Mattel releases, say a supermarket and it consists of one shelf and a cash register with a conveyor belt. That’s not a shop, not to my mind. That’s exactly what it is – a shelf and a cash register with a conveyor belt. That’s one of the reasons why the Bake Shop and Café appealed to me.  

The building itself is fairly simple in its architecture and it consists of two major sections – the café and the kitchen “in the back”. So I imagine Barbie has to get up at 4 AM to bake these goods and serve them later with the best coffee on Earth. The kitchen should satisfy the most immediate needs of a baker – there’s an oven that opens up and some additional work space that you can hide if need be. There are shelves and hooks to put all the utensils. The Café portion is furnished with a very elegant looking counter to display the baked goods. There’s a revolving platter and a “working” cash register. Outside there’s a sign presenting some of the cakes and there’s a real chalk board too. A flower basket attached to the outer wall should be there as well, but it’s missing, along with some other accessories.

So back to my playset – it’s not new which is fine, but it was described as complete. There was only one photograph to present it and you couldn’t see all the accessories in it. I found it hard to believe that all the tiny accessories were still there after all those years so I asked the seller if the set was really, really complete. The lady was adamant it was. It wasn’t. It was missing a few things, some of them I was really looking forward to including in my collection.

I contacted the seller and I sent several emails that were probably more polite than they should. In return I received … silence. And it was self-explanatory. Pity, I planned to purchase a few more things from the lady like a lovely Potty Training Kelly for my daughter. Of course I won’t do that. I really don’t understand such people, it doesn’t pay to cheat clients. I’m inclined to believe the lady didn’t check the contents thoroughly and she didn’t know what exactly the set should include, but of all people she could sell it to, it had to be a collector who knew that very well.  Now the thing is, I really didn’t expect the set to be complete, but it would have been nice to know what it was missing.

Complete or not, I still like the set a lot and I have to admit it’s been the best offer so far so I should be glad I got it. Barbie’s kitchen is really well supplied. There’s almost everything you may possibly need to bake delicious cakes. There’s a baking tray and cupcakes that fit it. You can actually remove them from the form! There’s still a bigger form with a cake cut into six pieces. There’s a set of cookie cutters and the cookies really fit in them so you can pretend you’re actually making them. There’s spatulas, bowls and spoons galore and even a very realistic looking knife!

When you bake a cake, you’re going to need something to serve it on and Mattel had thought of that. The plates and cups are made of nice, clear plastic that unfortunately scratches easily, but that’s fine. The set is rather old, isn’t it. The best part of the entire set, at least to my mind, is the coffee maker, an old-fashioned, traditional one that comes with a jug. I imagine waitresses of an old diner carrying them asking clients if they need a fill-up. That’s the picture I had in my mind for the Barbie that’s presenting the set today. Sadly, the jug is missing and it may sound really silly, but it’s not the same without it and the lack of this single item makes the entire playset much less attractive to me. At least the cash register is still there and it still works – I mean, it opens. Inside there is some paper money. The cash register should open up with a credit card, but that piece also happens to be missing, so you need to use … the knife!

Overall, as far as the playset goes, it’s a great piece to have in your collection. Even without a few pieces, it makes a great mini diorama for your dolls. You can hardly expect that quality and that many accessories in the package from today’s Mattel. This happens to be the very first playset in my collection and it certainly won’t be the last, because I enjoy collecting playsets almost as much as the dolls themselves! And speaking of dolls, there’s one Barbie that fits the scene better than any other. Let me introduce her to you – Sweet Treats Barbie 1998.

I love this doll and I’d been meaning to buy her for quite some time. I actually don’t know why I like her so much. She’s not the typical doll I would collect. She’s from 1998 which happens to be the end of the superstar era, her body sculpt and face paint are the best evidenace of that, yet there’s something about her that reminds me of the good old Mattel of the 80s and that’s the fact that she comes in two variations – high and low color and the dolls’ bangs differ as well. Mine is a high-color doll with straight bangs, but you can also come by a doll with curled fringe. That’s what I like and it used to be pretty common in the 80s.

What I also appreciate about this doll is the simplicity about her. Her hair is pretty short, for the standards of that time period, but it’s made of the most marvelous, silky, golden saran. The outfit is pretty basic but it’s a three-piece. It’s not a dress that pretends to be a top, a skirt and an apron, you actually get three separate pieces that you can mix and match with other clothes! The denim skirt is incredibly versatile too. The shoes are the basic, white tennis shoes that look great with many casual outfits.

Sweet Treats may look simple and basic, but she came well accessorized, at least if you manage to get her still boxed. There was a nice looking furniture piece to prepare baked goods on, there was a mixer that really worked, a bowl, a spoon, a spatula, a measuring cup, a sprinkler and two cookie cutters. There were also some edibles, but these would’ve been long expired, that is to say if I actually got them. Unfortunately, all those lovely things are long gone, I got only the doll, but I’m pretty satisfied by the fact that she still kept her stock outfit and her shoes. I remembered my little girl got a nice little accessory pack a few years back and I took it out to show you. It comes with a mixer, a cupcake, some measuring tools, a bowl and a muffin form.

Doesn’t Sweet Treats Barbie look perfect in the Bake Shop and Café? They were even manufactured in the same year! Now my dolls have a nice place to go and have some coffee and a lovely Barbie to serve it.