This weekend a friend and I went through the clothes and the dolls that I played with as a kid (and she has an amazing memory on the clothes. This website is quite the resource if you're interested: BarbieWorld.it  ). I had A LOT of Barbies and accessories. There was the Barbie pool, the piano, the three-story townhouse. I had an RV, an airplane, and a boat. And then there were the dolls themselves. Yes, I had lots of Barbies but there were also Skippers and Midges and Christies. But today, we have to talk about Ken. This is my first Ken Doll: Roller Skating Ken c.1980. The short tight shorts, the shiny purple jacket, the Addidas style roller skates. He's so retro, what's not to love? I can't pretend to remember why six-year old me needed a Ken doll at that point. I was never as gung-ho about the guys because for me Barbie was about Fashion shows and climbing mountains, and sleepovers. But there were definitely days Ken was part of their entourage. I didn't have Ro...

 If you're a certain age, you surely remember the ubiquitous United Colors of Benetton ads from the late 1980s and early 1990s.  The bright primary colors, the diversity on the page, the quirky yet stylish fashion. I loved the ads, but the clothes were much too urban, cool, ...expensive for me and my high school vibe. I remember the "cool" girls in my class all dressing in simple primary color t-shirts and standing together for the senior class picture so they were easy to pick out. Keep in mind, it was also a short year or two before the grunge revolution which was much more my style heading to college. While Benetton fashion was not in my world, Benetton Barbies were, of course  My mom had two different male friends who traveled to London semi-regularly. One was a theatre director and went to see the shows. The other owned a travel agency and visited London for work. They were both game to engage in my Barbie fandom in the era. (not to stereotype, but one was openly gay...

Happy New Year! My goal this year is to finish inventorying and photographing all of the Barbies in my collection. And I have reserved a table at the Denver Doll & Toy Show in March to sell most of my dolls.  Going through the boxes of the less common dolls I come across some that are worth highlighting. These two are perfect given the time of year: At the height of the collectible Barbie craze in the mid-1990s Mattel released some of the more unique and distinct Barbies to date. Not all of them have aged well and some of them have very strong 90s vibes. But the Happy New Year's/Oshogatsu dolls are cute and fun and a shift from so many of the high fashion western designer dolls.  I'm not going to pretend to have a nuanced opinion on cultural appropriation and simplification by an American company that many of the Dolls of the World fall into (there are individuals and websites that have taken that debate on in a worthwhile, meaningful way). I recognize that kimono have a...