New year, new dolls.

 So I was trying to be good for January, I was all "i'm going to try not to buy dolls this month and i'm going to try to sell more than I buy for the year ahead"

well the selling is going pretty decently... 

but the "don't buy any dolls" thing kinda flew out the window.... 

To be fair, I DID manage 20 days of no doll purchases which for me is quite a drought (I have a problem, I know this) 

But what made me break that streak? 

well let me show you.

So even when i'm not supposed to be buying things, I can't help window shopping. It makes me happy looking at things, even when i'm not planning to purchase. 

but I am also always half on the lookout for bargains and major special finds. You never know after all, what might turn up.

So I was doing my usual browse and telling myself "you don't need more Monster High dolls right now, you don't need more big bundles of random dolls... " and I came across this:

Photo from Vinted

Now, I don't NEED more Sindy dolls, I really don't. In fact at this point there's only a few Sindy examples I don't own (damnit Gauntlet Sindy, one day... one day I shall own you) but it wasn't actually the doll I was interested in here. It was the clothes. 

see, Sindy clothing is something I really enjoy. Vintage doll clothes in general really but Sindy specifically has so many outfits that are really fun and casual and wonderful little time capsules of typical every day fashion of the era. I find a lot of doll clothes, especially of the 70s onwards to be leaning far more toward Hollywood glamour than everyday stuff.  Glam has its place of course, but I appreciate doll lines that come with clothes you'd see in catalogues rather than on the red carpet. 

So this bundle was cheap, like ridiculously cheap for what's here. 

there's 7 authentic Sindy outfits plus a bunch of other outfits, several random accessories and of course the doll herself who appears to be a 1977 Weekender Sindy.

So let's take a look at what we got! 

 

First up, the doll herself. 

Her sales pictures made me think her hair was going to be a complete loss but it turns out it's actually pretty decent given her age. There's one plug that's thin right at the front but other than that and being a bit dusty, she's looking really good.

Getting dust out of those inset lashes is not a fun task. 

 

I dressed her in one of the outfits she came with, this is "Barn dance" from 1978. It came with white tassel shoes which are in the bundle too, I just didn't find them til after i'd dressed her in the mules. 

 

 

This is one of the many Ballerina outfits. It's from the late 70s but I can't exactly pinpoint it. 1975 is when the purple tutu was changed to pink but 1977 is when the pink shoes came in to replace the white ones. However, the outfit remained pretty much the same after that until the mid 80s.

Given the age of the doll and the other clothes however, I would say it's likely this is either 77 or 78, but it could be as late as 1983

Sadly the leotard has a ladder in it. I don't think i've ever had a ballerina leotard that hasn't had some sort of pull or damage to it actually. It's strange to me that the fishnet tights seem to survive substantially better.

 

This outfit was sold as "Good Morning" in 1978 but that same year was ALSO sold on the boxed "Sweet Dreams" Sindy dolls. (which are bloody strange looking dolls let me tell ya)

It's a cute little set of a long night gown with a matching dressing gown and a pair of pink fuzzy slippers. 

I'd never seen this set up close before. it's called "Cook-in" and it's from 1977. 

The little yellow dress is simple but very cute with darts down the front that give it a little more oomph than just a plain shift. The apron and matching oven gloves are a dark brown that feels extremely 70s. There's even the matching brown shoes. 

This outfit is one of many called "weekender" but this specific one is from 1977. I believe this to be the outfit the doll originally came in. I have another 77 Weekender who I got off Oxfam a few years back, she also came with the same full outfit, though if I remember rightly, the materials are slightly different due to batch differences.

 

You  can see her here with her Oxfam sisters. I'll have to dig her out and compare the two outfits.

It may not seem obvious, but these two garments came together originally. They're part of the Mix and Match set from 1981. Pedigree did a lot of these little mix and match sets which were designed as cheap little pocket money packs that usually had one or two pieces per pack and all revolved around one colour combo specific to that year. 1981's colors were blue and white. 

these aren't the correct shoes though. I got that wrong when I took the photo.

 

 

The second set of tassel shoes are. 

So i'm not actually sure where the slip on sandal style ones go.... 

there's a fair few 80s outfits that use them but it's odd to have these random shoes and no matching outfit pieces. So hmmm. 

The final outfit we have is missing the shoes (some blue fuzzy slippery things) and a pair of white panties. This is called "Baby Blue" from either 1980 or 81. I think it's the 1980s version because the slip skirt thing looks longer. 

 

I do find it fascinating that well up into the 90s doll companies were making doll sized lingerie and then it suddenly became faux pas and they stopped. I often wonder what on earth changed in our culture that made tiny doll scale underwear and bras suddenly inappropriate. I mean, Hasbro made doll bras and teddies and stuff. The 1993 Hasbro catalogue has them, then 94 has short little satin looking dressing gowns as sleep wear and then in 95 suddenly there's no more underwear at all. I've always wondered what happened. Who got their panties in a twist and decided Sindy couldn't have her own knickers anymore? 

 

I keep finding these. 

It's such a baffling playset to me. 

Anyway this is "set in style" and was first made in 1977 and available for several years after. Heated rollers were all the rage apparently, so of course Sindy needed her own set.

for whatever reason they also packaged the set with a comb, a brush and a mirror for you to use on her hair, even though the rollers themselves are more a prop than a functional thing. I don't really understand the mirror. If it was doll scale sure, but it's not so what's it for? Kinda weird. 

I do love the little plug though, it has a rubbery bit on it so you can stick it to the wall and pretend it's plugged in which is very cute I think. 

Clearly this little playset was popular, because I find them quite regularly in big bundles of Sindy stuff. 

This set is missing one of the clear plastic clips for the rollers but otherwise looks to be complete. 

But yeah, it's a weird one to me. Such a "of the time" item. 

I don't know who these shoes belong to. The skates will fit on Sindy but I don't think they're hers. The red boots are very small, maybe more Barbie sized and the little white heels are too short for Sindy's foot while being about right in width so hmm.

And these bits are just... really random. 

There are 5 hair clips which are probably for a human child. 

There's a yellow uh... skate board? 

Two doll sized brushes which look more like something you'd use on a pet or horse than a person.

a random bottle

a really cheap flimsy pink doll brush that's so rubbery and soft that it's utterly useless for brushing anything. 

A racket and shuttlecock made of flimsy thin plastic

similarly thin crappily made skis and ski poles in red. 

and a helmet that's quite small (maybe would fit a Barbie or vintage Action man head? and a visor which I don't think is actually part of the helmet but looks to have come out of a slightly larger helmet. 

I really don't know what any of this is, but i'm fairly sure a lot of it belongs to some cheap clone doll. 

One of the non Sindy outfits in the bundle was this extremely retro short dress with big lapels. The fabric is very familiar, i've seen a lot of different outfits from the same sort of era using it but I couldn't identify this piece. It has little decorative buttons on the sleeves and it fits the earlier chunkier Sindy body pretty decently, especially with a belt to give it a bit of shape.

The lace tights were also in the bundle and they fit this body perfectly. They would be too big for a later Sindy and I don't think they'd fit Barbie because they're quite chunky. 

But they're fabulous and I love how my girl from my previous bundle looks in them.

Now this set I think is probably "mummy made" because the fabric is slightly off scale and the sewing while nice and neat, is clearly using a regular machine with no fancy bells or whistles. 

It's a little too big for a Sindy or Barbie doll in the waist and too short in the leg for Barbie so i'm thinking it must have been made for a chunkier style doll. 

it's delightfully retro though.

This bizarre little number is a touch too short in the legs even for this teen skipper. It's made of a soft satiny material and then has this matching glittery mesh poncho... thing that goes over the top. 

It's very odd. 

I did some digging and asked some people and was told this was a Mego outfit, specifically it was for the Cher doll and came in several colourways. Another person told me that at some point in the late 70s mego sold off a lot of their excess clothing for their tv stars dolls to a company called Playmakers who cut the bottom inch off and repackaged them as Deana, a doll that also used Mego Fashion Candi heads. 

It's very difficult to find much about Deana, but I did find ONE image on google.

The outfit the doll herself is wearing is from the Mego Toni Tennille doll, with the bottom cut off. And if you look at the box itself you can see a jumpsuit that's awfully similar to the pink one I have but without the poncho thing and in a goldish colour. This may very well be the "Chocolate Mocha" colourway. Here's Farrah Fawcett wearing the green version which is called "Mint Julep" 

As you can see, there's a whole tier of material below the trim which has been cut off to make it fit a smaller doll. 

Isn't that curious? 

It also tells me that the poncho thing is actually a cape, which is pretty weird. 

I also found this image

 for yet another clone line called "sweet Maria" by a company I THINK was called "Madison Ltd"

Third image along the top is Mint Julep.  There's also a couple of other Cher outfits (the long dresses)

But what's also wild is that there's several Sindy outfits here too.

The world of vintage fashion dolls is wild seriously. I always say to people "when it comes to old dolls, never assume any wierdness is a later alteration, it may very well have come from the factory/been sold like that." 

and here's further evidence of that. Third parties buying up and altering clothes to fit their clones. 

so so strange.

The trousers this doll is wearing came out of another bundle (they're My Scene) but the top is from this one. Again, it's too wide for most 1/6 fashion dolls so I lean toward it probably being for a shorter wider doll but it's beautifully made from a very thick soft material with two big metal buttons fastening it. It's very 60s to me and the wide shape of it I think kinda works for a retro look as a lot of 60s coats and jackets were pretty airy.

The glittery red number is Faerie Glen and it's a horrible fabric shot with silver thread that frays and comes loose and just goes everywhere. I trimmed a lot of the loose pieces off to try to neaten it up but it's just not a good fabric.

The white outfit I think is home made and i'm somewhat bewildered by it because why does the dress only have one trimmed arm band? At first I thought "maybe they never finished it? or maybe the trim came off?" but looking at the construction, the band is sewn INTO the sleeve seam so the asymmetry seems to be intentional. But why? 

It also has a plunging back that's fully trimmed so clearly they had plenty of trim. 

I really don't know. I tried looking up 70s tennis stars to see if it was imitating a specific outfit from the time but I didn't get very far. Aside from the trim and v shape looking a little Lacoste, I didn't manage to find anything quite like it or anything that would explain the single arm band. Unless it's supposed to be a sweatband? 

I don't know. I really don't.

This gorgeous wedding dress has only got a "made in hong kong" label. It's beautiful.

This weird flaminco dress is awfully familiar.

Another wedding dress, this one in need of an iron. It's made of satiny fabric and I think the veil goes with it as they're both the same ivory sort of colour. It's not nearly as pretty as the other one, it's honestly kinda plain.

Some of the knitted stuff. This is the knitted stuff I might actually use. Knitted doll clothing is often something I just don't keep because it's just a  bit... odd. But these pieces are quite fun. 

there's two nice capes, a little sleeveless number and a jumper made with a wool that's shot with gold so it's sparkly. 

Finally there's a crocheted vest that's so almost the trans flag lol. But it's nagging at me that this colour combo is something else, I just can't quite remember what.

These are all the odd sized items. The two red tops and dungarees seem a touch too small for Barbie in that the sleeves and legs are too short. 

Meanwhile the tights have no stretch to them and are also too short for Barbie but may fit Sindy, if I could handle fighting her sticky rubbery legs to try to get the damn things on. They wouldn't go on the bigger 1960s Sindy though, the lack of stretch was a big problem there. 

and the denim shorts fit Sindy and probably Barbie too but while they look a lot like a Sindy piece, they lack the waistband of her denim shorts and have velcro fasteners which 70s Sindy stuff doesn't tend to have. 

There's also a couple of other knitted bits but I didn't take a photo because meh. Whatever. 

Anyone recognise any of these bits and bobs?