Random doll clothing bundles, tlc dolls and so on... oh yes

 It's time for another "stuff I bought this month but didn't want to devote a whole blog to so let's bundle it all together in one big megapost" thing. 

This month we have:

TLC Bratz dolls

big bundles of doll clothes 

fun with hybrids

and random charity shop finds.

Let's do this thing.

 

So first let's talk about doll clothes. 

I love doll clothes. I love vintage doll clothes especially. I adore teensy tiny representations of real world fashion trends particularly. Princessy fantasy dresses aren't my jam, questionable retro fashion however IS. 

And like many doll collectors, i'm forever looking for more clothes for my dolls to wear. 

So when I spotted a couple of very cheap doll clothing bundles on vinted I leapt at the chance for a big bag of random.

The first bundle was £8 + shipping and what caught my attention was the 1984 Sindy outfit and the wonderfully 80s Barbie sweater outfit. 

I LOVE 80s clothes. And i've been trying to bulk out my Sindy clothing collection because I like to dress them in clothing that's period appropriate to the doll themselves. 

Yodel clung to this parcel (Stuck at "in your local depot) for about 4 days before they finally delivered it. I was stalking the van. No idea what caused the delay but they're here now so let's take a look!

This is the "probably not Barbie" stuff. (i'm not sure about the red wrap skirt but it has no labels so yeah...)

So first the top row where we have two Pastiche outfits. Pastiche was a line of dolls and clothes made by a British company called "Hunter toys" (Who I don't believe are in any way linked to the Australian company of the same name)

Pastiche was a pretty on the nose name for a range of clone dolls don't you think? I'd love to have been in the room when they pitched that tongue in cheek name. Lol. 

The dolls are pretty generic barbie/sindy-like clones and the clothing is designed to fit the pedigree Sindy bodies. In fact, in several Argos catalogues I found the Pastiche outfits modelled not on Pastiche dolls, but Sindy dolls. 

The Autumn/Winter 1988 Argos catalogue has early Hasbro Sindy dolls modelling these very outfits. 

While the Spring/Summer 88 catalogue from 6 months earlier is using the Pastiche dolls. 

Curious right? 

Then we have Sindy's 1984 "striped skirt and top"

As seen in this pamphlet. 

Missing the belt but I can replace that. I'm actually kinda tempted to buy some tiny doll buckles and make a load of replacement belts out of ribbon because the original plastic or pleather stuff doesn't age well. 

The other pieces I haven't managed to identify but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the striped top is also Pastiche, it looks similar to some of their outfits i've seen online. 

Also interesting are the shorts which are made from a beautiful silky material which looks to be the exact same material as one of Barbie's "Paris Pretty" fashion pack trousers. 

But i'm not convinced these shorts were altered from this garment because the whole construction is different. 

Could it be Mattel reusing the fabric for something else? or a whole other doll company using the same fabric source? 

Whatever the case, my attempts to identify the shorts came up empty. 

and then we have... this.

It's neon pink and appears to be a garter? Or maybe some sort of decorative cuff? A hair band?

Now if it was a soft pink or white i'd think "bridal doll" but it's NEON PINK. 

It makes me think of Hasbro's Sindy rather than Barbie because it's far more the kind of pinks Hasbro used. Barbie tends to use more subdued pink tones while Hasbro Sindy is all about the garish neons. 

Hot Looks Sindy has a hair scrunchie that looks the right colour but I can't get a close enough image of it. It looks more tulle than lace though. 

So hmmm. I don't know. 

I really don't know.

All of this is Barbie. 

Barbie Feeling Pretty 1509 (red and white short dress. missing sash.)

Feeling Pretty 1507 (floral pants. Missing top)

Feeling Pretty 1524 (animal print white and peach dress. missing sash)

Pretty Choices 4127 (purple and floral dress. Missing the add on peplum overskirt)

Sweater Soft Fashions 4487 (blue sweaterdress with leggings. Missing the scarf and shoes)

Fashion Fun 2093 (just the sarong)

Ice Capades 4083 (White and lace leotard with gold trim.)

Western Fun Barbie (leggings, jacket, belt)

Dream Glow Barbie (Shawl only) which is ironic given I only just rehomed the dress.

And a pair of shorts that I found others of on ebay but nobody seemed to have figured out precisely what they were beyond "barbie" 

All from the 80s and all fabulously of their time. 

These are both Ken but what's kinda bizarre here is that the floral shorts are from 2015. Everything else is 80s so what the heck are these doing here? 

 More modern stuff.

The small chelsea sized dress is some cheap clone dress as far as I can tell. 

The wings and dog come from a Chelsea doll but I couldn't find any in this colourway. The dreamtopia dog has a purple bow and the doll has pink clip on wings. I dunno. 

The fabric piece is the hammock from a 2016 Barbie camper van. 

And then back to the 80s for the Barbie and the Rockers guitar. 

The brown boot is a cheap knockoff of some sort. 

the white one I again found some on ebay but nobody had an id. It's rubbery and looks old, but also small. 

dunno. 

So that's bundle #1. Lots of fun 80s stuff there and some other bits for the "put in a bundle to rehome" pile. 

Bundle #2 is a lot more modern, mostly 2000s stuff. 

The listing photo showed quite a bit of what was in the bundle but it also had some surprises. 

the main thing that caught my eye in this lot was a 70s Sindy dress (very top right of this photo, under the midge dress) 

 1975 Sindy dress, what are you doing here? 

 

 

This dress is called Marguerite. It would have originally had a white belt and a little shawl.

The "misc" pile is pretty random. 

we have a build a bear tiny little 50s dress (how tiny must that bear have been?!), A 4 ever best friends swimsuit, the skirt from walking Tanya, A Wizards of Waverly Place outfit that can be turned inside out for a different look supposedly (it's made of pretty horrible plasticky material), two pairs of pants from Wee 3 friends, what looks like Disney Belle's cloak, an Angelina Ballerina velvet cloak and a pair of plush wings. There's also two towels and a plasticky cloth.

My Scene stuff.

This shirt is seriously macabre. Did the dog eat the cat? What the hell Mattel?

I believe all this is Fashion Fever or Barbie.

The purple skirt is from Fashion Fever Summer. 

The shrug it turns out is actually 2007 I Can Be Baby Photographer Barbie.

The plum coloured pieces are from a big fashion fever fashion pack but the dress/tunic top has had the lace at the bottom removed. 

The white set is another fashion fever fashion pack that also included the purple bubble skirt. 

The pink fur piece is frustratingly familiar.

Ken stuff.

Brown tee and camo shorts are Fashion Fever #K8492

White shirt is from Fashion Fever #K8491

It looks like the brown top goes with the camo shorts. 

Green tee is Beach Glam Ken 

All 2007.

And I believe all this is Barbie. 

Google Lens informs me that purple top is from a Barbie Top Model doll and as it turns out, the rest of that outfit is also in this bundle. 

 

It's a touch too tight on a regular Barbie. The Top Model dolls use the much skinnier "Model Muse" body.

It fits okay on a Rainbow High doll though.I HAVE a top model Teresa somewhere, maybe I should dig her out and see how she looks in this.

This belongs to a Diva Starz doll. I'd never looked that closely at Diva Starz clothing but this is a cute and nicely made long skirt that will probably fit Barbie and similar well enough.

This is my "meh, don't want" pile. There's some Disney stuff (Princess Jasmine pants and dress), some Barbie stuff (that pink dress and the Ken prince outfit), the blue dress is probably Angelina Ballerina and there's some High School Musical stuff at the top. 

A lot is cheap clone clothing that feels unpleasant or is just a bit shoddily made. 

None of it is my taste so it's all in the "pass" pile. 

 

No labels on these. The top seems a little big on Barbie. 

The "skirt" is weird. I THINK it's a skirt because that's the only way it makes sense. It has a draw string waist and it's kinda bizarre.

I think this top and skirt are Barbie but neither are labelled.

Short blue skirt is made of quite stiff material and probably also Barbie. The top however seems a bit baggy.

But look at those little teddy bears! So cute!

The skirt is definitely Barbie, it has the barbie logo all over the pink sash but I couldn't identify it. The top I was certain wasn't Barbie because of the way it's constructed but then, in searching for another item, I came across this:

that's it right? It's lost its buttons but that's it! 

and that jacket underneath is also in the bundle.

 

Also here we have Bratz Princess Roxxi's jacket (which I hadn't realized til I started uploading these photos) and a pair of 4 ever best friend's lace leggings. 

The rest I don't know though. 

The denim top doesn't quite fit Barbie, I couldn't get her arms to bend enough to go through the arm holes  but this Skipper clone body fits it. No label so I don't know.

the floral shorts fit Barbie but they're sinfully short so i'm not convinced they belong on her. 

the orange shorts are better and I feel like they're My Scene or Barbie from that same period but I had no luck tracking them down. 

The silver top is too small for Barbie and too big for Bratz. 

The pink and white top is designed for a doll who's head pops off (there's no clasp on the halter, it's a solid loop) and is a bit baggy on a modern Barbie suggesting it was designed for a doll with the wider chest of pre 1999 Barbie dolls too.

Barbie swimsuit/leotard from Super Gymnast (2001) and a really strange skirt that's made of fleecy material that's the wrong way around. What? Like seriously the velcro only does up this way around and there's no waist band on the other side, just the ugly stitching side. So this is obviously the way it's SUPPOSED to be worn but why is the material wrong side up? Why?

Millie got a new outfit for being a good sport about all the manhandling. 

The necklace is from the first bundle and again I can't identify it but it's clearly Barbie, it's molded to her body shape. 

the fur coat I don't think is home made but I do think it's old. Fur coats had gone out of fashion by the time most of this stuff was made and it's unlined and quite basic in its construction which reads either "clone doll" or "vintage doll" to me. It isn't Sindy, her fur coats were longer and fluffier. But it could be something similar. 

A handful of Bratz pieces too. Least, i think the dressing gown is Bratz. 

The jacket from Secret Date Yasmin is amazing.

Princess Yasmin and Roxxi's tops. 

Rock Angel Jade's top

Nu Cool Eitan's shirt x2 (why 2 of them?)

Koby's shirt

and two belts

this lot cost me £10 + postage. 

Bargain. 

There is SO MUCH stuff here. 

Next up is the tlc dolls. And ooo eee they're quite something.  

I wanted a project, something that would take me a bit of time and this particular bundle had been languishing on Ebay for a while. Mostly because they're fucking disgusting. 

Like LOOK at these boys:

AIEEEEEE

The rest of the bundle didn't look as bad, but still clearly had issues.

We had Adventure Girl Cloe and a random sparklegirl.

Two face down mystery dolls wearing damaged clothing.

And Slumber Party Jade with cut hair and another Sparkle Girl. 

The seller had no other photos and when asked told me they'd already been sealed into a box so they couldn't take more easily. *sigh* 

but I wanted that damn Jade and having cleaned up a bunch of moldy gross Sindy dolls earlier in the year, i figured I could probably tackle the boys who included another doll on my wishlist, Sunkissed Summer Eitan. 

So I paid probably too much for them but I got em. 

And when they arrived they were every bit as gross as I anticipated, if not more.

The boys were as the photo showed, covered in mold. It was all over their faces and utterly embedded into their clothing. 

Jade's hair had indeed been savagely chopped at the back and the Boyz clothing she was wearing was also moldy. Worse, she had severe yellowing all under her chin and up one cheek. 

Adventure Cloe had frizzy hair (it's Kanekellon so it's really light and prone to frizzing) but it brushed up pretty nice and aside from some stains on her body she was in pretty good condition. 

The mystery dolls turned out to be Strut it Cloe with yellowing across one side of her face and Funk Out Fianna with her massive 5 head. 

While I was waiting for these dolls to turn up I also purchased a second bundle of tlc Bratz dolls

 Which weirdly enough actually arrived BEFORE the moldy bundle. 

Go figure. 

This lot had some interesting dolls in it. At the back is Triiipletz Tiana, beside her another 5 head Fiana who it turns out only has one arm and horrible hair, Pixiez Cloe, another Strut it Cloe (I have THREE of these now. Wtf?), Movie Cloe, Tokyo a Gogo Yasmin, original Cameron with his strange wide spaced eyes, original Yasmin and two Head Gamez heads. 

These dolls were all dirty from play and storage and their hair was all a mess. 

thankfully MOST of them have saran hair so a bit of rough combing of the worst tangles, a wash and a condition and they are back to looking lovely. 

Except Fianna who's hair feels bobbly and makes me want to puke every time I have to touch it and Cloe who has nylon hair that had matted itself into a huge ball that was practically felted together. YIKES. 

Tiana has had a lot of her hair hacked at the back of her head unfortunately and Yasmin's hair is very thin and has short bits cut into the front. 

All the clothing is in really good condition but there's not a single pair of shoes, they're all odd. 

So I got to work with the bleach and the vanish and the dettol and whatever else I thought might help any grossness on the mold inflicted dollies. 

All of them got a baking soda bath followed by a vanish bath. The mold lot all then got a wipe down with diluted bleach and some swished inside their heads for good measure, just in case. 

Hair was brushed in batches because it was hurting my hand. 

I couldn't get them all 100% with what I had of course, but I got pretty far over two or three days. 

 Here's a few of the "rehome" dolls after their spa.

Adventure Girlz Cloe scrubbed up really nice and her hair is really soft. I didn't expect it to end up so nice because i'm used to Kanekellon just frizzing and turning wooly. I'm not a fan of this faceup style however, and I tend not to keep Cloes unless they're really special anyway. 

Movie Cloe also scrubbed up lovely. Her hair is really soft and still has a wave to it, her eyelashes are all full and complete but I HATE the movie body so much. It's just so awkward looking and floppy. 

Yasmin had a major eye chip that I had to fix, she was missing a large chunk of her left eye. 

I repainted the missing part and unless you really look close you can't notice. Which i'm quite proud of. 

It's a pity her hair is thin because I might have been tempted to keep her. But she's not a rare doll and I could pretty easily obtain one in better condition should I so desire. 

Both Funk Out Fiana's have too much forehead. Annoyingly, the one with the better face is the one with the worse hair. *sigh* 

I find it interesting that they both have different hair colours too. One armed Fiana with the blonde streaks is the one with the nicer hair but her hairline is rooted waaaaay too far back. It's not so obvious in photos but in real life? YIKES. Poor girl. The other girl has a really nice face and a decent hair line but that hair is just TOO HORRIBLE. I can't with it.

I already own a Tokyo Yasmin so no point keeping this one. I couldn't get her hair back into her original style though, the braids weren't cooperating and many weren't intact enough anyway. She has a mark on one cheek but it's faint and grey. She's gorgeous, Tokyo a Gogo was such a great line. I wish MGA would do a repro set of them and Midnight Dance. Maybe the Space Angelz too.

Come ooon MGA!

Strut It Cloe with the matted hair took a lot of work to get even somewhat resembling a doll again and not a pile of matted fur. Her hair was brushed, conditioned, brushed, conditioned. I even took straighteners to it (and burned a small chunk. Damnit) but this was the best I could get it.

It's still really poofy. 

I have a saran variant of this same doll so there's no point keeping the one with the bad hair. 

I do feel like this doll would look amazing with red hair though. Her lips are a sort of dark brown so leaning into the autumn tones could be gorgeous. 

As for her outfit, her shirt was okay but her skirt was really moldy and full of holes. I sewed up the holes as best I could and soaked the skirt in both vanish for several days and then literally bleach when that didn't work. So the skirt is now more white than it once was, and it's still got stains and splotches but it's no longer MOLDY and that's the important thing. 

I was thinking I would tea stain it at some point to get it somewhat back to the original beige anyway. 

I treated the boy clothing in a similar manner, getting quite brutal with the shorts which were absolutely saturated in mold. It took days, it took a lot of harsh chemicals, and now both shorts are not their original colour but like the skirt, they're no longer black with mold which I see as a success. 

 

 

These two also ended up on the sell pile. I already have a first wave Cameron who I bought specifically to review the repro one. This Cameron is actually in really good condition, the fluff and dirt in his flock came out perfectly with no damage. I just have never been able to warm to the early Boyz, they're too strange looking. 

 

Pixiez Cloe I considered keeping but i'm just not sure I love her face. I think it's interesting MGA tried something completely new for this line and then never used those molds again, but i'm just not 100% sold. 

She scrubbed up okay but her hair has a lot of short strands which comes from being old and having been played with a lot. I don't know how to fix that sort of damage without plucking the short pieces out and potentially rerooting so I just don't want to start. 

Someone else can love her and fix her up i'm sure.  

But here's the ones I DID keep. 

Both moldy boys scrubbed up wonderfully, like seriously, you wouldn't know these were encrusted with mold at one point would you? I scrubbed them with anything I had that I thought might kill that stuff including Cif which is for bathrooms lol. 

interestingly, the Cif reacted with the glue on their heads. 

Which I suppose I should have anticipated given I use the stuff to deglue hair Mattel dolls, but it's still interesting to see. 

those white splotches aren't mold, they're glue that's discoloured in reaction to the cif. 

Now, Sun Kissed Summer Eitan had badly damaged flock to start with. Most of it was missing and what was there was a clumpy mess which only got messier when the cif turned the glue white. So I ended up peeling what little was left of his flock off and all the glue left over, leaving just the painted scalp which looks a lot better. 

The other boy still has most of his flock and unless you look close or under a bright light you don't notice the discolouration too much so I left it be. Peeling flock and glue off dolls is a lot of work and I don't want to do it if I don't HAVE to do it. 

Sunkissed Summer's shorts are the same shorts he was originally wearing in the gross mold auction photos, only now you can see they are WHITE rather than beige. Bleach is very effective at getting rid of mold, but it comes with a price. Still, I don't hate how they look this colour. White is quite beachy. 

his top had several splotches of mold staining on which the vanish dealt with quite nicely. There's still a little staining in places but you have to look close because of the stripe pattern and i'm pretty confident any spores are dead as all hell now. I was quite brutal with it. Heh. 

The other Eitan is I dunno, formal funk or something? He's not an overly interesting or rare doll but I don't own many Eitans so he stays for now. I do definitely prefer the more healthy complexion of Sunkissed Summer though. Eitan's strange grey skintone always bothered me because it he just looks a bit unwell. Though giving him a tan does mean he no longer looks himself. Sunkissed Summer was on my wishlist BECAUSE he looks like a whole different character and I like having a bunch of different looking boys. 

Triipletz Tiana has, as I mentioned earlier, had most of the back of her hair chopped short but the front is long enough I could tie it back into a ponytail and hide the damage. She's a doll that perhaps some day i'll get rerooted but Bratz heads are so hard and I hate rerooting at the best of times that it's not something i'm keen to get to. How do I know she's Tiana and not one of the other two? Her part line. Tiana's the only one with a side parting.

Jade has also had a lot of her hair hacked which is weird because this doll never had long hair to begin with. It was shoulder length at most originally. I can't tell if they were trying to emulate her box art/stock image hair or were pissed off about the little pigtails and hacked a few of them off out of spite. 

because the front pieces are still long enough you can put them up into the style her stock image had, but the back has been cut so short you can't do much with it at all. 

her hair is really strangely rooted too, with all five bunches having their own partings on either side. So she really can't wear her hair in most styles without it sticking up strangely (another reason she may have gotten the chop) 

I'd like to get her rerooted but it looks like a fair bit of work to remove the shorter bits at the back and leaving the front alone. 

She also had severe yellowing under her chin and up her cheek which I took peroxide to. I saw people online suggest hair developer so I bought some and slathered the staining and put her in a window. It started to fade but not enough so then I put her stain down on the radiators which are on full blast this time of year and that sped things up a bit. It still took DAYS for it to fade though and more bizarrely, it would look like it was gone but then within minutes of me rinsing the peroxide off the stain would start to develop again. What? 

it's not fully gone but it's gone ENOUGH for me for now. 

I wanted to save this girl because this specific version of Jade is really hard to find and that eyemakeup is spectacular. 

I need to find my Bratz clothing stash because she needs some jeans or something. 

The two Headgamez heads got bodies donated by stained Cloe and a body I had in my stash. Cloe's hair has shorter pieces which make her hair look a bit ratty but like with Pixiez Cloe, it's not something I really know how to fix. 

Both are gorgeous and unique though. These faces are such unusual ones and I love it. I always appreciate a blonde with brown eyes. You don't see that nearly enough in dolls. And i've wanted this Yasmin head for a while now. 

I paid about £30 including postage for the two bundles, which works out not too bad. That's like £5 per doll I kept plus several days of "entertainment" trying to fix them all up. 

and I do love the distraction that comes from fixing up dolls. 

TLC dolls give me more enjoyment I think than perfect ones. A perfect doll just goes straight on the shelf, one that needs work gets handled and has effort and love poured into it and the end result is a doll I end up feeling far more attached to. That whole process is part of doll collecting for me, which is why I seek out tlc bundles so often. It's an itch I need to scratch, one that's not sated by brand new toys.

Bratz Kylie who I got nude at a doll meet last month. She'd had her lips repainted but they were yellowing for some reason so I re-repainted them. I felt like a nice shimmery red was appropriate. 

I have zero knowledge of the Kardashians or any of that shit, but I do think this doll is very pretty. She reminds me of Jade with a bit of Kumi thrown in for good measure. It's those narrow eyes and the dark hair I think.

She's a beautiful doll.

I wanted Sabrina when she first came out but couldn't justify the inflated price of the Rainbow Vision dolls at the time. Then she became super hard to find and her price inflated more. *sigh* 

I ended up finding this girl in a bundle with her fancy dress but not her second outfit. I liked her second outfit but it turns out that this outfit from Karla is the absolute perfect colour for her. 

It matches her fur coat exactly! 

Which is delightful. 

She has such a beautiful face.

Lagoona was a cheap secondhand find too. I had intended to use her clothing on my other Lagoona but I ended up quite liking her once I styled her hair and painted her lips a slightly darker blue. They're shimmery now like her jacket, it's fun. 

I may be a little obsessed with this shimmer paint I have <_< 

lol. 

She came in only part of her stock so I gave her a bratz top and some g1 earrings out of my stash. 

I actually quite like the orange, her signature g3 doll has orange so it feels appropriate. 

And I FINALLY found my Catwalk Kitty heads that I got off Aliexpress like a year ago.

So the Shadow High doll i'd had set aside for Jet here finally got beheaded. 

I had to cut the neck hole a little bigger so Jet's head could actually fit onto the neck properly and it took a LOT of shoving but it's nice and secure now and she can tilt her head fine. 

I kinda want to make her a tail. The original dolls have something much like a pipe cleaner so I might see if I can find a nice fluffy black one and drill a little hole for it and glue it in place or something. 

I still have two other heads that need bodies but that's not urgent. I'll wait til I get appropriate bodies in a bundle or crazy cheap. 

I believe Sushi matches Shadow High Luna while I need Natasha for Callie. I could probably get away with a lighter grey body to match her splotches and then paint some white markings but white would be easier and match her original doll. 

I've decided to try to finish some projects in what's left of the year, so that means some of my unfinished random parts may finally get to see the light of day. 

I'll be sure to share that when I get it done. 

 in the meantime, I think i've rambled on enough in this month's show and tell.