Katy Victoria

Monster High creeps on!  Product is still available at retailers nationwide.  As for Ever After High, these Fairytales are closing the book for now, but you never know when it will open again!

I mean, no shit? This is like saying it’s breaking news that Nostradamus is dead when he’s been cold for 462 years.

also, ‘product is still avaliable at retailers nationwide’….where where are they.jpg

MerMay 2018 (Part 1) Days 1 - 9

Fashionistas Ever After-

While we’re waiting the 4th book of the Ever After High - Once Upon A Twist novel series, the 5th book is officially announced on Amazon! It will release in December 18 2018 and its name is “The Kitty Mermaid”!

Ever After High - Once Upon A Twist: The Kitty Mermaid

Ever After High: Once Upon A Twist: Duchess Lets Down Her Hair

Once again I’ve seen on my dash that…art project?  making claims about how horribly unrealistic Barbie is, with the smiling young lady standing next to a bizarrely-proportioned homunculus that claims to be how Barbie would look if life-size, and there’s text claiming unbelievable things about Barbie’s “real” proportions.

Y'know, these:

Oh, where to start…well, let’s start with the weight issue.  The 110lb number comes, as the text admits, from 1965.  In 1965, Barbie was still  very much being marketed as a 16 year old ‘girl next door.‘  Illustrations from the time portray the character as younger and less curvy than the actual doll, because, honestly, the doll’s shape was ‘borrowed’ from a German sexy novelty toy, and not custom-designed to represent a 16 year old girl.  So, tell me this–do you think it’s unreasonable for a 16 year old to weigh 110 lbs?  I sure hope not, because that’s what I weighed at that age.

Let’s look closer at those measurements.  We’ll start with the fact that Barbie is 1:6 scale–that means that for every inch Barbie has, it would be 6" in ‘real life.‘  Using that information, I took this doll, which used the body that’s been standard for Barbie since 1999, so is most familiar with modern youth, and made some measurements:

I won’t argue that, wow, those are some slender measurements, but…I don’t see anything like a 39" bust.  Even the older Barbie bodies, with their slightly larger breasts, measure in at a mere 5.5", which that chart up there tells you is 33" (and she did have an 18" waist, but her hips are just under 5", so, again, I have no idea what the 'facts’ up there are based upon.)  And here’s the thing about those slim measurements–they’re not attempting to project an ideal of womaniness as much as to take into account the fact that, although the doll is 1:6, the cloth used for her clothes is still 1:1, which means they’ll add a lot of bulk to the clothed doll, making her look, oh, I dunno, maybe more like a 'real’ person?

But I’m not done.

Let’s talk about that…thing…purporting to be a life-size representation of Barbie.

Oh, yeah.  Nailed it.  Looks spot on.  I’m totally swayed by this.

And then I decided to do this

I honestly thought about using a random stock photo of a woman, or maybe a picture of my short self, but this seemed more…poetic.

Big hands get caught in sleeves (AKA the reason the new Monster High dolls with non-removable hands all have to wear short/no sleeves)

Stocking material, back in the 50s was not as stretchy as it is today.  Silk (then) vs lycra (now). Bigger feet would rip stockings and make them unable to be tight at the calves/ankles.  My mom, a first generation Barbie girl, talks about the best part of Barbie being going to the store and going through all the fashions.  Back then, the dolls themselves were expensive to make as were accessories like playsets and most people only had a few dolls (vs my childhood box of naked dolls!)  Clothes were the affordable part, and since practically everyone sewed, even if you couldn’t afford the nice clothes at the store you could make them.  It was a lot of how little girls played with their dolls. Today, machine manufacturing has flipped this dynamic: dolls and playsets are relatively much cheaper to produce, but clothes still need to be hand made. 

People don’t want to spend more than they paid for the doll on the clothes, so fewer clothing packs are made, and clothing pack clothes are mostly hem-less and have designs printed on them instead of being sewn with any real style. Nicer clothes ALWAYS come with a doll because they are the bulk of the cost and can be sold for more with a doll than people would pay without.  The newest evolution is that dolls have some/all their clothes molded on because we’ve gotten to a point where making a new mold is cheaper than a removable 2-seam tank top.  I’m curious what ‘unreasonable expectation’ this will lead to in 20 or so years.

Upcoming 2018 Barbie Fashionistas (courtesy of Papusile Mele FB)

Upcoming 2018 Barbie Fashionistas (courtesy of Papusile Mele FB)