#bildlilli

The cover mimics the original Bild Lilli fashion catalog from the 1950s:

And the back cover features an old advertisement suggesting a gentleman could get a Bild Lilli doll as a cute gift for a loved one:

I’ll only post a couple of pictures from inside, the one below shows a couple of the brunette Lilli dolls:

And of course the tennis outfit:

And my gorgeous Lilli’s getting ready to browse the book:

Couldn't help but make Barbie movie posters!

Below is some context and explanation of some of the posters:

2nd: Kennedy replaced Barbie in My Scene however she is said to still carry the same style as Barbie and if anything she looks more like Barbie than Barbie did before the replacement.

4th: This is a reference to the 2005 My Scene Swappin' Styles commercial where the girl says “She changed her head”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouXnXV3jSd0

5th: Reference to the Barbie Fashion Fever commercials where Hilary Duff would ask "Where'd You Get That?" along with the song. One example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zV2AtUQMI0

Bild Lilli, the Original German Barbie Doll ♡ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - With the new Barbie movie coming up I thought I should make some Barbie inspired art. With some digging for references I came across the Bild Lilli doll. After reading up on Lilli, I realized many people don't know that her design was stolen! I thought it was interesting and wanted to do a piece about Lilli. ♡

Bild Lilli was popular in Germany for being one of the first 'mature' dolls, described as sexy, young, innocent, and fresh. In the 50s' Lilli was created for a newspaper comic strip before she became a doll. When Lilli got popular from her comics there was a demand from many women for Bild Lilli dolls and was later marketed for kids. With Bild Lilli, kids could dress her up in various fashion (much like Barbie).

I’ve previously posted about how I wanted an 11.5 inch Bild Lilli doll because I’m so in love with the 7.5 inch version I was lucky enough to find. I even repainted a Hong Kong Lilli to tide myself over. I loved my Hong Kong Lilli, but I have a good dolly friend who absolutely fell in love with her so because I am a Good Friend™ I gave that Lilli to her. I missed having the larger size doll though and tried to find another Hong Kong Lilli to repaint but couldn’t find one that struck my fancy so I resigned myself to being 11.5 inch Lilli-less for a while.

And then this happened:

I definitely didn’t find this beauty at the Goodwill, but it I did get extremely lucky getting a mint condition Bild Lilli in an original outfit that is also in great shape for a very very good price.

I’m not done with the restoration of this doll yet, it’s been very difficult and I’m trying to stay motivated so I thought I’d post what I’ve done so far.

This poor doll has definitely seen some things in the last 60 years:

After scrubbing and scraping off as much old glue as I could, I restrung the doll (Bild Lilli was strung on elastic, and the Hong Kong Lilli’s are assembled the same way) and opened up the head to get rid of the old glue and broken hair. It was gross.

I then removed the old paint, and did a repaint where I tried to capture the actual Lilli-ness of the sculpt: