Barbie Girl

In my earlier days, I was a big fan of dolls. Well, okay, it's entirely possible that I am still a fan of dolls. I had American Girl dolls and Polly Pockets, but my absolute favorite was the Barbie doll. I was one of those kids who could not get enough Barbie. I had more Barbies than I could count and an insane amount of stuff for them. My Barbies were incredibly wealthy - they had a fully furnished house (a dollhouse my mother made that had everything a doll could need), a boat, a plane, a jeep, a convertible, a motorcycle, a VW bug...they were living the high life. One of best things about Barbie and her friends was that they had an endless amount of clothing. I could get my barbies ready for a formal ball or a trip to the beach or a day of school. Some time during my infatuation with Barbie, my parents gave me a book about the history of the doll as a gift.
When it snowed and I was trapped inside the house, I located the book in the shelves of our family room and sat down with it to look back and reminisce about something that had become a friend to me in my childhood. What really struck me on this read through of the book was how wonderful the fashions of old Barbie dolls are. Fun fact: when Barbie dolls were first made all their clothes were made out of the same materials as clothes for real people like leather and fur. As someone who loves the look of vintage fashions, I looked at some of the Barbies in the book and wished that they could bring back those dolls and make human-sized copies of their dresses. The picture quality is really bad because I took pictures of the book, instead of scanning it at 1:00 in the morning the day I came back to school.In addition to the ones above, I also spotted some dolls that I could imagine on myself or other bloggers whose sites I frequent.
I couldn't really imagine anyone wearing this outfit, but something intrigued me about the patterned tights. Something about them reminds me of the sheer heart-printed tights that so many people have been wearing. They're on the same wavelength, but these are a lot crazier.
This doll reminded me of an outfit that Fashion She Says wore a couple weeks ago. Red jacket and fur trim along with fur hat and boots equals both super warm and super chic.

If both these dresses could be made for real people, I'd be extremely appreciative.
For some reason I can picture Jessica from What I Wore wearing this outfit. Probably because she doesn't shy away from a bold pattern and the outfit is just so pulled together.
I love seeing old Barbies wearing things that are popular now. Check out her over-the-knee boots and colored tights. I'm not sure if I would go so matchy-matchy, but I think in another color (or few colors) that this outfit could be viable today. I'm not quite sold on the hair though.

One thing that the vintage Barbies remind me is that in the past, it wasn't so odd to dress up for every occasion. Though the second one is definitely out for a night on the town (or some such) The top one comes with a dog on a leash - that is a walking the dog outfit. And I can only imagine that the bottom one is just out for the day, maybe running some errands. And look at her little hat - it reminds me of some of the fascinators Rebecca from The Clothes Horse has been wearing.