My Barbie

I was born in 1959 - exactly the same year as Barbie. My first Barbie actually had a bouffant.... but this is about the clothes.... I was obsessed with Barbie clothes. The real actual manufacured-by-Mattel genuine articles. NOT something your grandma crocheted for your Barbie - not something your mom sewed from a Simplicity pattern either. It had to have the label. And the accessories. And the shoes. And those genuine outfits were expensive!

It was a treat for me to go to downtown Ft. Lauderdale and to shop at Burdine's Department Store. They had a marvelous toy department with loads of Barbie gear. This was before Toys R Us. My mom would shop while I stayed in the Barbie dept. staring and longing for the outifts. Not the dolls. THE OUTFITS.

I would save up my allowance until I had enough. I recall that they were $3.95 each or $4.95 for the evening-type ensembles. You can not imagine how I would sweat over each decision. This was a lot of money for me.

I will never forget my favorite outfit. It's called "All That Jazz." It was glorious in its bright colors - a shot of metallic - a pleated skirt on the mini-dress - a coordinating coat. I paired it with go-go boots but they weren't really part of the original ensemble. I googled these images. And they illustrate this point: Girls don't really have refined taste.

No - girls want their Barbies to have all-out glamour and bright color and lots of details to stare at and enjoy. This isn't something a real person would wear. But Barbie.... Ah Barbie... She's a doll! She can wear ANYTHING!

EDIT - After reading the comment from moi;), I checked to see if I could find this outfit on eBay (and no, I don't want to buy it.) Sure enough - there it is! Buy it now for $225.00. This will probably beat out the final prices on several of the Project Runway designs this week....