For Barbie dolls 60th anniversary you can visit an exhibition at Tokyo Skytree with different dolls from the last 6 decades and read about the dolls. There was also a one of a kind event for a Japanese designer. Everything ready for the 60th birthday huh ?
A funny video for Barbies 35th Anniversary
I recently learned that there was a video made by Mattel for the 35th Anniversary of Mattel. It’s very much skripted reality but it’s still nice and seems almost a bit historic. The reason I post this is because it’s funny. When you were a child like me back then you’ll remember lots of the dolls shown in this stage show. They made Barbie came to live for her 35th birthday and invented a stage show with the regular playline outfits and Barbie dolls from around. I’ve not known that a there was such a show. I’ve not known that they recorded the whole show for being able on VHS. A lot of the spirit from the mid 90s is here frozen in time. That’s what I like although it’s pure advertising.
What is Congost Barbie and where do they come from?
Congost produced Barbie dolls under license in Spain from 1975 until 1990. The reason for the production there was the limited capacity of production by Mattel itself. I asked some Spanish collectors why Congost produced them a while ago. They are said to have a poor quality although many sellers want to make big money with the dolls. They often have lost a part of their make up or hair. Some even have lost a hand. If you want to see how they look, watch this video.
Erie talking dolls
Several people have asked me if my repaired Talking Barbie dolls are really repaired due to poor sound quality. I said this is how it’s meant to be. In spite of Talking Barbie’s 50-year anniversary, we should not forget her. I had a talking doll in the early 1990s that sounded very similar. The space available for a record is very limited. Be prepared for miracles, but don’t expect them. It was even more sacrifying when Thomas Alva Edison presented his first talking dolls.
There was a technique discovered in the last few years to make them talk again, if I remember correctly. There is nothing beautiful about the doll’s voice, even if it looks nice and beautiful. It makes me rather run away than listen and I think I’m not the only one.
And then compare them with Talking Barbie. Is it better? A huge improvement almost 70 years later? Yes, but of course not perfect. Don’t forget it’s from a time when nobody knew about the digital world and Mp3s and so on.Barbie doll sets you have never seen before
Do you have seen any set that appears in no book? Well I got a set many years ago that I’ve never seen in any book. This can be good since no burglar is going to visit you but this can also be bad because nobody knows that this set exists. Anyway, there is always a chance that you have something special because it isn’t shown anywhere.
A seller that I know offered in the last weeks something I’ve never seen before. I didn’t buy it but this reminded me that I also have something that a majority has never seen before.
As far as I know the set was bought in Italy. I’m the second owner.
A crazy little foot for my sewing machine
I recently saw this video
At the end I bought the foot and tried it on my Pfaff Quilt Ambition 2.0. After a week the foot arrived at my house and I studied it. I changed my sewing machine food and attached the flower stiching foot. At first I had problems to make it work. You have to bend the arm to make it fit to the machine. It works best when you bend it into a little curve. The mechanic of the foot produces a little bit of noise. It as not as much noise as the embroidery attachment of my Pfaff Creative Sensation Pro II but the foot is a bit noisier than a normal sewing foot. In general it’s no problem to work with this foot. Don’t forget to lower your sewing machine pressure to zero and don’t use the feed dog on your sewing machine. Then it’s no problem to use this little attachment. I recommend to use a cut away stabilizer under the fabric.
So many ideas and so little support
I’m really creative with so many ideas I could write down or tape but the problem is that I have a shortage of supplies at the moment. My list with things I could use is so long and I have problems to get the things I need for my next projects. If you ask me why …. sorry, I have no idea. Maybe it has to do with the winter because nobody wants to go outside and the wish to sell something is not as big as in summer? Who knows? I have no idea but the market in Germany is almost empty.
My new book from Amazon Japan
In the last week my Japanese Barbie doll book from Amazon Japan arrived. It was much faster in Germany than I expected. I haven’t read much in the book yet. I have to translate it sentence by sentence from the Japanese but this is going to last some time but I’m curious what to read and find in it. This is my first real Japanese Barbie book. I have another one but it has not so much text and I haven’t translated it. For the long journey from Japan it arrived here in an astonishing short time. I think it was only three or four days. I didn’t expect it to arrive so soon. In general I can say that it is no problem to order there a book.
I’m really curious what Fumiko is going to tell. She worked closely with Charlotte Johnson in Japan for one year and they produced the prototypes of fashions for Barbie available in 1959.
Buying at Amazon Japan
Last week I saw the video I posted last week. I saw there a Japanese Barbie book which I have never seen before neither heard of. Although I can’t read Japanese it seems very interesting since this book was written by the Japanese seamstress of Charlotte Johnson ( first Barbie designer). The woman has an interesting story to tell how to make prototypes for later Barbie doll dresses but I think it is far more interesting to learn how she saw the whole thing.
The only place where I could find this book was Amazon Japan. So I created my account. That was not as hard as I thought it would be. You can switch almost everything to English and need a credit card but that’s almost all you need. In my case I got a mail from the customer service which I misunderstood at first because it was all written in Japanese. Very funny and the google translator obviously did it wrong at first too. So several days later I got a second mail from the customer service that said something was wrong with my credit card. They were right. I had given them a wrong date. After I changed the date it was no problem to order and by the begin of the next week the book should already be here. So this was my adventure buying at Amazon Japan. If you get a mail from the customer service after your order you know what this means … check you credit card.
Let’s go back in history and meet the first clothing designer of Barbie doll
Last week I posted a video about the first sculptor of Barbie doll, this week I have another great video. This time it’s about the first clothing designer of Barbie Charlotte Johnson. The video lasts one hour but it is very interesting.