Have you ever heard from Barbie dolls made by LEO? LEO got the licence in the early 1990s to produce Barbie dolls under licence for the Indian market. These dolls vary from their cousins in Europe and the US. The most significant difference is the make up and the dresses of these dolls. Partly these dresses are inspired by traditional Indian Sari combinations and others by the regular playline (normal Barbie dolls that you can find in every toy store) Barbie dolls available in the Western world but with different make up.
What makes these dolls special? Well, they are hard to find in other parts of the world but India. You need good luck to find them. The range of Barbie dolls from India vary. I don’t know any book where all of them are listed. You find a part of them in “Around the world” with Barbie by Michael Augustyniak but the list is obviously incomplete. I heard it from other collectors who had different dolls not listed in the book.
I found one of the Happy Holidays from India several months ago. It’s a special edition Barbie and Ken released as a couple for Happy Holidays ( technically seen the only Ken ever produced for this series). Here’s a pic of the couple.
The unique thing is that the production date is on the back of each box. If you have any boxed dolls, you can see their production date in the right corner. Furthermore I did a short video to tell the community from LEO Barbie dolls and showed there another Barbie doll. She’s a bit older than the couple here. Here’s the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQkD8QsDAg .
