35th Anniversary Barbie by Mattel

Barbie didn’t have any pets in the 1960s.  How sad!  But then, in 1971, she got her first pet–a horse named Dancer!

Maybe that coincided with her getting flexible knees?

I looked for photos of Dancer, and she’s awesome!  She has tons of articulation.  I actually purchased the very horse in this auction photo:

By the time 1980 rolled around, Barbie started to have a lot more pets.  This began with her Afghan hound, Beauty, and progressed through all kinds of cats, dogs, and horses.  I don’t think any of the newer horses were articulated like Dancer, though:

Notice that there’s a cat named Fluff!  Maybe she was named after Skipper’s friend?  There’s also a kitten named Tag Along Tiffy, which could be another nod to Skipper’s old friend group.

I could have spent a week reading that family tree and looking up all of Barbie’s friends and family.  Imagine if the tree continued on through 2023?  I bet it’d be impossible to fit all of the information on a single page these days!  But I had a lot of fun exploring the timeline, and would like to thank all of the people who allowed me to share their lovely pictures.

Now, where did I leave off with the 35th Anniversary Barbie?  Oh–right.  I was just starting to go through everything that was included, and I was wondering about the stand.

I ended up finding the stand inside the smaller reproduction box.  That’s good economy of space:

The stand comes in three pieces that are easy to assemble–even without directions:

The inside of the box has a cardboard insert with two leg holes at the bottom, and what looks like two arm holes at the top:

I wanted to put Barbie into this replica box, but at first I tried sliding her arms into the upper holes.  I don’t think this was the right thing to do, because the cardboard wouldn’t fit back into the box this way:

Barbie is looking at me contemptuously.

Maybe the holes on top are just to brace Barbie’s shoulders, like this?

I wanted to put Barbie back in her box so that I could try to approximate how it might have felt to de-box one of the very first Barbie dolls in the world.  Kids in 1959 couldn’t have had any idea what a piece of history they were about to open!  This is really fun for me to think about.

Before I de-box my reproduction Barbie (for the second time), let’s take a look at a few of the authentic early Barbies.  I was having a hard time finding pictures of a 1959 #1 Barbie that I could use here, but then a wonderful eBay seller from Barbie’s Doll Shop came to my rescue!  She not only agreed to let me use photographs from her auctions, but she snapped a few comparison shots for me, too.  Doll people really are the best!

These dolls are extremely rare treasures and are in the $10,000 price range…which is why I couldn’t purchase one for this review. #JoinMeOnPatreon.

35th Anniversary replica Barbie box.

The colorful fashion drawings wrap around the two long sides of the box:

Here’s a closer look:

I love that blue and white striped dress!

Update: I think these drawings represent actual Barbie clothing, too, which is great.  For example, RagingMoon pointed out in the comments that the blue and white striped dress is called Suburban Shopper and can be purchased!  There’s even a reproduction doll wearing this set.

It’s interesting to me how some of the clothing looks dated, and some of it would work perfectly well in 2023:

I’d wear the outfit on the right.

I like how the coat in the middle of this bottom trio is seen only from the back–that’s very clever:

I also like how the text says “teen age fashion model” instead of “teenaged fashion model,” the way we’d say it nowadays.

On the side of the box, there’s the Mattel company logo, which has changed a lot over the years:

The back of the box is plain white:

But the top and the bottom have some text against an orange background:

And this text matches the early boxes really well, too!

It’s nice that the reproduction box says “special edition reproduction” on it, though, otherwise it could get hard to tell the reproductions from the originals–especially as the years go by.

She makes a great first impression!

I didn’t find a good way to squeeze the stand into the box with Barbie, but the stand fits her well, and she definitely needs it for balance:

Here she is from the back:

I’ve never owned a Barbie from the 50s (or pretending to be from the 50s) and I wasn’t sure if I’d like the older style, but this doll is fantastic.  I can tell already that she has very little in the way of articulation, but when I think back to what Ruth Handler said–that Barbie was basically designed to be a replacement for paper fashion dolls–then the articulation seems great.

She has so much personality, too.  Her face is epic:

Here’s the #1 Barbie’s face again for comparison:

The reproduction doll is really well done, from what I can tell.  The newer doll’s hair is very different, though.  It’s darker, and doesn’t have the tight curls in the bangs that the first Barbies had.  But the eyebrows and side-glancing eyes are perfect–as are the earrings.  I think the lips on my doll are thiner than the original, but it’s hard to tell with the different camera angles.  She has a bit less eye makeup, too.

Barbie’s Doll Shop also took a comparison photo for me that shows another reproduction doll (Voyage in Vintage) alongside the #1 Barbie:

Voyage in Vintage reproduction (left) and #1 Barbie (right), photo courtesy of Barbie’s Doll Shop on eBay.

This reproduction is more faithful to the original, with the curly bangs and lighter hair, but she doesn’t come in the striped bathing suit.

She has stylized eye paint, too, with very pale irises and rectangular pupils:

This shape of pupil actually occurs in nature–as strange as that might seem.  Humans don’t have rectangular pupils, but horses and goats do!

Horse eye.

Here’s an absolutely beautiful picture of a baby goat’s eye, too:

In this well-lit photo of the #1 Barbie, you can see that she has the same angular pupils:

I think that the elongated pupil makes it easier for Barbie to focus her gaze to the side.  Or maybe it creates the illusion of movement?

Reproduction Barbie’s wavy hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, with a section of hair looped around to conceal the rubber band:

This is also a good view for appreciating Barbie’s metal hoop earrings.  They’re not removable, but they look great.  Metal earrings seem high-quality and awesome, but metal can oxidize and cause staining over time.  You can already see a few small dark marks on the side of Barbie’s face that were caused by the earrings.  I hope it doesn’t get too much worse in the future.

Surprise!

I flipped the shot around so that Barbie is facing the right way to mimic that silhouette:

With this angle we can also compare her to the #1 Barbie’s profile:

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

The molds look extremely similar to me, right down to the pointed nose and lidded eyes.  The mouth on the older doll looks more opened, but again–this could be a camera angle artifact.  I assume that the reproduction doll shares a mold with the original.

I have one more fun comparison to show you before I put all of my focus back on the reproduction doll.  I might be taking advantage of the Barbie’s Doll Shop’s generosity with picture use, but their range of rare Barbie offerings is fascinating.  I really love this beautiful #3 Barbie from 1960:

You can see that after only one year of production, Barbie’s features had started to change slightly:

Here’s a side-by-side comparison to the reproduction doll, for those of you viewing on a laptop:

The differences that I notice right away are that the 1960 Barbie has darker eyes, larger lips, and less severe eyebrows.  I love the charisma in the reproduction doll’s face, but I also like the soft beauty in the 1960 face.  She’s really lovely, and at around $2,000, she costs significantly less than a #1 Barbie.

I adore comparisons, but that’s probably enough for now!  Let’s take a closer look at the reproduction Barbie’s face.

It’s hard to appreciate the full details of her face paint with those thick, curled-under bangs:

So I clipped her bangs back for a minute to expose the whole face:

Her eyebrows are extremely dynamic–almost to the point of making her look diabolical…but not quite.  She’s just fierce.  

Her lips and nostrils are a bright, true red, which looks great on her lips and a little alarming in her nose!

The older Barbies don’t have nostrils that look quite that red.

Barbie has a thin line of blue eyeshadow over each eye, but her eyelids themselves are what fascinate me. The eyelid and eyelashes are an actual molded ridge that sticks out over the eye.  This ridge is painted completely black, so it creates a very dramatic appearance–especially when combined with Barbie’s icy stare and arched brows:

That stare is the G.O.A.T.

Here’s a better view of the eyelash ridge:

And the earring stains.

The back of Barbie’s head has a v-shaped hairline and a 1958 Mattel copyright, confirms that she shares a mold with the original:

I knew I was going to have to take the hair down and address the rubber band situation, but before I did that, I wanted to snap a few pictures of Barbie in her sunglasses with her original hairstyle.

The sunglasses are made out of plastic and have translucent blue lenses with white painted rims:

The ear pieces have simple folding hinges that look and feel fragile:

But the glasses look great on Barbie!

They grip her head quite tightly, so they don’t rely on her ears for balance:

The glasses also look good and stay in place on top of her head:

Once I’d gotten a good look at the sunglasses, I felt free to take Barbie’s hair down and rid her of the icky old rubber band bits.

It’s clear that this hair has been in a ponytail for thirty years, but the fiber actually feels nice:

There’s something about Barbie.

It’s not silky and smooth, but really soft and shiny–a bit like synthetic mohair.  It’s not soft enough to be mohair, though, so it’s probably saran.

I’m tempted to boil wash this hair to see what it looks like laying flat, but it’d be sad to lose the wave in the classic ponytail style.

I’m also hesitant to straighten the hair because the rooting is not very dense in back, and without the extra body from the curls, the scalp might start to show:

Ya think?

As a compromise, I used some dry heat to straighten the back of Barbie’s hair a little.  I think this looks nice:

And the back looks much better:

But the scalp shows a bit on the top:

After my little hair experiment, I tied Barbie’s hair back up into a ponytail:

Next, I remove her hand tag.  This says “Genuine Barbie by Mattel” on one side and “35th Anniversary” on the other side:

Barbie is wearing her famous black and white striped swimsuit.  I’m hoping that we’ll see this classic look in the upcoming Barbie movie, and some of the promotional photos suggest that we will!

The doll version of the swimsuit is made out of jersey knit, with a strapless top and modest bottoms that we’d probably call “boy shorts” these days:

I don’t speak ‘boy short’ Emily.

The suit is cut low in back, so there’s no need for a seam that opens and closes:

The swimsuit pulls off easily…maybe a bit too easily.  It doesn’t stay in place at the top because the band of vinyl around the neckline, which should create some friction against the doll’s body, has disintegrated:

I picked at the remnants of this gungy stuff, but couldn’t get it completely cleared away:

The suit has a nice shape, with a seam down the front and some tucks at the bodice:

In addition to the swimsuit, Barbie is wearing a pair of flexible black vinyl heels:

I think they’re a size too small.

The vinyl sticks to the feet better than plastic shoes would have, and so the shoes don’t fall off very often.

And their open-toed design allows Barbie’s red nails to show!

Here are the shoes on their own:

They’re extremely simple, but an essential staple for Barbie’s wardrobe.

Underneath her clothing, Barbie has a plastic torso with smooth, shiny, vinyl arms and legs:

This hourglass shape earned Barbie criticism in 1959, with some parents thinking that it was too mature for little kids, but apparently this didn’t impede sales.

The body looks like it shares a mold with the #1Barbie:

And, just for fun, here’s what the Bild Lilli body looks like:

35th Anniversary reproduction Barbie.

This has both 1958 and 1993 copyright dates, and acknowledges the Malaysia manufacturing location.

The copyright on the early Barbies is a little different:

It doesn’t suggest a manufacturing country anywhere in that mark, but for all dolls made in Japan (1959-1972), “Japan” was molded onto the bottom of a foot.

Barbie has only five points of articulation, and all of them are rotational–with no hinge action.  This means that she can spin her head around, but not look up and down:

However, as her head turns, it looks more and more upwards, so by the time she’s looking behind her, like an owl, she’s staring up at the ceiling:

Her arms can spin around and around, but can’t hinge away from her body:

She can’t do side-to-side splits at all, but she can do very elegant front-to-back splits:

And she can sit on the ground with her legs together:

With this view, you can see that she still has the holes on the bottoms of her feet that would have been used to attach her to the old stand.  I wonder why she’s not still compatible with that stand?

She can sit in a chair, but this is not how I would choose to sit in a chair:

It’s good leg exercise, Emily.

Barbie is 11.5 inches tall, so the same size as a modern Signature Looks Barbie like my timeless assistant, Lena:

Signature Looks Barbie (left) and 35th Anniversary reproduction Barbie (right).

It’s fun to see these two together, but I’m not sure who is sassier!  They’re either going to be best friends or worst enemies:

These two have practically nothing in common except for their size and their attitude, which says a lot about the evolution of Barbie over the last 64 years.

Okay, another thing they have in common is really tiny feet.  I guess some things never change: 

Their hands are very different, though, which is interesting.  Lena’s hands are bigger, with longer fingers, no nail polish, and more realism:

The body proportions have changed enough over the decades that Lena can’t wear Barbie’s swimsuit.  It’s too short in the torso and isn’t supported by the bust:

What are you saying, Emily??

Barbie can make it look like she fits into Lena’s outfit…

Some of the clothing that I purchased for Lena on Etsy fits better, mostly because there’s a lot of stretch in the fabric:

I really like this modern look on her!

I put Barbie back into her original outfit for a few quick portraits:

She can’t strike a lot of different poses, but she looks really good in the poses that she can strike:

And those sunglasses add the perfect touch of glamour: