DECIDEDLY DOLLY 9

Hello Everyone,

As the doll fair season gets underway, I made my first fair visit of the year to one held at the National Motor Cycle Museum in Birmingham. This is a perfect venue for a fair, as not only is there free parking in a large car park, menfolk enjoy this fair too! They can mooch around the wonderful collection of vintage motorbikes, while their partners can browse the dolls in peace, knowing that they won’t feel guilty at having a bored male in tow.

There were over ninety stalls at the fair, covering all types of dolls, from plastic, paper, wood and cloth through to wax, composition and bisque, including some extremely rare kinds. The event was very well attended, sometimes there was quite a crush, but this lent to the atmosphere. There is nothing worse than wandering around a fair when hardly any visitors are there. I was particularly impressed by a collection of wooden dolls, handmade and painted by a talented a lady. Some of them resembled Russian toys in the way they had been created, with a small lever at the back causing a doll to rock a baby. It was lovely to see these original, beautifully crafted dolls and others obviously thought so too, because they were selling quickly. I treated myself to a couple of dolls from her stand. My other buy was from a stand selling large designer baby dolls (not reborns) – I was really pleased to find some Zapf babies there. The Zapf designer doll line was discontinued a few years ago, but they had always been amongst my favourites. So Siggi and Amy came home with me.

There were plenty of dolls’ accessories at the fair too; clothing, prams, cots and small items. Some of the clothing was exquisite, including charming bonnets made from old lace or crocheted with fine cotton. As the fair was billed as a ‘doll and teddy fair’, there were many bears around as well, and one stall featured a pile of brightly coloured teddy jumpers at just £1.50 each – excellent value for chilly teds. I stocked up for my ‘hug’. The fair at the Motor Cycle Museum is held three times a year, and the next one will be on Sunday 27th September 2009. It’s certainly worth a visit.

My new book, ‘British Dolls of the 1950s’, by Susan Brewer, published by Pen & Sword, is due out this month. It’s a doll collecting book which also looks at the events of the fifties, such as the coronation, and the dolls associated with them. I also explore the way we played with our dolls and took them around with us, how we used to knit and sew for them and the prams and cots we tucked them up in. The fifties were very doll-orientated, and girls played with them for much longer than they do nowadays. The teen doll scene wasn’t really around then; the majority of dolls made in Britain were baby or child, and many classics appeared. At the end of this year, the follow up, ‘British Dolls of the 1960s’, will be published, continuing the story of dolls, this time set against the background of the Swingin’ Sixties!

The big story this year, is of course, Barbie’s 50th birthday; how wonderful to reach such an age and still look as youthful – in fact, more so – than she did in the fifties. Plenty of Barbie tie-ins are planned – Hamleys had a special Barbie event recently – as well as commemorative Barbie issues. Mattel have already produced the Glamour Girl Barbie in her long shimmery gold gown, and soon will be issuing a Barbie wearing a dress printed with Barbie pictures. They are also releasing repros of classic Barbies throughout the decades, including the black & white swimsuit version, and the 1986 ‘Barbie and the Rockers’.

Interestingly, the word from various dealers, in both antique and modern dolls, is that the British doll scene seems to be perking up even though there is a recession. Maybe we are deciding that we have to keep happy somehow, and as there seems little point in saving at present, collectors are deciding to invest in a nice doll instead.


SueX