Collect the Dolls

When I look back at my childhood, I don’t think of myself as a Barbie girl. We certainly had them but I think I gravitated more toward odd dolls like Chrissy and Tiffany Taylor, which both had weird hair action. I also have strong memories of Dawn — a scaled down fashion doll—and her friends. I liked them because they were pocket sized so you could go off and find a quiet place and play with them by yourself (I didn’t enjoy doing doll stuff with other people because I liked to be in charge of my make believe stories).

I’ve written about them before (I’m too lazy to link to those posts). Long story short, I don’t know what happened to my original dolls, but was always on the lookout for one at the Value Village. I eventually found one —Dawn’s friend Glory— and was satisfied making new clothes for her.

Of course, once you find a grail, others begin to surface. A year later I got two Dianas (Dawn dupes) on Facebook Marketplace. One even had the original packaging.

And shortly thereafter I found four different Dawn friends at the Value Village. These ladies also had their original outfits.

The blondes are Dawns, the gingers are Glory, and the non-Diana brunette is Angie.

Flash forward to last Tuesday. My friend Sarah got offered a a garbage bag full of vintage dolls (for free) at a yard sale last summer. She grabbed them for me (apparently the seller said “are they for your daughter” and she replied “uh, yeah?” And while there was a lot Barbies and Barbie-related accessories (more on that in a future post), I was absolutely estatic to discover two Dawns, a Glory, an Angie and — Gasp! — a Gary. I don’t think I ever saw one of the boys from the Dawn gang even when they were new. And this one is a Dancing Gary — turn his arm and his head spins around.

FYI, I’m still on the hunt for two of the ladies, Dale and Jessica.