As it’s winter with just a week before Christmas, and with all our gloomy weather, it seemed the perfect time to remind everyone of summer, and in particular, deck chairs.
Good-Wood Playthings, who in the 1960s made Sindy’s beautiful wooden four poster bed, also made wooden deck chairs for dolls and teddies. There were two sizes, and the smaller version fitted Sindy and is known as ‘Sindy’s Deck Chair’. They are all lovely and were beautifully made, and one in particular was made using the same fabric as Sindy’s 1963 matelot top. So, a new page has been added to the museum to showcase Sindy’s Deck Chair.
Sindy’s Good-Wood Four Poster bed page has also been updated to include two photos from Good-Wood catalogues showing the bed which also interestingly shows how the name of the bed evolved.
Now, I am particularly partial to brunette Sindy ballerinas, and I had been looking for some time for a 2nd Gen boxed Active Sindy. Rookie error, I was on ebay and saw a brunette boxed ballerina and I just looked at the Sindy’s face and the backing card and didn’t look too closely at the box. It was only when she arrived that I realised my mistake, although a very happy one. I had bought an American Wesco Sindy which I never thought I would find here in the UK, and even though I knew the boxes were different, I hadn’t even thought about that when buying.
Well, that started a whole new line of research. Firstly, I thought it would be lovely to show this boxed ballerina in the museum but I wanted to show her compared to the UK version, so that collectors could see the difference. I asked in my Facebook group if anyone had her, and Serena kindly shared her boxed doll. You can now see both of them side-by-side on the 1981 Sindy Outfits and Separates page. What is really interesting is when you look at the UK boxed, doll, there is hardly anything on the front of the box that actually says it’s a Sindy. In fact just the logo. Now that is the nirvana of brand recognition! You don’t need to say what it is as everyone knows what it is. The Wesco version in comparison includes the word Sindy four times on the front of the box.
So that got me thinking about why a random American distribution company would be selling Sindy in Barbie’s homeland? After a lot of digging I think we have worked it out and so the 1981 page has also been updated to provide more information on Wesco and its links with the UK. I hope to add more information to this in the future.
Lastly for 1981, Paulien from the Netherlands contacted us about her Beachcomber (Ref 44346) outfit because our wording wasn’t very clear and she thought we were talking about denim fabric rather than denim-blue coloured cotton. We agree with her and have updated the entry to make it clearer, and to note that her version has metal snap fasteners.
1981 Sindy Outfits and Separates
Then I got talking to Julia about a Mam’selle Cool Cat dress (DR353) I had bought. I am not a big Mam’selle collector, really that’s Kathy’s area of expertise but I was showing Julia my purchase and she thought it was a variation, so she checked her’s and we decided to add all our dresses to the museum because they were all different. Then I was talking to Sandra about something else entirely and I mentioned we were going to do Mam’selle Cool Cat and she said do you want to see mine? Which it turned out was also a variation, so we added that too! Cool Cat is such a beautiful and fragile dress and if you have one that is different to the ones we show, please do get in touch. It would be lovely to show as many as we can.
To Serena, Paulien, Julia and Sandra, thank you so much for the great chats, and your generous help with this set of updates.
To Sindy folk everywhere, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas.
