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Friday, June 2, 2017

Dolly Dress Discussion: Butterfly Art Barbie outfit

In my fairly recent post on head molds I spoke briefly about Butterfly Art Barbie, arguably one of Mattel's prettiest playline dolls.  She has crimped strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, and slightly unnatural-looking tanned skin.  Pair all this with the Mackie head and you've got one lovely doll.
I picked this doll and several others up at the grade school the summer before 9/11, during a brief period when the school had a very odd janitor.  The janitor and I played with these dolls for about an hour and a half, and she bestowed the name "Madonna" on this particular doll due to her perceived resemblance to the pop star.  I dunno...I don't see much of a resemblance.
 
I despise Madonna, both musically and politically, and when I have a doll that shares a name with someone I loathe, I change the name.  I did that with my Beyonce doll (she's "Basma" now), and my Madonna is now Madeleine, or "Maddie" for short.

Snarkiness over, I wasn't expecting the Butterfly Art line to have extra outfits since Mattel had largely stopped releasing outfits with doll lines by 1998.  The Fashion Avenue line was alive and well, so why bother with clothes specific to one line, right?  Well, it turns out that the joke's on me because Mattel released at least three spare outfits.  They tied into the line by going heavy on the denim and the butterfly motifs, and...well, the title of the post gives away the direction that I'm going with this.  I got a little dress.
Yep, another in-box outfit that I'm going to bust open.  The box is in rough shape anyway, so I don't think anything of ripping it open.  The back does show a pair of promising clothing lines that were available, though.
Western fashions and Cool Career fashions.  Some of those look super cute and worth the effort to sniff out when I get in the mood to go on a shopping spree again.  Right now I need to save my money for bills and hopefully for a Minifee body (Johnny's girlfriend is currently a floating head), but in the meantime I'll share this dress...and several others, LOL.  The Butterfly Art outfits are among the simplest that I've reviewed.  What you see below is what I got in the box.
The package contained a brightly colored dress, a pair of sunglasses, and a sheet of stickers.  The dress is one piece, though the denim bodice creates an illusion of layers.  The center of the bodice has this iridescent butterfly.
The skirt has a very busy print, consisting of orange stripes, pink flowers, multicolored butterflies, and large white B's on a blue background.
The denim does not extend around the back, but the print does.
Oops, I forgot the straps.  They're simple blue sateen bits of ribbon.
The fabric (fabrics?) is/are quite stiff, and the seam below the Velcro shows a number of loose threads.
Oddly, the back of this dress closes with the old type of Velcro.  I found this unusual because Maddie's stock skirt closes with that crummy no-snag stuff.
The sunglasses are nothing special.  They're just a blue piece of plastic, with opaque lenses.
The stickers aren't anything special either.  They're the perfect size to simulate more tattoos for Barbie, but that's about it.
And that's it.  No shoes or anything of that sort, though most beach-themed dolls don't come with shoes anyway.  Here's what Maddie looks like in this outfit.
 Surprisingly, despite the lack of shoes Maddie looks quite well-dressed in this getup.  I could easily picture someone like her wearing a dress like this to the beach on days when she doesn't feel like swiming.  The sunglasses aren't great; they look cute nestled in Maddie's ample hair, but when they're worn like sunglasses SHOULD be worn the opaque lenses look a little dumb.
I love this outfit, though.  It looks more casual and everyday than that string bikini, which looks...I don't know what my deal is with that bikini.  It's colorful, it's well-made, it's not uber-trashy like so many bikinis these days are.  Maybe I'm just tired of seeing Maddie in it.  Maybe it was that pink bikini that made Maddie's skin look more orange than it really is, because in this blue, she doesn't look quite as much like a Cheese Nipper as she did.  Plus, the blue brings out her eyes.  It was a worthwhile outfit to seek out, even if it is simple...but I can't help wondering what it would look like with shoes.  Good thing I've got plenty of casual shoes!

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

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