Dolly Dress Discussion: Totally Hair Barbie outfit

I was planning this post for Saturday, but I have to work on Saturdays now so today is the day.  Seems like I've been hitting Barbie clothes hard lately!  The purchase of this outfit came from my attempts to find some Cut 'n' Style Barbie outfits.  Y'all remember my Cut 'n' Style girl, Marie?

Maybe, maybe not.  No biggie.  Back in the eighties and nineties each new Barbie line was accompanied by a handful or two of new outfits that matched the theme, but as far as I can tell the Cut 'n' Style line didn't get this luxury.  The Totally Hair line did, however, so that's what I have today.

There were four colors in this line, or flavors, as one of my teachers used to say.

Orange, pink, blue, and chartreuse.  Mine is obviously the chartreuse one; I actually like the blue one best, but that yellow-green sateen will look fabulous with Marie's hair.  Each of these outfits came with some sort of vague secondary theme, and part of each outfit came with a child's hair accessory that mirrored this theme.  The chartreuse outfit's theme is bows.  I originally thought that this outfit had two pieces like the Skipper outfit, but in truth it has three pieces (dress, ribboned thing, and purple thing ) plus shoes.  The purple thing turned out to be a doll-sized hairband, but I'm going to start with the dress...romper...whatever this thing is.

Even though the theme is bows, there are no bows on this...it has legs, so I'm going to call it a romper.  It's made out of chartreuse sateen, and at first glance it looks like it would be two pieces.  However, it's a one-piece number, with a bandeau top and a little cutout below.

The legs of the romper look like they might be about knee-length.  I haven't tried this on Marie yet so I'm just guessing at the length.  On the package it looks like these legs are trimmed with ribbons, but they're plain.  The ribbons are part of another piece.

The back of this romper closes with...guess what?  VELCRO!!!

My favorite thing about this outfit is the writing on the romper.  I'm not sure if this was printed or painted by hand; I assume the former since hand-painting would've been very labor-intensive.  Either way the writing is done in rainbow-colored paint, and it has words that relate to hair and hair decorations, stuff like "POM-PON," "BOW," and "FLOWER."  Barbie's name is also on there, of course.

For some weird reason, the word "ribbon" is written in French.

Very cute!  If my eyes are correct, all four of these outfits had that touch.  If my eyes aren't correct, I'm going to sue my eye doctor.  LOL

Now to the part that has bows.

This is the part that I thought was an extension of the skirt, but it's not.  This is intended to be a wrap for a child's ponytail; if my hair were long enough I'd model it for y'all, but I recently got my hair cut so I can't do that.  Xenia might be able to, though; she has a lot of hair.

I think Xenia looks silly like this, but Mama likes the style.  Silly as it may be, I'll probably let her keep this hair wrap, as the big bows are more in proportion with Xenia's scale than they are a Barbie's.  Anywho, the hairband is made out of dark pink elasticized sateen, and it has four large bows sewn on.  There's a blue bow...

...a hot pink bow...

...an orange bow...

...and a purple bow.

On the package this hairband is worn around Barbie's legs, but we're not quite to that yet.  There's still the Barbie-sized hairband to talk about, though there isn't much to say.

It's a purple piece of tulle attached to a matching band of elastic.  No glitter or anything of the sort, and if not for the paint on the romper and the purple bow on the child's hairband, it wouldn't match at all.

Then of course, there's these shoes.

These are the same mold as Shani's yellow shoes and as Dee-Dee's orange shoes, but they're yet another color that I neither have owned nor have seen before:  magenta.  Once again these shoes wouldn't match a thing about the outfit, but the paint is there to tie them in.

Given the bulk and the garish colors of the child-sized hairband, I have a suspicion that Marie is going to look hilarious in this.  And...

...actually, I'm really not sure where that big hairband is supposed to go.  The pictures on the package show it around the knees, but it could just as easily go around Marie's waist...

...or her head.

No, not her head.  I'm definitely not feeling that look.  But those ribbons stick out at odd angles and create a lot of bulk, and I'm not sure if I feel how it looks anywhere on Marie!  At the same time, the outfit looks a little plain without it.

Okay, it's not that bad without that bow thing.  The bandeau top is a smidge problematic, as it's constantly wanting to come untwisted and look asymmetrical.  Don't click that link if you have epilepsy, by the way.

I should probably warn y'all that I may start including a lot of references to opening and closing logos from now on.  I'm that big of a nerd.  Anyway, the problem with the bandeau is easily fixed with a little manipulation of the fabric, instantly rendering Marie decent and stylish again.

Regarding the small purple hairband, I was concerned that it wouldn't look as nice on Marie as it does in the ample hair of the Totally Hair models.  As it turned out, I needn't have worried.  Not only does the band look cute perched on the side of Marie's head, but the purple looks pretty with Marie's hair.

As with my other two pairs of high heels, this pair fits Marie without any problems.  Y'all hear that?  NO SPLITS!!!!!!!!!

I heard from a very reliable source that Skipper shoes of the era were bad to split, so I feel better about that.  Even so, I feel a tad ambivalent about this particular outfit.  With the hairband/wrap the overall ensemble is busy and bulky, but without it the overall look is underwhelming.  I'll have to play with this getup a bit more before it looks 100% right in my eyes, but I was correct about one thing:  that chartreuse fabric does indeed look fabulous with Marie's hair!

Mama's post-op went well; her doctor says that her new joint is slowly ossifying and that she should be as good as new in a few weeks.  She is to continue physical therapy, and Doctor wants her to drink two cups of milk a day.  Mama hates milk, LOL.  I bought some shredded wheat and some chocolate syrup to make the milk a bit more palatable for both of us, since I am admittedly not a big milk fan either.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987