Thursday, June 29, 2017

Dolly Dress Discussion: two Teen Skipper outfits

I'm back with another Dolly Dress Discussion, one that will again touch on clothes for Skipper.  The last Skipper outfit I did was old enough that I don't remember it from childhood, but the Teen Skipper line is one that I'm quite acquainted with.  For those who are uninitiated, Teen Skipper was Skipper's last form before she morphed into the slender, petite doll we know today.  Teen Skipper looked a lot like Barbie; they were nearly the same height and they could do a little bit of clothes sharing.  I only have four dolls from this era (three Skippers and one friend), but they still deserve to have nice things.  Meet Totally Yo-Yo Skipper (left) and Fashion Party Courtney.
When I was very young Courtney was a brunette and could have easily passed for a fair-skinned sister of Teresa or Kira, but the Teen line saw her debut as a blue-eyed redhead who favored Midge in appearance.  That copper hair will go nicely with one of the new outfits I've got, one that I neglected to photograph before busting it out of its package.
Green and red sometimes runs the risk of being too Christmas-elfish, but this outfit avoids that with a healthy dose of sporty.  And technically that top is more camouflage than green anyway so that helps.
It's a cropped tank top that never would've passed muster at my old high school but is still cute.  The material is woven and has ZERO stretch.  It has a single loose thread sticking out under the left arm.
Just the one, though.  I've seen outfits a lot worse than this.  Applied to the front of this top, breaking up the camo and tying the outfit together, is this red heart.
These tend to tear and break when placed on stretchy fabric, so this non-stretch fabric is probably a blessing in disguise.  Now to the shorts. 
This material doesn't stretch either, which is probably a good thing because it's quite thin.  It has a faux tie at the waist.
Everything is hemmed inside, but there are still a lot of loose threads in there.  Some are sticking out of the waist, and there's even more inside the legs.  That may prove to be a pain in the posterior later on.
The shoes are simple red vinyl high tops with thick soles.  They have more detail than a lot of Barbie's shoes, but none of that detail is painted.
Here's how Courtney looks in this outfit.
As predicted, the loose fibers inside that one leg pulled out and look raggy.  I'll have to clip these off and maybe fix the insides with some fray-stop.
Once I fix those seams this outfit should be good to go.  The colors look good with Courtney's extensive red hair.  The crop top would render this outfit inappropriate for wear at most schools (I say this because Courtney would be high-school age if she were a real person), but for this time of year it's perfect!

The other one would look nice on Courtney as well, but since Courtney already has a new outfit I gave it to Skipper.  It's equally simple.
Interestingly, the dress in the package is red, while the dress on the back of the package is dark pink.
This ensemble is even simpler than the first one, just a dress and shoes.
Yes, that's a napkin that the dress is lying on.  I liked it better than the plain brown box I've been using.  The dress is an A-line dress in a lovely shade of bright red, with little white plastic buckles at the shoulders.
Likely if this were a real dress for a real human those buckles would be used to adjust the shoulder straps, but since this is a doll dress the buckles just sit there and look cute.  Emblazoned on the chest of the dress is Skipper's name in white.
I always liked Skipper's logo when I was a kid.  The "I" in her name was always dotted with a flower, and that inspired me to dot my "I's" with a little star, an idiosyncrasy that I still occasionally trot out for informal writings.

Like the other outfit, and like all outfits of this era, this dress closes with Velcro...the nonsnag kind that loses its tack over time.
The shoes are simple white platform sandals.  
Skipper shoes of any sort are appreciated, as Skipper dolls have flatter feet than Barbie does.  It's thus fairly tricky to find shoes that will fit.  I haven't tried any of the new Fashionista shoes yet so there may be an off-chance that one of those pairs will fit, but I'm not betting on it.

Now, here's my old Skipper in her new outfit.
I love the simplicity of this outfit.  It's very much like something I would've liked myself when I was a teenager.  Now let's see how my three younger girls look together.
Not bad at all!  What they had was nice; indeed, I love the clothes that Courtney came with, but it's wonderful to change things around a bit.  As an added bonus, both Jenny and Costume Bash Jade can wear some of these Skipper clothes.  Jenny might be able to wear some of these shoes too; I'll have to test that.

Ciao for now,
RagingMoon1987

2 comments:

  1. Whoa, I never would have guessed that the redhead was Courtney! I had one of her dark-haired dolls as a kid and she was my favorite as the doll who looked the most like me (not blonde, in other words).

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    1. Yep, that's what her box said! I love redheads, but those brunette Courtney dolls were awfully cute.

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