Throwback Thursday review: Mariclare

Behold, another Barbie clone has made an appearance!  Meet Mariclare.

Mariclare was made in Hong Kong and distributed by J.C. Penney's.  I found her in a junk shop with a couple of Sunshine Family dolls and Tammy's sister Pepper, and since they were all bagged together I figured I may as well accept her.  While another of my clone dolls (Polly Play-Pose) was modeled after the earliest Barbie dolls, Mariclare is clearly supposed to look like Twist 'n' Turn Barbie, who was still a thing in the early seventies.  

Okay, so that's a Hair Fair head and not an honest-to-God Twist 'n' Turn head.  Hair Fair and TNT used the same mold so no biggie.  Mariclare is blonde like so many of my dolls, but her hair is a lovely shade.  It's not quite golden blonde, but definitely not platinum either.

It's relatively short for doll hair, falling just past her shoulders like Jennifer's hair does.  The fibers are smooth and shiny, but a few rogue hairs have minds of their own.

A few rogue hairs can't be helped, especially when the doll is the age she is!  And like Jennifer, Mariclare is not losing hair left and right so that's a plus.  Now to the face.

Mariclare has brown eyebrows that are not ridiculously high like some of my clone dolls' eyebrows are.  They are too dark, though; light yellow might have worked a bit better in this case, given her hair color.  Mariclare's eyes are ringed with brown eye shadow and thick rooted eyelashes, and her eyes themselves are blue.

When properly painted these Mariclare dolls were fairly attractive in a wide-eyed, retro sort of way, but my doll's left eye was painted askew so she always looks a little vacant.  Or maybe it's her right eye that spoils it.  Either way something is wrong here.

My dolly friends on Facebook tend to dismiss poor Mariclare as ugly, and I have to admit that my doll can be pretty plain.  Apparently eye wonk was fairly common with these dolls; this one has it almost as bad as mine does.  But let's go on to some of her better features.  Mariclare's mouth is red like most of the other dolls of that era.

It's smaller than the TNT Barbie mouth, but the paint job is even.  This face isn't great though, which is a shame.  If only those eyes were painted straight, it would make a world of difference.

Lastly, somewhere along the line Mariclare gained some earrings.

To my horror, these proved to be straight pins that were rammed into the doll's ears.

Good thing dolls can't feel!  LOL, this does create a pretty nice look; Mariclare looks like she's wearing silver studs, and if I wanted to I could elaborate on those!

Mariclare's body is similar in shape to Barbie's (doll shown is Stacey, whom I dragged out for the last review)...

...but it does have a few crucial differences.  Her arms are made of flexible vinyl and can bend, but they don't hold a position on their own. 

She has four little fingers and a separate thumb, but the molding is a little crude here.  There are some indentations on the fingers that LOOK like fingernails, but the fingers also have a tiny bit of loose plastic hanging off.

This molding isn't as good as Jennifer's, but it's better than Katya's.

Mariclare's legs are soft and hollow with wire inside, and they bend in a manner similar to the legs of a Licca-chan doll.

Thus despite the plainer face, Mariclare has a more flexible body than Jennifer does.  Strangely, her legs are shorter and curvier than a Barbie's, and the feet are bigger.

The rest of Mariclare's body is like a normal Barbie doll's.  Twist waist, rotational hips and shoulders, swivel head.  The two bodies are shaped similarly, but Mariclare is smaller than Stacey due to her shorter legs..

Mariclare's shorter legs aren't much of a hindrance regarding Dolly Dress Shuffle, as she can wear Stacey's clothes and vice versa.

However, Mariclare is up a creek when it comes to shoe sharing.  P.J.'s pink pilgrim heels and Stacey's yellow pumps are too small...

...while Sailor Mercury's blue boots fit but slide around a lot...

...and Tuesday Taylor's shoes are too big altogether.

LIV shoes might work.

Not bad.  LIV shoes are a bit too big for Mariclare's feet, but they stay on without any problems, and they also come off without any problems.  The black boots are a little clunky on Mariclare's frame, though.

It's a good thing that Mariclare can wear LIV shoes, because she (obviously) did not come with any of her own.  I find Mariclare's lack of shoes interesting given the fact that she was wearing a ballgown when I found her.  It's a nice ballgown too.

The dress is...oh, I'd call that color burnt sienna.  The material is a little stiff and heavy, more like a fabric I'd expect to see in a human-sized garment.  It feels a lot like taffeta, but I'm not sure.  The front of the skirt has a chain of woven daisies running down the full length.

The neckline is also trimmed with these daisies.

The skirt is hemmed and finished with...ribbon?  Bias tape?  Either way it's reinforced.

The back fastens with two metal snaps, one of which is beginning to tear loose a bit.

Notice that the back opening is not finished as well as the skirt; it has a lot of loose threads hanging loose.  The interior of the dress does as well.

Probably a homemade dress.  Factory-made dresses don't usually have this nice of fabric and then not bother to finish the interior seams.

I think that covers it!

BAD
*Eyes are terribly wonky.  Mariclare has the potential to be a very pretty doll, but these eyes are pretty bad.  The lips are a little better, but still a bit sloppy.  Overall the face is pretty blank.
*Body is different from Barbie's, enough so that some clothes sharing is quirky.
*Shoe sharing is a problem unless one has a large cache of LIV shoes.

GOOD
*Hair is short and soft, and shiny, though there's not much to play with.
*Body is not hard plastic and can thus hold more poses than other clone bodies can.
*Molding is superior to that of some other clone dolls.
*Can share clothes with the older Barbie dolls, and possibly LIV dolls too.
*Dress is probably not original, but it's pretty nice.  It has a lot of loose threads inside, but nothing major.

Mariclare is very ordinary as clone dolls go.  Her body is vastly superior to Jennifer's, but nowhere near as poseable as even the old TNT Barbie bodies were.  And we all remember how stiff those could be.  Even with the average body Mariclare could've risen above with her face...if only it were well-painted.  And frankly, even if my doll's face WERE well-painted she still wouldn't be half the character that Jennifer is with her huge smile.  See?

In a very strange way, Mariclare and Jennifer cancel each other out.  Jennifer has a great head and a lousy body, while Mariclare has an acceptable body and an average head that is made less than average with a slipshod paint job.  Said slipshod paint job is a shame, because this doll could've been halfway decent with straight eyes.  Since a doll's face is very, VERY important, I think Jennifer is the superior doll here despite her stiff body and goofy-looking feet.  That doesn't mean Mariclare isn't worth the effort; indeed, I daresay that she's easier to find than Jennifer is.  But Jennifer definitely has the better face.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987