Babs-olutely Fabulous

     Look, I just had to put this one on the table. I tried like four different ways to think of how to introduce it and I just can’t! It was tempting to just plaster a big photo of 1995 Holiday Barbie up here and let that alone say all that needed to be said. Seriously though! The flying saucer monstrosity that I guess we’re calling a ‘collar’…? The skirt that I can only guess was made to smuggle a cupcake…the hair that’s so…sticking out-y…I mean… ”look at the BONES!”        Fine. Deep breath. What else does Barbie have to offer us in 1995?      Oh my god, it’s Hulk hands. Actually I’m not sure if it’s that or she’s just going with the flow since Mickey Mouse has already been stamped on the bottom of her dress, why not add the gloves? Luckily I checked into it and found that Holiday Jewel Barbie 1995 was made of porcelain, so we can assume the gloves are merely protection. I found no explanation for the mouse. Or ...

Two things Barbie could not get enough of in 1994? Gold and fur. Here is 1994, wrapped up like a present and trimmed like a tree (or, based on the front placket, trimmed a bit like a psychedelic gingerbread man.) The gold is fine. The fur is concerning. Maybe she was going for a classic Marilyn Monroe vibe with the skirt lifted in the back, but the effect comes off more like a furry pool noodle. Don’t even get me started about the two tribbles on her shoulders. Some year, and it’s looking like it probably won’t be in the 90s, Barbie will learn that “less is more” as far as shoulder adornments are concerned. An interesting addition to the 1994 Holiday Barbie family, is that there was a special Festival Edition. And she was brunette! In addition to the hair color change-up, this version sports what I feel is an improved bodice and a strategically-placed donut wreath that….you know what? I’m not even going to touch on that one. So in case you didn’t get enough g...

Once again, Barbie returns to a color scheme she’s seen before in 1993: It’s a bit more successful this year however. The addition of gold to the red scheme almost makes it so we can overlook the big crazy poinsettias on her shoulders. The skirt may still look like a cupcake wrapper, but the drop waist is definitely a move in the right direction. We’ll just pretend like the little flower adornment on her head doesn’t look suspiciously like 1992’s scrunchy disaster. Or that the bodice once again looks like a bit of a bedazzling nightmare. Look, she clearly spent all her time tying color-appropriate bows on her velvet-lined staircase and picking out the perfect drop earrings! Give the girl a break, OK? But the best part of 1993 is that we start to really delve into the Holiday Side-Hustle as Barbie capitalizes on the popularity of exclusives under any winter-themed moniker Mattel can come up with. First there is Winter Royale Barbie: Where Barbie tries to ...

Look. You all know the drill by now. So let's have a good look at 1992: Hmmm.... It's not that she's BAD. Exactly. It's just that it feels similar enough to 1989 – a mere 3 years earlier – that I can’t stop making comparisons between the two. And noting how 1992 comes up short. Like the silver top with the overly bubbly long sleeves that make it look more like a silver haz-mat suit than a ball gown. And the little dingle-berries hanging off the front and sleeves look like at the last second they decided a full-on macramé gown was maybe a bit too corny so they’d roll it back ONE step when it really should have been rolled back about 46 steps, give or take. The skirt could have just stayed standard poufy but instead tried to get creative and ended up looking like a souvenir paper fan. Or a cupcake wrapper. Looking at 1989 HB and then getting this at the end of 1992 is like getting tickets to a Pearl Jam concert and showing up only to find out they’ve been ...

So we've made it solidly into the 90s! And this would be the first year that Miss Holiday Barbie was (mostly) on point. As we saw in 1990, as far as Barbie is concerned, green is a Christmas color only secondary to pink. But when she finally embraced green, girl did it right. We have a lovely forest green here which was clearly a color of the time considering I may or may not have owned both jeans and a leather bomber jacket (suede, what else?) in the same hue. And the velvet….the only way to make this more early 90s would be if it were crushed velvet, but I’ll give it a pass as that may have looked a little odd on the scale of Barbie clothes. The only tiny misstep here is Barbie’s liberal use of her bedazzler across everything she owns, including her dress, handbag, and huge Minnie Mouse bow. But we’ll even let that one fly. It’s retro, baby! A word of warning: Do not take this one out of the box! Normally I’m all for it with these holiday Barbies. They aren’t actually t...