Doll-A-Day 2023 #264: Tonner Sindy Reproduction

   Today's doll is this Sindy doll. Sorry about the nudity, but I don't have any clothes for her. I bought her this way.

 I got her at one of the doll shows I went to a couple of weeks ago.

She's a bit tanned for a Sindy. Sindy was always very fair skinned. Well, she was British...

 She's a reproduction Sindy, made by Tonner. I think she may be the Chill in the Air Sindy, or possibly the chestnut haired Just Sindy. (Just Sindy was a basic doll that came in a swimsuit.) Chill in the Air was a dressed doll, limited to 500 pieces. Just Sindy with chestnut hair was a 1000 piece run.

Tonner began making Sindy in 2013, to celebrate Sindy's 50th anniversary. The sculpt was loosely based on a Sindy doll called Trendy Girl.

  This Sindy features a twist waist.

And a belly button.

  Her arms lift up and down, but aren't jointed in such a way as to move outward from her body.

She's 11 inches tall.

  Like Tammy, which I think Sindy always resembled more than Barbie, Sindy has tiny, childlike  hands.

I've never had a Sindy, (although I did briefly have a McDonald's Sindy, which I sold), but apparently she is known for having uneven legs The Tonner reproduction is no exception.

She does the scissor sit, so that's something Tonner left from the originals.

  The other thing unchanged from the originals is her ball jointed head. So she is able to look up and down and tilt her head a bit. She can look up a lot better than down. 

  She has eyelashes. I read that the first run had eyelashes that were glued into a groove above her eyes, and they fell out easily. The second run, which I think this girl must be from, had rooted eyelashes. They are really hard, almost like they are plastic, but they are actually hair.

  I like her natural lip colour.

  The other thing I love about her is her hair. Not only is it a beautiful dark auburn, it is super silky and soft. 

It flops around like real hair. What? Doesn't everybody's hair flop around? Mine does.

  It's a wig actually, but it's glued on.

  The colour was really hard to capture in a photo. The next one comes closer than the ones taken in direct sun, above.

  Sindy was made by Pedigree in England, and later Hasbro, Vivid Imaginations, and New Moons. Ken's sister Gloria had a Sindy as a kid. She thinks she may still have all her old Sindy stuff in her attic, or as they call it in England, 'the loft'.  In the late 1970's Marx made Sindy for the American market. They weren't successful. I keep reading that they made her look more American. What does that mean? What does an American look like? Americans are everything. We can look any way. How can you tell an American from an Englishman if they don't talk? Well, I usually can, but most people can't. 

  In the late 1980's the rights were bought by Hasbro. Hasbro produced a Sindy that had a more realistic sized head, who looked more like a standard fashion doll. This wasn't as popular as the original Sindy had been, but they continued to make small head Sindy until the mid 90's. Hasbro were sued by Mattel for copyright infringement at one point because Mattel thought the latest Sindy sculpt looked too much like Barbie. How they got away with that I'll never know. These days, and even then really, there are loads of companies that make fashion dolls, some direct rip offs of Barbie's face, and they get away with it. How can you copyright a realistic head anyway? Copying the face directly is one thing, but just making a fashion doll is another. I don't think Sindy ever looked like Barbie.

  The Tonner Sindys were, like all Tonner dolls, a bit pricey. The clothes made for her were too. I got this girl because she was an unbelievable price at the show. I might let her go to pay for what else I bought. But I'm getting quite attached to her. That hair and tilting head won me over.

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow for another one.