Doll-A-Day 203 #158: Tressy

   Yes. I've done Tressy before. You've seen my childhood Tressy, my beautiful brunette Tressy, and my blonde Tressy. But you've never seen this one, and she's gorgeous.

  You have actually seen her before, She had a cameo in one of my doll show posts.

She's on the left.

She has the most beautiful alabaster complexion, and red lips. All the other Tressy dolls I've seen have sort of a pink complexion, but this girl is very fair.

 She just hasn't gotten featured until now. I was so taken with her at the doll show. I circled back around to consider her several times. I kept thinking, I don't need another Tressy. And I have two Tressys with this hair colour already. but she was so pretty, and unlike any other Tressy I've ever seen. In the end, I broke down and bought her.

 

  The blue and white dress she was wearing when I bought her was nice, but I took it off to wash it, and it's somewhere at the house. So she is wearing an outfit that was stored with my vintage Tammy, Barbie, and Skipper collection in the Room of Water.

I would have thought it was homemade, but I have two of the dresses. (But only one bolero jacket.) They are slightly different in size though. It would be nice if the smaller one could be cut down small enough to fit Cricket. Then they could match.

 

  The other thing about this Tressy is, she has the silkiest hair I've ever seen on a Tressy.

  If I had my fine tooth comb I could have made it look even nicer.

  Her grow hair feature is intact.

I've mentioned this before in my Tressy post, but Tressy's growing hair was invented by a furniture designer.

Her only 'flaw' is that her lipstick doesn't line up perfectly with her lip sculpt.

But then, neither does some real people's.

She has her belly button, which releases the hair to be pulled longer when it's pushed.

And there's the keyhole in back to wind it back in.

  She is s different looking, that for a while I considered that she might be a European Tressy. She does have the American Character stam though, even if some of her hair is rooted through it.

She is probably tied with my brunette as the prettiest Tressy I have. (Apologies to my childhood Tressy!)

  Tressy was always sort of a step beneath Barbie. But I think this one gives Barbie a run for her money.

As usual, I'm short on shoes.

  Here are a few more pictures: because she's so pretty, and because I currently have to take multiples of every pose to get one in focus, because my autofocus is still not working.

She does look a little suspicious.

  That's the doll for today. Come back tomorrow to see what else I come up with.  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #135: Make Up Tressy

   Recently we looked at Mary Make Up.  The impetus for that post was the doll we're looking at today. Why? Because when I pulled this doll out of the bunch of dolls brought from The Room of Water, I thought she was Mary Make Up. I thought she was a lot more attractive than the Mary Make Up dolls I'd seen, but she had the same face. And another thing was, I had never heard of the doll she actually is. She's Make Up Tressy.

She's wearing what is probably a homemade outfit.

  Tressy was made by American Character, beginning in 1963. Make-Up Tressy and Mary Make-Up premiered in 1964. They share a face sculpt, so I thought this unmade up doll was Mary. I was used to regular Tressy dolls, like the one we had as kids...

Our Tressy on the left with our childhood Glamour Misty.

...and the ones I've gotten as an adult.

See her 'Day' HERE.

  Make-Up Tressy was made with what I guess American Character considered very little make-up, (But she is still wearing blue eye shadow!), so that kids could make her up, using the make up that came with her. 

She had an eyeliner marker, eyebrow marker, and eye shadow and lipstick markers. 

Her face could be washed afterward, and she could be made up all over again. This girl had had her face washed when I got her.

    I'm not sure what markers could be used to make her up now. I'd suggest trying dry erase markers on a doll past worrying about, but they do eventually even stain the dry erase boards, so maybe not. (And, can I do a rant here? When they built the new schools in our town several years ago, they put in all dry erase boards. When school started, all the kids and the teachers had headaches for ages from the markers. And the boards themselves were getting hard to read fairly quickly, as they began to turn a nasty purple. What was wrong with chalk boards? The ones they had in the kids' old school had been there for decades, and still worked fine. Chalk is cheap, and nobody ever got a headache from chalk. I don't know about breathing chalk dust. Okay. I just looked. Chalk dust can cause asthma in some people, and inhaling large amounts over a long period of time can give you a long term lung disease called silicosis. But I still say there are dangers to breathing the markers too. The main problem with the chalk would be the dreaded eraser cleaning. I say dreaded, but didn't everybody want to be chosen to go out and clap erasers so they could get out of class?) 

  Make-Up Tressy also came with markers to colour her hair. I don't think this doll could have had the hair colouring feature, because her hair is already a colour. The hair colour dolls had pale blonde hair, so it could be coloured with the hair dye markers.

  Why there was a need for a Mary Make Up and a Make Up Tressy? They have the same face and body. But while Mary stole everything else from Tressy, her face, her body, her clothes, her make up, her hair colouring markers, there is one thing Mary didn't get: Tressy's grow hair feature.

  Tressy had growing hair. Make-Up Tressy has long flowing locks. They come out of a hole in the top of her head.

The hair can be lengthened by pulling the hair as you press the button on Tressy's belly...

...and retracted by using the T shaped key that came with Tressy, (Or you can use your fingernail. Trust me.), in the 'keyhole' in her back.

  I didn't event think to take a picture of Tressy with her hair draw up short. Forgive me. I was more concerned with making sure the pictures I was taking were in focus. I knocked my camera in the floor a week or so ago, and once again, ruined my lens! My autofocus isn't working, and I have found that I need it a lot more these days. Plus the lens isn't moving smoothly when I zoom or focus, so it's a lot harder to get the lens where I want it anyway. So these pictures, and tomorrows, were a challenge. I spent time taking the pictures, but couldn't really be sure they were sharply in focus until I came back and put them on the computer where I could see them in larger form. And believe, me, there were a lot of deleted pictures from these shoots! 

I did, however, think to show some of the things that could be done with Tressy's long hank of hair.

For one thing, she made an attempt to cover up the unattractive plug holes in the front of her hairline. They have hair in them, but they are also a bit black, which makes them very noticeable. I washed this doll, and conditioned her hair, but those plug holes could maybe do with some more cleaning, and her face could use some more careful cleaning in the low spots, like around her mouth. 

You could call this a comb over.

Hair do's aren't my thing. i can't even do them on myself.

  This Tressy also had a feature that I know our Tressy we had as kids didn't. Her legs are bendy.

They don't bend in the most realistic or attractive way, but at least she can sit down in a fairly normal fashion, and not have her legs sticking out like she has rigor mortis.

  You can watch a commercial for Make-Up Tressy HERE.

  That's today's doll. She'll be going on the sales page, but without her cute outfit. I'm keeping that. Tomorrow we'll see a rarely seen vintage doll. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #103: Babs, Kathy, and the Doll Show!

   My sister and I went to the doll show on Saturday. I was pretty good about buying stuff. I did make one purchase of a large item, but I got it for a really good price, and I had a really good reason. We'll get to that another day.

  First of all, let me show you some of the goodies I saw at the show, and then we'll get to today's featured dolls.  

  Not too long ago I featured Young Sweethearts Michael, and showed you some of the things made to go with the doll. I didn't even notice that at the show I took a picture of a mint, unopened Young Sweethearts Wishing Well Park! I was distracted by Elvis and Pricilla. And I don't even like Elvis.

I'd never seen this Monster High set. It's pretty neat.

  

I looked longingly at the boxed European Todd clothes and boxed Skipper outfits. Oh well. I'd rather have them out of the box anyway, so I could enjoy them.

There was even a boxed Ricky outfit! You don't see Ricky clothes very often anyway.

  I was really tempted by this red haired Skipper. She was so pretty, and had that powdery complexion that usually only the test market, or 'sample' dolls do. (She wasn't one though.) She was only $20 too! But I was good. I looked at her two or three times, but I left without her.

Some nice dolls here. I have the Frank Sinatra. You may have seen my post on him HERE.

There were some Fisher Price toys, even though almost everything at this show is Fashion Dolls. My sister bought a Fisher Price hen pull toy.

  It was hard to get decent pictures sometimes, because there was really bright lighting hanging from a very dark ceiling.

  There were a lot of vintage Barbie and friends dolls, more than you usually see these days. 

  These girls were one of a kinds.

There were some newer Blythes.

This doll was a one of a kind too. I think she was by Angie Gill. She's customized from a Vitamin C doll.

Here's another one of a kind doll outfit for sale. I like it.

  I had never seen Evangeline Ghastly in person.

  This was a bright, colourful bunch of Tammy and family dolls. The one in red is Glamour Misty on Posing Tammy's clothes.

  A cute couple of Shirley Temples and a Sasha, along with some Ginnys.

Hey Raging Moon! Here's Mumpy Terri Lee again!

  Is that Ginger, on the left? the one on the right is Tressy, in her box, with her own hair pins.

My autofocus didn't know what to focus on half the time!

  There were some pretty dolls in this group. I like the Cher on the left, and the one in green, third from right. 

And here's the Mary Make-up you saw the other day.

She looks very suspicious.

  This was a nice group of Mod Era Barbie and friends. I love Stacey, (in the stripe bathing suit), but she's become so expensive that I can't afford to collect her any more. You can see my Stacey's HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and my reproduction Stacey HERE.

Ellowyne Wilde dolls.

The African American version of Ideal's Crissy, and a Madame Alexander Leslie. 

  This Tressy was so pretty I looked at er several times. But I have a Tressy with big, dark hair. You may have seen her HERE.

  I saw this Yoshiki doll in Barbie Bazaar years ago, but I'd never seen one in person. The doll is by Takara, and based on a real person, a member of a Japanese band from the 90's, (when this doll was made), called X-Japan.

Integrity dolls.

  I am old, so I had never heard of J Balvin. Of course, my sister is older than I am, and she has. This doll was being sold by a couple of collectors who said they had tried to transition from Barbies to the very jointed and very expensive dolls like this one. They said they just couldn't do it. I thought that was kind of funny. 

My sister and I went together to buy three jointed bodies and three heads and some extras from them. We got a really good deal. I was going to switch my Paul McCartney head onto the more expensive jointed body, but I'm not sure it's as posable as the one he's on now. I put him away after the smoke smell had aired out of him, but I guess I'm going to have to pull him back out and try the new body, versus the old one.

They were also selling this doll, which I thought was really pretty. She's a convention doll, from the Roma Fashion Doll Convention.

  I posted a Brenda Starr doll recently. This one by Tonner is more recent.

  Apparently Poppy Parker loves Mystery Date.

  I liked this Gigi Hadid Tommy Hilfiger doll.

  Some more Shirleys, Madame Alexanders, Tonners,etc.

  I told you my auto focus was being difficult.

  I had only ever seen the little fairy Kishlets before. Isn't this one cute?

  I would love to have one f these Mary Englebreit dolls

  A bigger Kish doll with the Kishlet.

 

  This is the same dealer. She had some beautiful dolls.

These are Madame Alexanders. The one on the right is especially pretty.

  Here she is again.

Love the girl in plaid too, and of course the Betsy McCalls on the right.

  Same dealer, different crowd. And on the left we see today's featured dolls.

Emma bought herself that house when she was younger. It's an Effanbee Wee Patsy house from 1996, that contains two dolls and extra outfits, a wooden coat rack, and wooden rocking chair, and some toys, and a paper doll book, complete with paper house. It was really cool, but the Effanbee Wee Patsy dolls are notorious for falling to pieces. Their stringing didn't last very long.

Okay. Here's today first doll. She is a Madame Alexander Babs doll, from 1950. She has the Margaret face.

 She was available in a couple of sizes. This one is the larger one, at 20 inches tall.

Her dress would have originally had marabou feathers around the shoulders and hem.

She's wearing her ice skates.

  Patterns were sold for the Babs dolls so you could make extra clothes for her. And on to our next doll. You can see her on the left. Isn't she cute? She's a Madame Alexander too. She has the Maggi face. She's Kathy Skater.

  She's 15 inches tall.

She even has her little basket of flowers on the chain hanging from her pants.

And she has skates too, only hers are roller skates, not ice skates.

  And on to other dolls. Here is Tina Turner.

Tina is prettier than that.

I remember when these dolls came out.

  I hadn't heard of the Wild Hearts Crew either. The doll is pretty.

tty

  Judy Littlechap looks huge hanging out with this Barbie crowd.

This weird ball jointed doll was half monstery thing.

The dealer said she didn't bother to unwrap him all the way because, "...they can see what he is, and you either love him or hate him."

  More problems with the ceiling lights.

The top row has some really cute dolls.

  I think the lady on the left was wax.

  This pretty doll was a convention exclusive from the 2020 GAW convention, A Knight to Remember.

  There were several knights and knight outfit sets from the convention around the  show too.

And last of all today, here's Mary Makeup again. Tomorrow we'll see some more dolls from the show.

   

  See you again tomorrow.