Fashion Dolls 101

Annabelle the cat and Jack the dog are intrigued by the colorful little rag dolls. Holly Hobbie Dolls--a Quaint Piece of Americana Launched in 1975, the Holly Hobbie doll celebrated her 45th birthday in 2020, but her story is much older than that. She may have been licensed by Knickerbocker in 1974 for a line of rag dolls, but Holly Hobbie's roots dig far deeper into our country's past.  The old-fashioned rag doll caught on with the last of the hippie generation who were wearing peasant skirts and Gunne Sax prairie dresses in the 1970s. See  The Intriguing History of Holly Hobbie Dolls . A variety of Holly Hobby dolls in various locations With her whimsical bonnet, calico patchwork dress and apron, Holly Hobbie harkens back to the pioneer days Lauran Ingalls Wilder wrote about in the "Little House on the Prairie" books. Since I had a trip planned to Oklahoma, I packed Holly and her friends up for a road trip to photograph the dolls on the prairie. Hollie Hobby and fr...

  Holly Hobbie ad, 1970s One of the most successful commercial lines of rag dolls is Holly Hobbie. Born in 1944,  Denise Holly Ulinskas ,   is an American writer and illustrator who  married Douglas Hobbie in 1964. She also sometimes goes by the name of the character she created-- Holly Hobbie. According to Wikipedia, in the late 1960s,  Hobbie sold her signature artwork of a little girl wearing a blue rag dress, usually clutching a cat and dressed in a giant bonnet, to American Greetings. The adorable little ragamuffin in blue immediately caught on and was soon known as "Blue Girl," She would later be named Holly Hobbie. But this is not where the little sunbonnet girl got her start. Under the Window by Kate Greenaway, ( 1879) Kate Greenaway made illustrations with sun bonnet girls and other children at the turn of the century. Her art in books and magazines in the late 1800s made quaint figures of young girls in bonnets popular around the country.   Sun...

  Knickerbocker Sleepy Head Dolls While a number of dolls have been called sleepyhead dolls, Knickerbocker Toy Company made the official Sleepy Head dolls from the 1940s through the 1960s. Made of soft, plush terry cloth, these dolls were an early plush toy descended from  rag dolls  and perhaps somewhat influenced by Steiff stuffed toys. Instead of sewn or drawn faces, the first Sleepy Head dolls featured hard plastic faces that later changed to rubber when it was discovered the plastic faces cracked off and became choking hazards. While it isn't hard to find a Sleepy Head doll with a rubber face, the hard plastic ones are much more difficult to find, because the thin plastic broke so easily.  (The very-much-loved 70-year-old Sleepy Head doll on the left above lost its hard plastic face man yeas ago and is now truly a "rag" doll.!} Some Sleepy Head dolls had pockets in the back. Others had music boxes. Still others had plain backs. Knickerbocker Toy Company Sle...

Historic, Colorful & Quaint Rag Dolls & Cloth Dolls Are Fun to Collect & Display An old and historic toy, rag dolls have been around for a long time. Made of cloth and stuffed with leftover fabric or other materials,  they are one of the oldest children's toys in existence.   Dolls made of cloth date back to antiquity.   The  British Museum  is home to a  Roman  rag doll , found in a child's grave in Egypt, dating from the 1st-5th century AD.  A collection of various rag dolls Rag dolls are still very popular today.  One only has to do a search on   Ebay  to see the myriad varieties of rag dolls, cloth dolls and plush dolls available to purchase online. Colorful rag and cloth dolls enjoy a sunny day There are rag dolls with painted faces and embroidered faces. Some cloth dolls have painted faces or eyes, noses and lips sewn on out of cloth or even paper. Hybrid soft-sculpted dolls have cloth bodies with faces m...