Clothes Reviews: Blue Jean Basics II (1999) and the Liebster Award

More blue jean basics, now with Kanani.

While March was hit and miss for decent weather, April comes in here in the Pacific Northwest--or at least, the part I'm in--with fairly good weather. I've planted new strawberry plants in the garden,  my old one has come back from winter sleep still healthy, and I think my avocado trees are doing very well.¹ I'm hoping for longer days and sunshine and continued blogging. Let's jump on that continued blogging bit and do another review--and a bonus at the end. 

By 1999,² the American Girl Today Line was actually doing pretty well. They were on their third meet outfit, had a decent wardrobe, and while they were not the juggernaut that they are today, they had a pretty good foothold as an AG line. And after the pitiful showing of 1997, '98 and '99 were actually pretty good for clothes and accessories. One of the sets that came out was a sequel, as it were, to the recently retired Blue Jean Basics: Blue Jean Basics, Part II--also known as the Jeans, Shirt, and Shoes, because AG was fond of having double names for everything. For the same cost as before--$22--the set came with a white long sleeved top, pale jeans, purple socks, and black lace up shoes. (No belt in this set.) eBay searches will get you both the '95 set and the '99 set, with this set being a little rarer to find than the first one. Still it goes for anywhere for $20 to 30; I paid above retail at $29, with an extra $5 for the socks. Much more than that is ridiculous. And while I don't think my socks are authentic AG ones--I got mine separate--they're purple socks, and they'll do.

Kanani, like Mellie in the last review, had this set on before the holidays.

Clothes and Accessories Reviews: Kwanzaa Outfit and Kwanzaa Decorations (1996)

Joyous First Day of Kwanzaa from Shanna!

First of all, yes, I know you haven't seen Felicity, Naomi, Otters, or Abbi in their holiday finery--or any of the sets I've crafted, such as for Elizabeth and Charlotte. And you've already seen Shanna. But it hit me, as I was snapping pictures for the next reviews, that December 26th was the first day of Kwanzaa. And that I had the perfect outfit and accessory set to review that day. So I dug it out and the others are willing to wait some on their reviews to give this festival some focus. Because my gang is generous like that.

There's always the running theme that no one knows what the hell Kwanzaa is, or that it's not a "real" holiday because it came into fruition in recent history. Bull to the shit. We live in a world where you can Google who that actress who died after voicing that animated movie back in 1988¹  and people are celebrating Patriot Day on September 11th which hasn't been around long enough to drink. So no. Stop being a brat and learn you a thing.

Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration from December 26th to January 1st among the African diaspora, in particular among African-Americans in the US. It celebrates family, culture, community, and ties back to African culture and its continued influence on black people in a world that tried to stamp the culture out of us with every method possible. The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning "first fruits of the harvest;" Swahili was one of the major African Languages that got latched on in the 60s for black people since it is very African in a way many languages aren't. I tend to do my first fruits celebration on Lammas, but it made for a nice name for the festival. The holiday was developed by Maulana Karenga as an alternative holiday to Christmas, and first celebrated in 1966-1967 in the rising wake of Black consciousness, the rejection of whiteness and European supremacy, and part of the reaffirmation of blackness as beautiful and worthy of celebration. Many black people, rather than having the festival as a total Giftmas replacement, append it onto the holiday. Part of the purpose of and drive behind this festival is because most of the African diaspora cannot trace their heritage before slavery or the Slave Trade--a nice way to say "that part of history where Europe was full of a bunch of lazy motherfuckers who barged into North America, decided that since it was too hard to enslave the Native Americans to work like fucking animals because they either kept dying or running off and hiding, and thus decided they would just import Africans for the job and keep them enslaved for hundreds of years." Ahem. That's the femmenoir enrageous I have.

I have never really actively celebrated Kwanzaa. My mother would give us small gifts every day of Kwanzaa--things like earrings, nail polish, black heritage books, or my first wine cooler when I was fifteen--and we'd discuss the Nguzu Saba or the seven principles of African Heritage. But we were pretty private about it. (When I was younger, my family and I went to a First Day of Kwanzaa festival, but it was a poorly planned hot mess with no actual community so much as it was "watch the people of our organization talk and do things without integrating anyone else," and my mother doesn't like that, and so we never went back to another one.) We never owned a kinara and I still don't own a functional one, though that will change soon. As I said yesterday, several aspects of pan-Africanism--especially as misinterpreted to result in misogynoir and stereotypes--rubbed me the wrong way for years. I'm a little ashamed to say that several years ago, I was actively against Kwanzaa celebration. Partially due to this being pushed on me as the "Black Hanukkah" or the Black substitute to Christmas or people making fun of me for wanting to do so. And I was told that either I wasn't really black for not giving my all to every aspect of Kwanzaa, including the sexist, abusive, and homophobic aspects--and at the same time I was being "too" black by wanting to do any aspects of it.² But I want to change that and start to celebrate Kwanzaa--I will probably be adding pagan aspects to the celebration--and so I'm starting that this year. Today's principle is Umoja, or Unity: wanting to do one's best to maintain and hold on to unity and connections among family, communities, and the diaspora. So I'm starting that unity with my AG Kwanzaa set. We all gotta pick it back up somewhere.

In 1996 AG, realizing that maybe a ballet outfit was not an exemplary holiday outfit for a modern historical unless we were all going to be writing stories about ten-year-olds dancing in the school performance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, released three outfits that actually were more holiday focused:  the Hanukkah Outfit (also called the Winter Festival Outfit and thus maintaining some neutrality for non-Jewish people), the Chinese New Year Outfit, and the Kwanzaa Outfit. Each had its own set of accessories and thus the Kwanzaa Outfit had the Kwanzaa Decorations. The Kwanzaa Outfit consisted of a headwrap, West African kaftan dress, beaded necklace, and leather thong sandals for a cost of $22; the accessories consisted of  the kinara (candle holder), seven candles, two ears of corn, a mat, the unity cup, three pieces of fruit, a woven basket, and a doll sized book for $20. Both were retired in 1999 and since then AG has not done anything cultural for Kwanzaa since. (As for Chinese New Year, there's Ivy's set and...that's it. [sarcasm]Wow.[/sarcasm])

My set was gifted to me by a buddy in 2007 with both the outfit and all the items except the kinara and candles at a good time as I was seriously trying to reconnect to the celebration even though I wasn't quite there yet; she found it on eBay and asked if I was okay not having a kinara and I told her I'd make one--which I did out of Sculpy and wire. At the time my nine girl gang only had Addy and Otters as my black girls--Otters having a white grandmother. So Addy chose to wear the set the first time as she agreed that it looks like what her great-grandmother from Nigeria would wear and here she is into pan-Africanism and the celebration of black culture. Edith joined Addy in 2008 but her historical period is literally just shy of the first Kwanzaa--her first book is set late summer 1964³ --and so she didn't quite work to wear it, and by the time Mellie came along I was still in that wobbly period of not sure about celebrating Kwanzaa. But this year, Shanna and I decided to celebrate our heritage and I think this will be her set from now on.

Because people who list things on eBay can often be morons or don't research what they list--a good thing and a bad thing--this often gets labeled as "Addy's Kwanzaa Set" because Addy is the most recognized Black AG.⁴  The outfit generally shows up on eBay near retail with just the kaftan and headwrap, pretty frequently with the shoes and necklace, and often several of the accessories have been stuffed in as well with nearly no change in price or less than the original $42 a full set would have been--but almost never the kinara and candles, and if I didn't have images of it I'd swear it was a fantasy that they ever existed. It doesn't show up a lot because most of the AG collecting community is white or really bad about black things, and I'm actually not too irritated about it. I really hackles up about white people fucking up or messing around in Kwanzaa and being appropriative. It's our celebration. Not everything is for y'all. Some things white people need to just let us have, gods damn it. If we're willing to share with you, that's one thing, but stop looking in our bowl, you already have all the other jellybeans.

You can see white goop around the base of my kinara candles, which will be discussed and add a Crafting Creatively aspect to this post. This is because the kinara was made with non removable candles, I broke three, reglued them and reinforced the base with Tacky Glue, and at the time of my pictures the setting hadn't dried clear.

Clothes Reviews: Holiday Bibs Outfit (1998)

Holidays: Now with Mellie Croom!

Are there any major holidays on December 8th? *wikipedia* Yes, there is! It's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Contrary to popular mistakes, the Immaculate conception is not when Mary got pregnant with Jesus, it's when St. Anne got pregnant with Mary. According to Catholic faith, in order for Jesus to be born holy, Mary had to be conceived without Original Sin--that thing going all the way back to Adam and Eve that makes humanity unworthy of Heaven. And since the Nativity of Mary is September 8th, the church just went nine months back (or three months forward) and say she was conceived by on December 8th. It's also Bodhi Day, or the day historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautauma, awakened and found Enlightenment. This was discovered in three parts: the cycle of rebirth, or Saṃsāra; the Law of Karma and the importance of living by the Eightfold Path; and the Four Noble Truths, finally reaching Nirvana.

Not bad for a eclectic pagan, huh?

Today, we'll be covering an outfit that I adore. The Holiday Bibs Outfit was one of the earliest non-specific holiday outfits released by AG in that transition between Mattel ownership and Pleasant Company, or PC. As...interesting as Ballet Outfit I was, it wasn't really holiday wear. In 1996 Pleasant Company seems to have realized this and came out with cultural holiday outfits and accessories (The Kwanzaa Outfit, Chinese New Year Outfit, and ever so creatively named "Hanukkah Outfit") along with a recital outfit that wasn't really holiday, and none of it came with matching child sized wear. Finally, after the completely lackluster doings of 1997¹, more holiday wear came out in 1998, and the Holiday Bibs Outfit was one set in this offering. It came with a winter white satin blouse, velvet overalls, gold flats, a green and gold hair ribbon, and an AG logo necklace for $22. I got it for $22 with the Starry Night Outfit--the two came for $44 so divided, it was $22 each, and it did not have the necklace or ribbon. And, like the Starry Night Set before it, I have it twice--I got a second set with the ribbon and necklace for $21.50 + shipping. This review is the complete set.  Ebay prices can spike high, of course. But it goes for a regular cost of about $15-30, 30 being as a complete set. I guess it's not as flashy as most AG outfits so it goes for less.

As I said there was fairness needed in the AG reviews, this one covers the last moddie to be seen on the blog in her own review: Mellie Croom. Melinda Mae "Mellie" Croom was picked up from the AG Dallas store in 2010 soon after she was released; I almost didn't get her because she was online only at the time and so wasn't in the Fishbowl² But the manager saw me sulking that she wasn't there and said they had one in the back, and boom! Got her out for me. I couldn't not bring her home. My mom took one look at her as I was putting her glasses on, and said I'd just gotten a mini-me and should name her after me. But I've always felt a little weird naming my dolls after me directly. It feels a little Sue-like. So I said that I'd name her after Mom's maternal grandmother, who was a magnificent seamstress and taught my mom to sew. And my mom thought it was perfect, as she likes to say that I sew like her grandmother did. Mellie is named after my maternal great grandmother wholly. Well, with the small exception of her first name being Melinda instead of just Mellie, but once she drops to her nickname it's a perfect match. Family History! I like to tease that she looks like but isn't the lovechild of Sonali and Otters. Mellie likes doing carpentry and building, being in nature, being a pretty tomboy, and looking better in McSeattle's³ clothing than she did.

As I was starting to link to the AG wiki page about it, I saw that it didn't have a picture. Welcome to AG Wiki fame, Mellie. You now join Naomi and Marisol and Shanna there. (ETA: And then I found the catalog pic, so down Mellie's pic came, except for a close up.) Any pictures taken by me here are mine unless I upload them to the wiki, and are not to be scattered around. Don't make me whoop your ass.

Pajama Jammy Jams: Slumber Shirt with Mini Bear (1995), Slumber Shirt (1996) and AG Bear Slumber Shirt

Four versions of the same outfit. The 90s was a highly creative time.

Where have you been for two weeks, my loyal readers said. The answer on the morning of the 13th was going to be "working on my Nanowrimo novel like I do every year, because I am a self publishing author."¹ I was going to say how I won early but not as early as I did the year before, and since I hit the 50k barrier on the 12th from writing about 4k a day, I could ease back to only maybe 3.5k since writing is my dayjob, and get back to yelling about AG's bullshit.

But then my father died on the 13th as I was starting to work on this post and instead of getting this posted and snapping pictures of my magazines for Magazine Monthly, it's been a string of bourbon shots (shit you not, that was my modus operandi for five hours yesterday), writing out my grief in my novel, and last minute flight booking to Wisconsin. If you were just here for clothes reviews, advice and bitching, you might not be happy with me. So what? It's my damn space. Welcome to American Girl Outsider, the blog where I will talk about how Mike and the Mechanics just made me do an ugly hideous "I miss my Daddy" cry for five minutes before talking about doll clothes. Writing is how I cope with deep shit, be it about doll shit or in a novel.

Here, it's doll shit.

In 1995, as I said in previous posts, American Girl launched their modern line which has been highly successful for the company to the point that everyone with Nostalgia Goggles set to "Pre-Mattel" seems to think that it's dragging the entire line down the tubes. And since the line was designed at the start to parallel the historicals, they frequently sorted things into the same slots they had: a "school" setup, a "holiday" setup, and so on. This included a "sleep" setup. The first nightgown that your adorable little 18" American Girl of History could have was the Slumber Shirt and Mini Bear, a red nightshirt with a hair tie and a miniature version of the bear and outfit you could have for your Miss AG Bear for the low low cost of $16. The red version only lasted about a year in doll sizes--1995 to 1996--before it came out as the Slumber Shirt, now two dollars higher at $18, sans mini bear, plus a mini copy of the book Games and Giggles, and much more similar to the one Miss AG Bear had (which priced at $10 alone, $28 if you got the bear dressed). This set lasted as an option until 1998 when many more creative nightclothes started to emerge. That's right, there are four versions of the same outfit, two just for dolls. 90s AG was slick as shit for making dollar bills come to them.

The outfits show up here and there on eBay for a high of about 30 bucks. The red set almost always is found without the bear, or Bear Sold Separately. The hunt for a set for Miss AG bear might be harder, and might be listed as a set for a doll. Mini bears are sporadic, but often dressed. The green set I can't pin down when I got it; it was probably in a surge of AG purchases. I remember Mellie wore it to bed soon after her arrival.  I had the red shirt just kicking around from a swap box, and got the actual hair tie for it for 4 bucks off eBay. The bear's outfit was about $20 or so, and the Mini bear cost me 15 bucks with shipping, so it probably all balances out.

Naomi is sporting the 95-96 set, Marisol the 96-98.

Our gang member models today are Naomi Kirkland and Marisol Luna, who decided that this was a good time for an AG pajama jammy jam--and if you have no idea what that is from, you might be too white and too young for me to have a sleeping in the bed sexual relationship with. Google it.

We'll get more of the gang in other posts. The holidays are coming up, and nearly everyone here has an adorable outfit for the occasion.

Clothes Reviews: Blue Jean Basics I (1995)

Naomi is only wearing this shirt tucked in for the starter pic, to show off most of the stuff.

Ah, nothing like personal issues to futz up my blogging. Take the pictures, get ready to create the post, and then oh yeah all the issues. Anyways, without going into them here, have another clothes review that I meant to get out almost two weeks ago. Blerf.

With the launch of the American Girl of Today line, the idea--as I said previously--was to have a girl create her own modern historical, since "you're a part of history too!" And thus, the line started the way all the Historicals did--with the meet outfit and accessories, a school outfit, a holiday set, and night clothes. (I actually have all of them. Ooo.) And for the school set, we had the Blue Jean Basics, which came out the same time the moddies did. You will note that the link says "Blue Jean Basics I." This is because a second set was released in 1999 after this one retired, with different components but the same damn principle of being a jean set for the doll to wear to school to learn her math on her Apple Macintosh. Originally the set went for $22; I got it for a little less, I believe, as it generally goes for $20-30 within reasonable prices for a full set. I don't always document the costs. Naomi Kirkland, my first moddie, is showing this off.¹ The set comes with a red shirt, blue jeans (hence the name), a black belt, yellow socks, and black AG high top sneakers.

Hit the cut, and get to looking.

Clothes Reviews: Mix and Match Outfit and Accessories (1995)

Michi's taking it back to the Original AGoT Meet Outfit.

Lemme take you back. Way back. When the internet was just a few meager computer connections and AOL was the wave of the future. When cellphones were huge and hideous. When I was just starting high school and already had breasts. When Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs, and Fresh Prince of Bellaire was on the air waves, and I was rocking out to TLC, Jodeci, and En Vogue. Back into time to 1995.

American Girl (still being called Pleasant Company at the time), after massive success with Felicity, Addy, Samantha, Kirsten, and Molly--and the shifting from Our New Baby to Bitty Baby--decided to launch a new line: The American Girl of Today. Billed as "You're a Part of History Too!" it threw out the idea that girls could want to write and create their own Historicals of today--even going so far as to include writing books in the six book style series--and tell their own stories. It was a success in tons of ways, and has lasted ever since. While the modern line has changed names numerous times, shifted to a more "companion" style focus, and it has since taken over AG in many ways, the modern line had very humble beginnings. 

And of course, the brand new American Girl of Today came in clothes contemporary for the style. The first Meet Outfit was called the Mix and Match Set, and naturally was never available as a separate set because if you were buying an AGT, she was coming in this: a t-shirt, overshirt, vest, leggings, panties, scrunchie, and black flats. So if you want to kind of guesstimate the cost, it's probably have been about 30 bucks. The Accessories--purse, hat, lunch ticket, money, library card, and mini magazine--were $20. Michi is displaying this set for me--partially because she likes the old school sets and partially because she came in one of the older sets. (Not this one though. What she came in is next.) This outfit lasted from 1995 until 1996, so not very long. 

Consider this the first of a multi-part series on AGT Meet Sets. Because through many channels, I have managed to get the main outfits of every Meet Outfit they've had, and a lot of the complimentary accessories. So first the accessories I have, and then the outfit itself.

Clothes Reviews: Plaid Skirt and Sweater (1999)

Tara in the Plaid Skirt and Sweater Set. Preppy-tacular.

Another clothes review. You can never have too many clothes reviews that aren't on a message board that, if you piss off the mods, results in banning for taking down your own reviews. (But I shall bitch about that shit later.) Especially when you have so many outfits, like I do. (Eleven moddies, fourteen historicals.)

Today we're covering the Plaid Skirt and Sweater Set, a nifty little set up released in 1999. It was also called the Perfectly Plaid Outfit, because there was a span where AG's names for things always had two names;. I'm sure this was just to confuse the shit out of me now when I'm trying to code up wiki pages. Our model today is Tara Johnson.¹ The outfit had several components: a sage green sweater, a sleeveless undershirt, plaid skirt, knee socks, black loafers, and a star necklace. Retail cost was $24; that's the current running value on eBay. I got it several years ago as a birthday present to me from eBay for the cheap sum of $14.25. (The necklace, I believe, came in another bundle of clothes and things.) Damn, what a bargain!

Clothes Reviews: Culotte Dress (1996)

Shanna in the Culotte Dress. Who loves the 90s?

Ah, reviews. Close ups and chatter about outfits that AG has released over the years, including semi detailed close ups and all that jazz.

Let's start this with a screaming 90s flair, and bust out the the Culotte Dress, which was one of the earliest AG mod outfits--released in 1996, one year into the whole "Let's do moderns" line. Today, our model is gang member Shanna Peters. (Yes, my opening picture is the same one on the Wiki. I'm the one who took it, so I shall use it on my blog. All the other pictures aren't free for use, so no you can't post them anywhere.)

The outfit consists of a red one-piece culotte style dress, a yellow crochet hat with a floral pin, and clear jellied sandals; at the time the retail cost was $22. Current secondary market prices run from 10-30 bucks; I paid $13 including shipping.