The American Girl Create Your Own Line, Meeting Sonja Busse, and Clothes and Accessories Reviews: The Let's Smile Outfit and Accessories (2017)

Four Pretty Maidens, all in a row.

Did I say Tuesday? I meant not Tuesday. I forgot Tuesday that I was going to pick up my new glasses and I spent the rest of the day adjusting to my new lenses. I can read better again! I now have fancy new progressive lenses to read more clearly in that massively nearsighted left eye of mine, because in a battle between "seamless trifocals" and "having to remember to carry reading glasses everywhere and swap them in and out" I went with "seamless trifocals." No shame in the game. Also this post took a few days to write anyways because it's long and I'm excited. Let's talk moddies. 

American Girl Moddies--as I call them--have had a shitty assumption hanging over them their whole time they've existed, going all the way back to launch when they were called American Girl of Today in 1995. This became even more of a problem when the line was called Just Like You from 2006 to 2010,¹ but to be fair it has really been an assumed perception for the past twenty-five years. That assumption being? That the dolls were designed, customized, or intended at purchase to try to look like the recipient getting the doll.

Mind, American Girl has never pushed the idea that any modern doll should specifically or exactly resemble the intended consumer. They've tweeted that the dolls aren't customizable, corrected purchasers in stores and over the phone, and even stated in so many ways that the first moddie line is not and never has been available as customized dolls. The first name--American Girl of Today--initially was selected to reflect how history was happening in Manhattan (or wherever) and that a child of "today" was as tied to current historical events going on as a child of the 1940s was to the event of her era which was as far back as they went back then. The first ones even came with a set of six blank books and writer's guides to encourage writing a story about a character of today. While I generally don't give a shit what Pleasant Rowland intended for anything, the initial intent of the line was, to quote from a line in my 1996 Doll Reader magazine, "for [children] curious about their place in today's world" and to "link past to present and empower [children] to take pride in this, their moment in history."² 

Yes, moddie dolls can, as the statement goes, have their skin tone, eye color, and hair color chosen. From what initially was a pool of just twenty dolls, fourteen of which were light skinned with the Classic Mold face.

Having 70% of the available dolls as "white" is not, in fact, widespread customization.

If you were a child--or, like me, a teen--in 1995 looking over the selection of American Girl Today dolls and you were not white or light enough to be assumed as white? Your options were #1 and #18 for black; #2, #11, and #15 for All Other Brown, including lighter toned black people and anyone else; and if you were East Asian you only had #4 until 2006 when Jess came out. Every other option was was light and assumed to be white. There were more options for blondes than there were East Asian people. Even as more dolls became available--we're up to over ninety total that have ever been released--the majority of available dolls have had light skin and resemble young white girls. The first main 18" modern line wasn't customized or designed to look like kids, the deal was that that white girls had many more options than anyone else. And that's a form of privilege in society.

But AG saying what isn't, wasn't and never has been done with the now-titled Truly Me line doesn't mean that people don't assume stupid shit about AG dolls. (Just wait til I have the energy and focus to write about how your Molly from 1998 is not, in fact, going to sell on eBay for thousands of dollars, regardless of what some article on USA Today tells you.) This has led to thousands of parents over the past two and a half decades who have either bought dolls that they got to look like their kids and thought they did themselves a custom, insisted that the lack of diversity in the line is accurate to the population, or complaints up and down the board that there's no doll that looks exactly like their child and why isn't there one, because my white child has straight blond hair in a bob with no bangs and hazel eyes, and there isn't a doll just like that right now and these dolls are supposed to be like them. Boy howdy when white privilege occurs, hmm?

There is a much more customizable--to be little more accurate, designable--line now, though, and has been for about three and a half years. Back after it launched I only mentioned it slightly back then in my post about Z, but I'll go in because it's been four decades since 2017 and three of those happened in 2020. 

The American Girl Create Your Own Line--which the fandom tends to abbreviate as CYO--launched in August 2017 and is the most customizable American Girl product outside of doing the thing your damn self. For Two Hundred Dollary-Dos--plus tax--you can design a doll's entire look, select her meet outfit from the options, add in matching--or not, it's up to you--accessories, and get the whole kiddy caboodles in a fancy box along with a code to make a Design Your Own T-Shirt for free shipping--and that was free shipping available before AG offered that up for the low cost of buying $135 worth of stuff. (The offer used to include a six-month/three issue subscription to American Girl Magazine as well, but the magazine stopped publishing in 2019 so that's no longer a perk.) And while it does pull from a pool of their available options to mix around, it's a wide pool of options. American Girl boasts that there's--via every possible combination of hair, eyes, face, and extras--more than 2.4 million possible combinations of dolls available.

All those options, mind, and some people's creativity is limited to either whitewashing the Addy and Sonali Molds with no sense of irony (y'all probably didn't care black people came in albino until you decided you wanted a white version of molds that have never been used by the main line in white) or spending almost twice as many monies as a regular off the line moddie to remake another version of #27. Oh, but the collector said on her Instagram account, you don't understand, this one is a blonde and blue eyed classic mold but this one is a blonde blue eyed, classic mold who has slightly different and longer hair! Miss Ann, you might as well be telling me this mayo is slightly more creamy than the other. Bitch, if I'm going to blow $200 to get an AG doll I design, I'm not going to get one that looks like one I can get at the store, but with slightly longer hair and a hazy shade of winter. I wish her--and 99% of everyone who has ever designed a white Addy or Sonali mold for no good damn reason because they have European Beauty Standards Poisoning--a very unhappy evening. 

That being said, after you place the order they put the dolls together in Mexico--each doll has a foot mark stating they're One of a Kind unlike the common ribble rabble--and then ship them up to Laredo, Texas; from there they go out and arrive at your house in fancy packaging. When orders are low, a design can take up to three weeks or so to arrive; early in the pandemic, people were looking at ten weeks, and creation and shipping time can take even longer when items are backordered and/or it's closer to the Winter Holiday season. I had never gotten a CYO of my own that I'd designed. I'd gotten four of them secondhand, yes, and they're all super adorable. But I'd never gotten one that I designed myself, start to finish.

Until Monday. 

This is a multipart post. Bring snacks.

Pajama Jammy Jams: Sleepover Set (Costco Holiday 2016 Exclusive)

Now with skinned polar bears and --oh hey someone's new.

Blog more than once a goddamn month, Neth, the people and my brains say. Say it to my Seasonal Affective Disorder and chronic depression Brain Weasels, I snap back, before sitting down and opening up le Blogger.

It's been a challenging month, especially on my birthday weekend. Dear Oya of the Winds, my birthday weekend. I had birthday plans. My age is a square now,¹ and I was going to AG Seattle and enjoying dinner with two of my fellow AG collectors. And then the PNW Windstorm had the mall close hours early. I was able to duck up there just to get my birthday presents and then came home, cranky and the opposite of pleased with the events of the day. Still, better safe that crushed by a tree.² I really should have listened to my Astrological Forecast for October, it said right there that the 14th (my father's birthday) and 15th (mine) would be challenging. Le cry, le sigh, le unhappy bi.

But I do have new stuff to review, and I was able to take pictures soon after getting my goodies. At the start of the month, the Bae and I went to Costco to stock up on apple juice and toilet paper, like yah do, and I came across AG Costco Holiday Goodies. Ever since I first moved up here and could get the old school story collections at Costco, I've been getting AG stuff from there, and once they started doing things like exclusive book bundles and pet sets, I've been rather on it. It's how I got my BeForever Addy book set, my Pomeranian before they came out widespread, and both Lea's and Grace's book sets with extra stuff.³ 

This, however, is a major first: a Costco Exclusive outfit bundle. Leaks were seen before the Holiday Moddie release of a blue PJ top and shorts with blue slippers, but they didn't come with that. A few weeks later, out came the Costco Sleepover Set and that's where the aforementioned PJs were, along with a lot of accessories to make the pack worth the $39.99 it cost. Along with the blue pajamas and slippers, the set comes with a white fur pillow and sleeping bag, two drink glasses, a bowl of popcorn, a book and AG magazine, and a miniature version of Junior Apples to Apples. So basically it's a new outfit and sleeping bag with a tweaked version of the Sleepover Accessories from 2011.

All Boxed up.

 The set comes in a box bundle, with all the bits visible and encased in various plastic. I did not keep the box. I have enough boxes around here without keeping AG boxes for no damn reason. How long will this be in Costco? I have no idea. Costco flips stock on the regular, and it'll probably cost more on eBay once it's not there anymore.

Deboxed.

After I got it, I got out one of my gang members and got her all dressed up in it for both Wiki-shots and this review, as seen above. But Neth, that's not a new girl, that's just Addy without her earrings. Nope! First of all, Addy here can barely be talked into a yukata; she'd try to throttle me if I put her in something this modern. Secondly, Addy's earrings don't come out.

Jamiya "Miya/Mimi" Bissett, y'all.

 So who is she? This is Jamiya Bissett, who goes by Miya (or sometimes Mimi). She's an #1--aka the doll that I tell everyone to get when they ask which doll to get and I honestly can't be assed to care. One of the first Moddies to come out in 1995--textured dark hair, darker brown eyes, no bangs, and dark skin--she was around until 2009, when she was retired. I found her for a good cost on eBay with some rough hair, and after some braid spray and scrub down, she is a cutie pie. Miya is from inner city Houston, hood as they come and don't give a fuck, speaks fluent AAVE, and likes her baby hair with baby hair and afros. Between her and Mellie, I have a mini-me.

And she's making her debut in pajamas. Cause that's how we roll.

Clothes and Accessories Reviews: Swim Shirt and Shorts and Sailboard Set (2015 Summer Store Exclusives)

The Dog Days of Summer with Kanani.

Overall, summer is not my favorite season, to be honest; that would be fall, where it's cool but not cold and I can wear hoodies and jeans, enjoy the looks of back-to-school and the cheap supplies, wait for my birthday, and watch the trees change color. There's just a few weeks left before Caroline leaves and lets Maryellen Larkin take her place. I actually think I might like the little redhead, what with learning that her books include a pro-vaccination message and that she at one point had polio. I've preorded her books on Amazon along with Josefina's journey book for one big reason: they're up to half off or more right now, making them super cheap. No, really. That link leads to the Journey book, but you will probably be able to pull the others up, and at the time of this post they're each coming in nearing half off. And Amazon pre-order price guarantee means that while you might pay less, you won't pay more than whatever the cost was when you place the order. So if you want to save more money for other things, here's your chance.

As hot as it gets up here in the PNW, it gets even hotter in Texas and down south, which is at least one reason I'm kind of glad not to live there anymore among other things. ¹ But it's still summer, and that means dealing with the hot on some level. Alas, I don't really live by a coast or beach anymore, so I have to go out of my way to go to one which is about the only thing I miss about where I used to live. July and early August is known often as the dog days of summer. Especially with shitty global warming making it hotter than standard. The Dog Days are called such because way back yonder in the past around the Mediterranean, early astronomical observers put the hottest summer days roughly twenty days before and after the period when Sirius and the Sun went into conjunction. And no, that's not a Harry Potter joke. Sirius is the Dog Star, that's where the whole "Sirius Black is a animagus with a dog form" thing came from.² Still, there's some nice things about the summer.

Out of all my gang members, I'd probably say that I like to put Kanani out for beach and surf pictures the best more than anyone. It helps she's one of my prettiest modern girls, and that in her books she's learning to paddleboard. So when I picked up the Swim Shirt and Shorts this summer and later the Sailboard Set, I decided that Kanani would be the one to display it. I got the pretty brilliant (I think) idea to also take the pictures outside near the pool, since I was also taking pictures for the postcard exchange that LillyMaiden was doing through her blog. Hence these pics being outside. I was pretty good at not getting people in the background.

The Sailboard Set--a sailboard with a life vest--was released this summer as a store-only item, like the Beach Cabana Set before it; the only place to buy either is and was at the stores directly. While the initial offered cost was $68--way too much in my opinion--it dropped to $48 soon after and then went on sale for $38. I got it after the first price drop. The Swim Shorts and Shirt are exactly what they say on the tin--a rash guard style shirt and swim shorts, and started to be offered early this summer through AG Places only as a Purchase with Purchase. I'm pretty sure I've explained how those work to y'all, but to remind those who forgot and teach those who didn't know. A Purchase with Purchase is an outfit or accessory set, often only available at the store, that is able to be purchased as a low-cost bonus when a minimum amount is spent before taxes--generally, $50 are spent to get an outfit for $14, which is how much this one cost. While quite a few outfits have been unique, there's also been cases where outfits are older retired back stock such as old meet outfits, leftover GotY stuff, or straggling old items. It's always something modern, though, so don't go looking for some BeForever stuff. Originally PWPs (for short) were limited to winter sets most of the time, but lately there's been a special summer set. These will probably be gone by summer's end if they aren't already--I haven't been to the store in a month--since they're store exclusive limited, and then the prices will of course, go up.

I'm going to warn you, though, in the process of taking these pictures I managed to fuck up one of the review items. Not grossly, but enough that I'm kind of miffed. If you saw it when I took the pictures on AGC you already know. Long story short? I fucked up my shit so that you are warned against doing the same.

Clothes, then accessories. Dive under the cut for the reviews.

Clothes and Accessories Reviews: Grace's Baking Outfit (2015), Accent Braid Clips (2014), and Chic Bun (2013)

Baking, braids, and buns. Not those kind.

Oh, American Girl, I can't quit you even when I'm cussing you out and mad that your representation is lacking in the GotY line. Especially when you put things on sale. I will pay shipping to save decent amounts on stuff and store my things away to play with later. Right now and probably up to the 12th or so--it's rumored we're getting new stuff then--American Girl is clearing out stuff with a sale, the Snow Much Savings Sale, and doing sales in the store as well that I plan to take advantage of today in some part. The sale was initially loaded with WonderBread stuff upwards of half off, including the girl's sets.¹ But even if they weren't selling stuff, I'd stay--because I want them to do better, and part of having a voice in complaining is saying "look, I buy your stuff, please try not to suck."

The last major sale was during Cyber Monday '14. It was kind of a clusterfuck--if by "kind of" you mean a massive one. But it resulted in me getting quite a few outfits, books, and the last few dolly weave sets I didn't have for half off: the Chic Bun for $10 (down from $20) and the fairly new Accent Braid Clips for $7.50 (down from $15). I initially thought about getting the bun for Marisol's color, but ended up getting it for Sonali because I knew that matched. The accent clips are back up to full price, but the Chic Bun doesn't show as available anymore. And if you remember my post right after V. B. Buttercream's launch, I got Grace's Baking Outfit as soon as available all while complaining that they so could have so gone with a doll of color. More details on each of those as I review them. Outfit--let's do this.  

Formerly ButterCream's, and now Sonali's and the other's Baking Outfit.

Grace's Baking Outfit is part of the whole "Grace is a baker and also she goes to Paris have we mentioned Paris--PARIS" collection that is being pimped hard this year. The outfit comes with a blue printed t-shirt, an apron-styled dress, leggings, flats, and a headband for $34; it'll hang around until Dec 31st when it will either go away forever or end up in overstock and sold in an 2016 early "take it away" sale. The outfit is on eBay because everything is on eBay, but seriously it's been only five weeks since the set came out and it's not going to start going out of stock before November at the earliest. Don't pay high costs. Seriously I'm going to need someone to explain to me like I'm two why people are paying inflated prices for something that can be bought off the website and is in stock, unless they live somewhere that somehow can't get AG stuff sent to it.

Sonali is once again slaying all these buttercream heaux and rocking this shit. To the review.

Pet Reviews: Fancy Pomeranian Pet House Set (2014)

Puppy power!

Okay, I said I was going to start BeForever reviews soon. BeForever is breathing huge life into the Historicals where it wasn't anywhere near true for a while and I'm still on an Addy high. But there's been an AG new product release and it's a) a leak of the likely new Fall Shit and b) likely a limited time offer, since the place I got it from has weird ass turnovers. And since I'm due to be busy as shit the next few weeks with the Cousins, I wanted to go ahead and get this one out. So pet reviews it is! I do stuff like that because I'm cool and hip.

American Girl, since being owned by Mattel, has hugely branched out to get their brand into the minds of their target audience beyond word of mouth and catalogs (which are nice but nothing on a website for information). They opened physical stores--probably the best damn idea they ever had-- launched the website, and they started the movies and poking markets that went untapped by Pleasant Company, like craft sets at Joann and Michaels stores. One way is by having bundles of items at big box stores like Costco and Sam's Club. They've been doing this for at least since I've dealt with Costco--that's where we buy ridiculous amounts of things in bulk. Seattle and the surroundings are not big on WalDeMart, the Store That Shall Not Be Shopped.

AG, natch, won't sell dolls or outfits through the Big Box Stores--that would be competing with their own stores, especially with a store here in traveling distance. But they have sold things like expanded craft and activity bundles (the fashion design sets, I have), books and book sets often with mini dolls,¹ playsets, and pet bundles. It's where I got Honey and Chip from my last review, and I keep an eye out for some smaller or more interesting AG stuff there, especially during the Holiday Toy Stack-ups that run from Sept to Dec. So when it leaked recently that new pets were being found at Costco--ones that weren't even up by AG yet!--I asked the man to run me there and was delighted to find the new three pets there. I am pretty sure this is a early product leak, and not some sort of one off thing with Costco, especially with the official names on the packaging and labeling and all. With BeForever, there wasn't the typical AG Fall and Winter Holiday Release, and there's going to be by probably mid October.

New dogs!

The three new pets leaked are the Preppy Sheepdog, Funky Terrier, and Fancy Pomeranian. Since these are through Costco and Costco can have a turnover of a month, I jumped on this. I got one as a Giftmas gift for a buddy and one for me--both the Fancy Pomeranian, since that's the one she asked for and the one I liked best. AG confirmed officially on a Facebook reply that these are not available through the catalog or website, so if you want one bundled like this you're going to need to haul buns to Costco somehow. (Or know someone who's cool enough with you to go to Costco for you.) The set comes with the pet, a magnetic toy, two food dishes, a small book, stickers and decals, and a cardboard house. The retail price on the box listed by AG is $52 bucks, but the cost at Costco is $29.99. Considering that a naked pet with their toy costs $28 now, I basically paid an extra two bucks plus tax for the accessories.

Pet Reviews: Coconut (2002), Honey (2009), Chocolate Chip (2011) and Himalayan Kitten (2014)

AG has made a lot of small animal things.

American Girl has always had a level of pet to its collections, starting with the release of the birthday collections for Molly and Kirsten. Samantha, who apparently was too posh to pet, got a teddy bear as her "pet" until Jip came out with her first revamp, and it may be likely that she'll come back with a pet. A very early issue of AG Magazine¹ focused on girls and their animals. And I more than anyone went through a pony stage that has never ended, thank you Almighty Hasbro and your one true Creation, the My Little Pony. Overall, girls and pets generally go together. And since AG knows girls like animals, and AG likes money, AG has released a lot of pets. Every historical at some point has had a pet from Addy's bird in a cage to Felicity's huge-ass horse. Even the Girls of the Year are getting in on this pet action and have since the days of Kailey.² And of course, there is Coconut.

A short intro about the Coconut Gang. PC had a rather pitiful showing for modern pet sets: Baxter the Bunny, a husky dog to pull the AG sled, and Penny being made to be the stand in horse outside of her collection. Then in the year 2000 Mattel--now fully in charge of this crazy shack--came out with Coconut, a white Westie dog. Male initially, Coconut flipped to female in 2001, got dress up sets, and started showing up on moddie outfits. In 2003³ Licorice--a black cat--was released to become what would be the first of many pets based on and hanging around with Coconut, most with food-based names and appearing on clothing options for the moddie on the go. Several pets have come and gone, but they've all had a base in a little white fluffy dog that has been around for fourteen years.

I've had a few pets in my life--birds, cats, a couple dogs--but I've never really had a love for Coconut. I'm more of a cat person. However, my husband is allergic to cat fur--like, his eyes will crust over and his throat gets all coughing and wheezing allergic--and we don't have much space for pets anyways in my house, AG collection notwithstanding. So my pet options right now are limited to nothing, stuffed animals, cursing out the squirrels outside, and small AG animals. Over the years I've managed to get four official modern AG pets:

• Coconut v.2, that ran from 2001-2004;
• Honey, a golden retriever released and retired in 2014 with the pet revamp;
• Chocolate Chip, a Labrador retriever released and currently only available in the Service Dog Set;
• And most recently, the Himalayan Kitten released in 2014. 

This has resulted in me having at least one of every major "pet shape". These reviews are both coverings and going into some of the variations on Coconut pets we've had over the years. I'll talk about how I got each one; only one so far has been purchased direct from AG.

Before I dip into the pet reviews, just a thing. You may notice a Paypal donate button to the side. That's recently added. Here's the thing: I've been unemployed for well over two years and come from generational poverty. I do write books--and will probably put another of those up on the Createspace--have a modest etsy account which needs more AG stuff, and my man keeps me on my feet. But for the most part I don't have a steady income and we live in a capitalist society until the revolution comes. So if you like what I read and would like to toss a couple bucks my way in appreciation, that would be boss. It's of no obligation to anyone; at no point will there be a cost to hear me bitch and ramble and scoot around on my side.

Anyways, on with the reviews!

Accessories Reviews: Lindsey's Laptop and Bag (2001)

Man, has technology changed in thirteen years.

April has been a very tiring month for multiple reasons: some good, some bad, some still up in the air. The fun part of chronic invisible illness/disability is that sometimes, I literally can't do much beyond playing Pokémon X, hitting the reblog button on tumblr, posting on/reading SA¹ threads, and catching a bunch of Vivillon on my secondary decommissioned 3DS system to get some rare patterns. But don't worry, my loyal readers (and not so loyal haters, why are you here). I'm still kicking around, trying to get things done in bits and pieces. Believe in the Neth. She does things as she can get to 'em.

A lot of people who participate in the American Girl Fandom fall into one of two major camps: people who had access to the dolls and/or books as a child and have either continued to stay attached or returning after a hiatus, or adults who got into the company in because their children² found out about AG and thus they latched on to it and persevere after their child has put away their own dolls. This leads to both camps having a crisis of age when they realize they're no spring chicken anymore and times of their childhood are now historical. Julie was a special litmus test on the fandom: with rumors of and then release in 2007, many women who grew up in the 70s began to lament that the 70s couldn't be historical, because it meant that their childhood was historical.  I have even seen the ludicrous³ claim that historical fiction must be at least fifty years old to actually be historical. Which is bullshit. History happens every day, and every day over is another day in the books of history. I made a joke in a book I'm working on when my characters argued that history was anytime before reliable indoor plumbing, but it's just that: a joke. Serious claims that history can't be the 70s will make me laugh right in your face and call you out. Accept the fact that you/your parents are older than twenty-nine and live with it.

One of the major things that scream that history is always ongoing is technology. While early centuries of technological advancement were in less large jumps, the last twenty to thirty years alone have had an explosion of technology--and just looking at the 20th century shows the major changes, Live music playing went to sound recordings went to phonographs went to record players to 8-tracks to cassettes⁴ to CD to mp3s; from short silent film to talkies to color, radio to TV to streaming boxes, hand drawn animation to CGI--from movies only being able to be seen in theaters to being able to download and stream a movie that just came out a few months ago when I need background noise. And when it comes to computers--whew. When I started on a computer, I typed hunt-and-peck style on an Apple IIe at my grandmother's house when I was four years old. Now I communicate with that same grandmother online over the internet.

American Girl has not released much in the way of doll tech. Whether this is to avoid dating themselves--too late, moddies have dated ways already--because parents whinge that dolls don't need all that tech to play with, or because it's cheaper to ignore it, they don't really give their modern a lot of technological play items. But a few of the Girls of the Year have had some technology. And they started it off with Lindsey Bergman and her Laptop and Bag. After her release in 2001, she plodded along for about two years before retirement in 2002, doing so poorly that AG was debating that maybe this modern limited line wasn't going to be a big thing. Lindsey had a very tiny collection--she didn't even have a change of clothes--and for accessories, all she had was her laptop set and her scooter set, with the laptop set going originally for $32. The set not only came with a laptop styled organizer, but a shoulder bag, two faux CDs, diary, and pencil. The laptop design was later reused (with different colors) for the Backpack and Laptop in 2002, thus starting the trend of LE stuff being released in a new form. I have the backpack and one CD from that, which will get a look over in a Bits and Bobbles review.

While I will never pay the costs for a Lindsey (can't say I like her all that much personally) I had been peeking about for her laptop, or at least a doll sized one. Last month I managed to luck out on a set for only $29 with shipping, and was delightfully surprised to find that it was new in box and had never been used. eBay costs vary; anywhere from retail cost to triple that or more, and it doesn't show up very often. Since I don't have Lindsey, Kanani will be our adorable presenter as needed. 

Kanani will be your tech girl for this dab into the past.

Clothes and Accessories Reviews: Twilight Outfit and Twilight Accessories (2000)

Naomi is rocking Twilight Blues. At any time I desire.

The reviews shall go on! My sleeping schedule has been all fubared, which has led to rolling up all night and into the morning and then sleeping til evenings. The fun part of being nocturnal and unemployed is that I don't have to get up early and can sleep when I want, but the bad part is that I sometimes sleep through an entire day from the time my man leaves to work until he gets home and thus miss everything that most people do. (I plan to get a Magazine Monthly out before the end of the month which gives me--three days. Challenge Accepted.) I also have semi-special Casual Friday for the Chinese New Year; this is the Year of the Wood Horse.¹ (I was born in the year of the Metal Monkey, myself--Shrine of the Silver Monkey~!²) I shall be continuing my holiday/winter reviews, all Winter Wrap Up jokes aside. Even into February, because February counts as winter. This one I've been sitting on for some time, but eh. My blog, my time to take on things. It's not like people are complaining that I'm taking my time on my reviews. And if they are, they can sit and spin the fuck off.

Y'all didn't come here for sweetness and light and meekness, that's a little short of accuracy for me. 

I've already done reviews on the other special sets that tumbled out through the years, specifically the ones that came with special accessories: the Garnet Holiday Outfit of 2001, the Radiant Rhinestones Outfit of 2003, and the Winter Magic Outfit from 2004 to name a few. I tend to like the outfits that come with accessories. Today's set I believe is the first holiday outfit that came with special boxes (since phased out) and matching accessories: The Twilight Outfit and the Twilight Accessories of 2000, which made it through the holiday season before being retired. (Lords and Ladies, this outfit is old enough to be on the internet all by itself.) The outfit retailed for $26 and came with a jacket style top, skirt, stockings, and loafer shoes. The accessories went for $22 and had the headband, stick on jewels, a purse, and a gift box that contained a surprise--the surprise being a compact mirror. So basically original cost of  $48 for the set. I paid $20 for the accessories, which was actually under retail, and about that much for the outfit I think--it's been a while and eBay auctions don't always pull up the full details so. The outfit generally doesn't go for too much on eBay, even the accessories; generally about $20-40 for the outfit, and about $20-30 for the accessories.

Our model is the ever popular half-Desi barefoot geeky pirate gamer, Naomi Kirkland.³

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 and Accessories Reviews: Purple Party Outfit and Holiday Accessories (2012)

And then it was only nine days til Giftmas, said Shanna Peters.

So one of the well known traditions of the holiday season across the USA and some parts of the world is the performance of the Nutcracker Ballet by Tchaikovsky¹. We all know the plot thereabouts: A girl named Clara is given a nutcracker as a gift by her uncle for Christmas, she is attacked by rats that night, the Nutcracker saves her from the rats and transforms into a hot dude, they go to a land of treats, and then she wakes up and it was all a dream but it's one so good she wants to dream more. And we get to see nice dances and hear iconic music like the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Waltz of the Flowers. Fun fact about me regarding Waltz of the Flowers: when I was in third grade, the school's music teacher was a decent one who didn't just make us sit and listen to songs and actually tried to teach us some about music appreciation. He taught us how to ID the parts of the song using imagery, specifically this one. So I hear-see the iconic music in a set way²:

Exposition: Flower, fountain. Flower, bigger fountain. Flower, huge fountain.
Part A:  Flower, bird, flower, bird, beehive. Flower, bird, flower, bird, beehive.
Part B: Willow tree, fish tank, willow tree.
Part A:  Flower, bird, flower, bird, beehive.
Coda: BEEHIVE, bird, Flower, Beehive, Bird, Beehive, Bird, FLOWER. (I tend to get the end wrong in chunks, but I know it ends on a flower.)

All that above was to transition into the fact that today's set has bits around the Nutcracker Ballet: I am reviewing the Purple Party Set. This was the fancy set for 2012, and thus had the accompanying 2012 Holiday Accessories.³ American Girl, in an effort to make my life confusing as hell when I'm doing Wiki work, has named the accessories that go with the year's Fancy Holiday Set the "Holiday Accessories" the same damn thing since 2010. So they have to be marked with the years. Bastards. The dress set comes with a purple and black dress, black tights, purple flats, and a purple and black headband; the set is finished off in the accessories with a black jacket, silver bracelet, toy nutcracker, and two tickets to the ballet. The dress set originally cost $36, with the accessories costing $32, so a grand total of $68 dollars. Steep. I paid the full cost for the dress set buying it direct from AG Seattle, but passed on the accessories at the time because of cost and personal circumstances. This worked out for the best because, before they were officially retired, they were sold for only $9 on AG's site in a clear out and I got them then. Success! On eBay they go for about $40-55 with a complete set, including accessories. Be warned, you'll have to surf through a sea of some off brand and homemade shit. "Purple Party Dress" is not exactly a unique name.

Today's model is Shanna Peters. Last time we saw Shanna, I didn't go into many details about her directly. We'll get a lot more on her once I start running what I'd like to call Better Know a Gang Member, but some quick touches. I got Shanna in July 2012 from the AG store right after she was released--she was way too cute to pass up, with her curly curls and all. She was the only girl I got in 2012, what with having just been laid off, but she had to be mine. She wear glasses and so is part of the Glasses Brigade with Tara, Abbi, and Mellie. But she's actually even more unique among the Gang.

Bionic ears, baby.

Shanna has partial deafness in the left ear and total deafness in the right, and her Bionics--aka her hearing aide--helps her hear somewhat. She still signs as well, though, and has been teaching the rest of the group sign language. Her hearing aide directly from AG was pink and white, but one can of silver spray paint later and it wasn't anymore. She likes gymnastics, art--looking at it, not doing it--photography, and music--even if she doesn't hear it as much as others, she adores it.

On with the review.

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.

Accessories Reviews: Saige's Painting Set (2013)

Part 1: Saige's Sweater Outfit. Part 2: Saige's Painting Set.

And now time for Part Two in my "Better Know a AGGiB Member--" wait, that's not it. That's later. Time for the second half of my review of Saige's items before the year ends: Saige's Painting Set.

To rehash the opening details--Saige is boring and white in a state where there's a high Latina/Native population so bad move AG, however I think her things are pretty nifty. Thus I have often been known to buy the GotY stuff and ditch the central girl. Reviewing this now so that people who want it can see it before the year ends and you're stuck paying eBay prices. Are we all caught up? Goodie goodie gumdrops.

Paint Set, with all the components. Tubes in the back.

Saige's Painting Set consists of a plastic wood modeled easel, water/brush cup, five non-functional paint tubes, four brushes, an artist's palette with faux plaint blobs, five completed paintings, five completed sketches, an art portfolio, and a drawing pad. I paid the full cost of $48 at the start of the year. eBay's already throwing $70 prices, which as we all know is madness. Don't do it, people, if you can get it now.

There will be images of Abbi playing with and handling a lot of the items in the set, because she's the artist around here--another reason we don't need Saige in the AGGiB. Also, as a person who actually arts the things, there will actually be comparisons to my own full sized art supplies.

Part 1, Saige's Sweater Outfit, is here. Read it as you'd like; I've linked to this one here in that one. Also, some of these shots come from when I got the set way back in January, though you might not be able to tell which.

Clothes and Accessories Reviews: The Western Riding Outfit (2010), Braided Headband, Curly Ponytail Set, and Bright Highlights Set (2013)

Dolly weave and western wear, courtesy of Sonali Matthews.

It's a whole new month! Which means maybe, with the lack of going out of town and the whole less drama for a while and some, I can get some reviews done. It helps that I got some new things at AG Seattle Saturday, and decided to play beauty parlor with Sonali--who, by the way, is forever styling on most of these heaux.

Today is a double review: An entire outfit and dolly weave¹! This is probably the fastest I've gone from "item out by AG" to "I am reviewing it." Don't get used to it. A lot of my stuff is old, and I like to take my time reviewing stuff. Moving along. Not only will I be reviewing the Braided Headband, Curly Ponytail Set, and Bright Highlights Set,² I will be tackling the Western Riding Outfit. There is not much to say about the hair stuff that won't be said in review, so let's talk about the outfit for a bit.

The Western Riding Outfit, all by itself.

The Western Riding Outfit was released in 2010, and is still out--though seeing as it's three years old at this point it'll be going into retirement sooner rather than later. AG tends to always have something equestrian in their moddie collection at any given time, capitalizing on the fact that most girls have a pony stage about the same time they have a doll stage (both stages I have never quite outgrown, as can be attested by my collection foci). This was also a few years post Nicki Fleming, who was pimped out as a horse rider and all over ranch girl by AG. So since her, AG has started adding a little more western riding into their horse riding collections. The cost of the full outfit--shirt, boots, skirt, and bracelet--is $30. Like most things on the AG secondary market I fully expect that price to make stupid spikes after this retires. Even right now the eBay auctions have the price jacked up to the $40-50s, even while it can still be ordered directly from AG. The set also included the "Loyal" heart charm but I have no idea where my charms are, and if I ever do review the ones I have they will get their own post.

My Sonali, despite her being a witch,³ is a bit horse crazy. To the point she has her own horse and wears all my horse riding stuff in my collection. I never got the accompanying hat, but eh. I can find a decent cowboy hat that's not made of straw. So anytime I review my western and horse riding stuff, we'll be doing it with her. She'll also be doing the hair reviews, since she's the best moddie for the job today.

Outfit first, dolly weave second.

Clothes Reviews: AG Exclusives (Part 1) and the White Tank and Brief Set (2010)

Kaya shall join us on this excursion into exclusives.

American Girl has several boutiques and physical stores where people can buy AG stuff and clothes, other than ordering online or through mail order (do people still do that?). It's the only way to get some hands on touchy feels for AG things before you buy 'em. While it's marketed as an "experience", I tend to go to mine often enough that it's like any other mall trip. In that I go maybe once a month--two times a month if something comes up. Anyways, they have exclusives--clothes, accessories, and shit one can only get at an AG store.  This has been true since the first AG place opened up in Chicago in 1999. Thanks to the magic of the eBay Resale Shop and Orphanarium, AG place visits (I might have fell all over AG Dallas the first time possible, and I plan to stalk the fuck out of AG Houston), and buddies who know what will make me happy as a souvenir when they're near a store, I have a lot of exclusives. This is Part One of who knows how many.

Oh, Kaya? Yeah, around here we don't keep our Native people stuck in the Braids Beads and Buckskins life. She's 90% moddie in that she wears the old shit, but she loves the new shit.

A few of the things we'll be reviewing today.

Today we shall go with reviews of the LA exclusive Red Starburst Tee, the current Star Cargo pants, the Summer Accents and the second issued Doll-Sized Tote. Also a bonus underwear review.