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 Reviews: Kanani's Aloha Outfit (2011)

Fall yes. but in Hawaii it's always warm!

Wow, has it been a month and a half. I live, people! Long story short: I was working on a massive long infostyle post starting mid-September, and while working on it I got kicked in the ass with germs that laid me up hard. Soon after I had family things come up, lovely depressions, and lost total focus. I still plan to finish said massive post, but for now it's set aside. It's not lost! Just paused.

Anyways, what has happened in that month dollwise? Let's see. I got Grace's Bistro set and Baking set at significant discounts, completing any furniture and accessories I wanted and leaving maybe one outfit I want to grab up. The Bakery of Doom has had the distinction of being the earliest retired item ever in AG's GotY lineup, going fully out of stock near the end of September (I suspect they didn't make a ton of them, wanting to avoid that WonderBread fiasco of last year) and the many tears for the kids that won't get it are refreshing. And, for my 35th birthday, I went ahead, got all wibble-wobble, mentally waffled and dipped and weighed back and forth like the Libra sun sign I am that takes forever to make any choices...and added Maryellen Larkin to the AGGiB. Well. That didn't take long at all for her to join. Time to take pics of her and review her outfits! (And make her a cute Giftmas dress. I hate her birthday dress and skating is not a Giftmas dress.)

A little bit of data for those who are on Instagram: peep the newly pimped hashtag on Instagram, #AGsofColor. It was started by user AG_Warriors and is all about showcasing dolls of color. Instagram has its good in the doll community, but it also has more white than a snowstorm in Antarctica, and that can just be annoying as shit. So a tag just for girls of color so I can see all those beautiful brown, black, Asian, and girls of color? Sign me up, that is some good shit right there, I have been mad crazy about that.¹

Anyways, summer is gone til next year, and we are into my favorite season, fall. Mmm, sweaters, color changing leaves, the sun setting by 6:30, and caramel apple cider from Starbucks.²  Yaaaaas. But that doesn't mean that I can't review summery outfits. Including summery outfits that I took pictures of months ago. Whoops. It's still warm in Hawaii? Good. Then let's review Kanani stuff! 

Kanani has the distinction of being the only front line Girl of the Year I bought the very first day of her availability--Sonali I got day of, but she was not the frontline girl because fuck you AG, that's why. I have everything in her collection³ and she doesn't have to share with anyone; she even has her own storage drawer here. Pretty Kanani is a delight and a half, and her collection--while it has a lot of narrow focus on her Hawaiian self--is super. C'mon AG. Stop flinging the ball away and give the world the Not!Kanani we all desire so people don't have to pay $300 for her on eBay.

When I ordered her, I got her, her starter collection and the Aloha Outfit all at once. (And the rest that summer when AG Seattle opened, sans the ice shaving stand.) Girl had to have a casual outfit to wear around here, and this is pretty casual--a print t-shirt, capri pants, sandals, a bracelet, and sunshades. Originally $28, it, like everything Kanani, can go for too damn much--but the average selling tends to be in the $30-40 range which ain't terribad. There was also the secondary version for the moddies called the Tee and Capris for Dolls at $22; it was a blank white shirt, and no sandals or sunglasses. Nope, don't care much for that version.

Oh, and around here Kanani often wears her flower, regardless of the outfit, if she can get away with it. Surf's up to the review!

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.

Pajama Jammy Jams: Polar Bear Pajamas (2013)

Michi wishes the weather was warmer. She certainly is.

It's March, and in theory the days should be getting warmer and the plants should be wiggling up. But someone on the East coast clearly pissed Demeter off,¹ cause she's been dumping snow, sleet, and ice on them like it ain't no thang. Climate change, motherfuckers. Here in the PNW we're not snowed on--in fact, we didn't get any snow all winter near the Puget sound. Or at least not near my place. Fuck you climate change, I didn't move to Seattle to have Texas Winters. Now how am I going to take cute pictures of Addy with her sled? Sigh, I'll just have to snap shots of Felicity in the cherry tree that's popped its flowers. But it still got cold, the nights are still in the low to mid 40s at best, and I'm better off keeping the heater on and remembering to put on house slippers here and there when my toesies need cosies. So if you're all snowed in--or even if you're not--grab some warm drinks, tuck your AG into her toastiest pajamas, and read more reviews by yours truly.

I have a bit of a love of AG pajamas. Nearly all my AG Historicals have their canon PJs,² several of my created historicals have pajamas I either made or swiped from others--Edith notably has Emily's, which is very 60s--I have a couple PJs from other historicals, and I have enough modern ones that in theory I can get all my moddies and near moddies in pajamas and have a pajama jammy jam. Today we're reviewing the Polar Bear Pajamas, a notably more recent addition to my pajama stash: a blue tunic top, polar bear print leggings, knit boot slippers, and two white ponytail holders. And a Square "Real""charm but since the charms are being phased out, whatever. (Let's see what clutter they put with Truly Me.³) These came out in 2013 and very recently retired--as in I just noted as such on the wiki, and they were in the last Cyber Monday Sale. I purchased a set soon after release at the AG store for the original cost of  $24. They went down to almost half off during Cyber Monday to $12.50 before they sold out. Since they just retired, the 'Bay people will try to get you to pay $35-40 or more for them. Hah. Bide your time, get them cheap. Michi has half claimed these as her own, though other moddies have worn them. There's also a bonus when we get to the shoes.

To the review. 

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.

Clothes Reviews: Sparkly Tunic and Jeans Outfit (2006)

Otters is Sparkling to the Nines.

Hey, guess what? The new stuff's out for the End of Year! Hey, guess what? I'm going to go see it Saturday, so I'll blog about it the day after. For now, a review of older stuff. 

My birthday is in less than a week; I'll be thirty-four, Year five giving a big eff you to the cultural assumption that assumes that women never want to be older than twenty-nine. Fuck "forever twenties" ideas. I remember my twenties, and most of it was terrible and rife with wracking depression that I now keep generally under control. Part of my celebration is that I'm going to the AG Cafe here in Seattle with a buddy--as the Beyoncé song goes, I'm a grown woman and can do whatever I want. And what I want is to take one of my gang members to the American Girl Cafe and eat their food and be a dolly nerd. Fun fact about me is that I like to say I ran a gauntlet to get my birthday as my own day. The 4th is my late Grandma Valeria, the 7th (or 8th) is my Aunt Florence, today (the 9th) is my grandma Aquilla (affectionately called Goose)¹ and the 14th is my father, Harold. I missed all those days one after the other, showed up two weeks late, and hit Wednesday the 15th--and did the same thing my dad did with my grandma Goose and showed up as a belated birthday gift. That's fate for you.

When it comes to birthday gifts, I'm simple and complicated at the same time. Because I like dolls, right, so you'd think I want dolls and doll accessories--but when it comes to AG there's so much I already have so your best bet is to ask instead of trying to surprise me. Well until new stuff comes out and I go "I don't have that!" or "I don't want that." This was not true when I started collecting in 2005 and 2006. So for my 26th birthday, a buddy who wasn't even much into AG, Kaze, sent me the Sparkly Tunic and Jeans Outfit which had come out just that year in 2006. At the time I had two historicals and three moddies. Otters, Marisol, and Naomi had to share the set--and it looked great on all three of them and cemented itself as one of the best outfits ever.

The set at the time cost $26 and came with a tunic top, jeans, clogs, hairbands, and an informational story about bands, likely an article from AG Magazine.² It was retired in 2008--about standard lifespan for an AG set, and unlike a lot of older clothes is somewhat common and almost never goes higher than the original cost, only to about $30 or so. It shows up regularly enough on the 'Bay to be found at a sensible cost.

Otters is rocking this because I took pictures of her in it. There is very little Otters does not rock because Otters is awesome.

Clothes Reviews: Isabelle's Separates (2014)

Marisol has, of course, always been the better dancer.

I have bitched, and bitched, and bitched about Isabelle Palmer, GotY 2014 AKA Wonderbread the Ballerina. Just search my archives, you'll know it to be true. I have bitched about her face, her hair, her whiteness, her ugly clothes covered in sparkle barf, her stupid creativity center, and her books--I'm struggling to get through Book Three because gods, does everything go her way all the time. "Look at me design clothes and dance in everything and my favorite dancer ever in the world gives me one on one time and everyone thinks my clothes designs are sooo fucking special and blah blah blah eeeen~" I'd bitch about her movie but it can be summed up as "gods, Isabelle is the entire center of everything and the best part of the movie was Jade calling her out on her self centered bullshit."¹

So yes, I hate Isabelle with the fire power of Mega Charizard Y using Fire Blast. But, like Chipotle Mayo, McSeattle, and EnviroLanie before her, I am not above jacking her shit for my own dancer needs. Or reviewing them for yours. I'm not a monster, after all. I'm just one hell of a hater. Over the course of the year, I've gotten Isabelle's Coral Sweater for $14, Isabelle's Rosette Leotard for $10,  Isabelle's Tutu for $14, and Isabelle's Legwarmers Set for $12. (I'm still debating the Wrap Sweater and dismantling her Metallic Chaos Theory Set.) I have also been able to obtain her most simple ballet shoes without having to buy that entire dance barre set for $10 and so here we will call them Isabelle's Practice Slippers. Total cost of this mix and match set? $60. I'd bitch more but all of Addy's BeForever newness (sans the two-book volumes) is in my house and waiting on review. (If you haven't noticed, my site icon is now her BeForever image. Thinking of sticking it on the side somewhere.) Come December, all this shit will pop out of stock bit by bit, get retired Dec 31st, and Wonderbread will take her place in the archives as we prep for 2015 and I get to raise my hopes only to have them smash into the pointy rocks of racism when they give me another white girl for a Connect Four Years of Failure. Plus we'll get all the fun of on the Facebook page loaded with ignorant ass parents complaining that they didn't order her in time so now Giftmas is ruined, or asking for her to be restocked.² You got three months, maybe less, maybe more when it pops up as a sale item. Get on it.

Marisol, the resident Dancer of the AGGIB, is here to show off how all this looks 200% cooler on her tan skin. Also, partially through we get some modifications because fuck your design style WonderBread, that's why. Since these items are sold separately (with the exception of the tights and shoes), they will be reviewed and graded separately, then get the end overall feels. While the closest I have ever gotten to dancing is the Get In Shape Girl Workout Bar playset³ I sorta love the sport-slash-art of ballet and read hella books about it.

Clothes Reviews: School Stripes Dress (2014)

Tyanna Lewis, looking funky fresh in the School Stripes Dress--with add-ons.

Fashion trends cycle. And while some people complain that this happens too much--generally when what they wore comes back in for the next round--it's always been a thing if you look back through clothing history. Men's clothing settled down around the early 19th century into the suit and pants set until a shift to a more casual look in the mid-to-late twentieth century that said "screw having to wear suits everywhere"; even with the flip to casual tops and pants men's clothing still hasn't done many major changes since about the 60s other than extremes in fashion and stand out subcultures. However, women's clothing styles changed and still change pretty frequently and often have an influence calling back to an earlier time. The Federal/Empire/Regency¹ fashions gained influence from the idea of the ancient Greco-Roman period, and the idea of loose, free flowing clothing as opposed to the rigid corsets and firm, powdered formality of the earlier Colonial period. The empire waistline dresses of the 1960s see influence from the Empire era. The 70s had a lot of faux peasant influences and pioneer trends emerging from the bicentennial of the US. There has been at least one Victorian resurgence, not even counting the Goth subculture. And as my mom let me know through my entire high school career in the late 90s, the wide bell pants, midriff tops, and super high platform sandals that I perfected walking in were pretty much the same things she wore when my older sister was a tot.

This is a lot of words to say that yes, the 80s are back in fashion for young girls and it's now my adulthood joy to cringe at the return of floofy skirts, skinny leg jeans, oversized shirts, lace headbands, and leggings being worn as pants. And while I half cringe at this, on the AG side it doesn't bother me at all and I want more of it. Because I have two 1980s Historical Characters--best friends Kyung-Mi "Kimmy" Kim and Tyanna Lewis--and the resurgence in 80s clothing means I have build up a decent wardrobe for them from off the rack wear. For about a year or so, Target had a line called Play Wonder that with mix and matching could pretty much evoke the the 80s; I got enough to really built their wardrobe up, along with some older not quite 80s but close early moddie clothes. There's a few things I'd like to make that will require use of my old fashion designer sets, the sewing machine, and watching a lot of Punky Brewster and early Full House, but Kimmy and Tyanna have a pretty good style between the two of them and they're distinct in what they like to wear.

So when I saw the School Stripes Dress in the most recent releases, I was pretty much like "yep, that's pretty damn 80s, let's get it." I picked this up July 4th at AG Seattle while doing my part to celebrate the US by buying shit, so this is one of my rare "it's still out to get" reviews--this one just about two weeks after release. The set costs $28 and is one of the smallest modern AG clothes sets released; not including the charm, it has a striped long sleeved dress and a pair of pull on flopped tennis shoes. No headbands, no bracelets, no socks. Pretty damn basic. I'm not even looking at the eBay prices. The set hasn't even been out for a month. Just get it from AG direct, drag it.

Tyanna was picked to premiere the set; they both don't mind skirts but Kimmy is currently in her meet set.² Tyanna Janelle Lewis--who joined when a friend in the AG community wanted to send her to a new home and knew I was looking for her for Kimmy's best friend--is bouncy, musical, fashionable, and more sensitive and less absent-minded than her best friend. She's into studying space and science (especially the solar system³), Girl Scouts, the best of  black 80s music (Pointer Sisters, Whitney Houston, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince, etc), video games, being part of the gifted program at school with her best friend, dancing, and art. Her braids are not as fine/thin as I'd like, but I'm working on them--and on adding pony beads to the end. Since the outfit alone is not 80s enough for my or Tyanna's tastes, I've added on some components I will point out rather than just review the set alone, though my final thoughts will be sans what was added on.

On with the review!

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 Reviews: McKenna's Warm-Up Outfit (2012)

Warming it up--with Mellie, not McKenna. Cause I'm cool like that.

So, back on the review train. I stated that I'd stop the holiday reviews and hold those til the next holiday season, true. But I will still be doing mad reviews, cause that's one of the major drives that led to me starting my blog in the first place.¹ Honestly, most people's reviews of AG stuff falls under of "this is cute, do like" or "A+++ WOULD THROW MONEY AT AG AGAIN" without very much breakdown of the components of the outfit or good close-ups, and we need less of that. Learn how to review.

As anyone who's spent more than five seconds on this blog knows,  I really, really can't stand Isabelle, AKA WonderBread the Ballerina. But she's not the only Girl of the Year that I have had an active, twisting "fuck you" feel towards. Lemme take you back just two years to 2012, when we had, after the magnificence of Kanani, the mediocrity of McKenna Brooks, GotY for 2012. As soon as I saw her, I hated her. I hated her name because I hate names beginning with Mc. I hated her focus because I was (and still am) 100% convinced that it was to capitalize on the gymnast that was favored to win the all around at London, and then the girl didn't even make it into the competition. I hated that she was whining that she didn't care about school cause she was going to be a super famous gymnast, when you burn out on that by age 20 most of the time thanks to the compression of the sport. I hated that she was set in Seattle, because I now live in the Seattle area and I didn't want this doll associated with my region. I hated her parents. I hated her bed because it came with a tiny copy of Charlotte's Web and I wanted that book alone.² And I snarked all over her movie, because I could. She got slapped with the nickname McSeattle--only the first in a line of Refreshing Haterade names for GotY--and I have not regretted it.

But I at least liked a good portion of her clothes, which is more than I can say for Wonderbread. Over the course of the year I got my hands on McSeattle's pajamas, school set, and umbrella and rain boots--which I proceeded to give all of them to the mods, especially Mellie. The only other outfit I liked enough was her Warm-up Outfit: a jacket, windbreaker pants, sneakers, ponytail holders, and the new hotness in McKenna's clothes sets: a card on how to do her hairstyles her sets showed, this one being #1: Fishtail Braids.  There was just one problem with trying to get my hands on it easily, and that that was that it only came with her starter collection as a bonus. And I was not about to pay $185 for a doll I hated, her starter accessories, the two books I had already, and her practice uniform just to get a single outfit.³ Instead, I patiently waited for the eBay Fates to put one up for a decent not -stupid price--and I hit it in 2013 with a cost of $34.99 plus low shipping. eBay costs have jumped, however, into the $50+ range. This is straight up bullshit, don't do it.

Naturally, since Mellie Croom has made it her life goal to look twice as good in McKenna's clothes than she ever could, she's modeling this set. Mellie is about the closest I'll ever get to a AG me, in that she has my face shape, my semi-curls, and wears glasses. I actually took these pics before Mellie changed into holiday wear. I'm skilled like that.

Clothes Reviews: Petal Pink Outfit (2001) and Pink Tank and Brief Set (2014)

Pink. Lots of pink on Nellie O'Malley.

And then I didn't blog for ten days, because seasonal/personal depression is a horrible on and off thing to deal with. (Love my posts, deal with my issues.) I'm actually coming up on my one year anniversary of having this blog, and soon will have something that I hope will be a boon to the AG fandom as well. I've also decided that, while I have about ten more holiday sets I could cover--including the ones I have designed for my made historicals--that it won't do to blow out all of them now and have nothing for the next time the season rolls around. So I'll be holding the rest of my holiday wear for my gang til next winter, After all, it's not like there won't always be holiday wear to do. Plus, my blog. So let's do one more winterish outfit--which kind of fits for the fact that Valentine's Day is this Friday--and introduce you to someone new to the gang in the process.

Yep, that's right, I've got a new member of the gang. A buddy of mine was looking to send Nellie O'Malley to a new place, and I do adore Nellie more than Samantha. Practical, bold Libra Irish girls who share my exact birth date are pretty awesome. She actually got here mid-January along with her meet dress and some accoutrements. Welcome, Nellie, to being a member of the AGGiB. She's still a historical girl from the 1900s--and will be getting and wearing stuff from the era along with Marisol. But like Kit and Kaya, she likes wearing modern stuff.¹ And she's debuting here in the Pink Petal Outfit. 

Like the Ice Blue Outfit I reviewed on Michi, the Petal Pink Outfit was an early Mattel set that came out in 2001 and was gone by 2003. The set has a pink angora style sweater, pink glitter skirt, pink stockings, and pink shoes (and a snowflake necklace) and sold for $24. AG later recycled the name in 2010 for a completely unrelated outfit that was more spring than winter, so you're going to have to filter for that in your searches, ask questions, and make sure you get this one. It actually goes for a sensible cost of about $15-25 on average. It's a little surprising how low some of the older outfits go--it's generally the "new" stuff people try to gouge you on. I got mine in a private purchase way back in 2010 or so, and can't remember precisely how much I paid but it was around retail costs. I don't have the necklace, so unless you're planning on getting me one as a gift, there's not going to be a review of it. But there is a bonus review: the Pink Tank and Brief Set² that came out at the start of the year with Wonderbread. I had to put her in nice underwear that would fit with the modern clothes.

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 Reviews: Winter Magic Outfit (2004)

Marisol would like to inform you that it's still winter.

And then I didn't post for four days. The first of the year sometimes leaves me very worn out. I've been sorting my AG things--I got a lot of things last year that no one saw, and trying to figure out things to review over the course of the year. Also, my brother and I went to the AG store yesterday and I confirmed how much I don't like Wonderbread the Ballerina to my face.¹ Many people have taken down the lights and trees and all the shiny bits and made things boring again, and started to make New Year's Resolutions--generally about some arbitrary need to lose weight that will peter off just in time to gorge on chocolate for Valentine's Day. (Things that are never my problem nowadays. Allergy powers activate.) I try to make New Year's Resolutions, but they mostly consist of "draw and write more," "discover more of the world through the internet," "take more pictures of my collections and dolls," "love me and all my black woman awesome" and "try not to let the depression win this week, but not hate me when it does."

Though one of them this year is to post more on my AG blog. Especially reviews, snark, Magazine Monthly, and Crafting Creatively. And we're starting with--more fancy holiday outfit reviews! Never a bad time for fancy outfit reviews. Today we're doing one of the first modern holiday sets I ever had--the Winter Magic Outfit. The outfit--one of the paired fancy sets--came with a white fur detachable collar, black velvet top with beaded decor, white tulle skirt, black ankle strap shoes, and textured tights. It was paired with Winter Magic Accessories--and you know me pretty well, I don't always have the accessories. This set came out a year before I got Addy and retired before I had any moddies so I only learned about it after it was gone; it actually didn't fancy out the box, and you just got a standard American Girl Today box.² Originally, all my moddies were going to have crafted dresses, but now I reserve that if possible for created historicals.³ However, once I got Marisol and was assured that she was a dancer, I decided to get this set for her and got it in a private purchase for a touch under the original cost. eBay costs are pretty sensible at about $10-15 over face. 

I still haven't taken Marisol's hair down from her fancy hairstyle I got months ago at the AG store. It's too cute.

Clothes Reviews: Shimmery Gold Dress (2003)

Ring in 2014 with Tara and some shiny gold!

So we've got a day left in 2013, the first year in Western Year recording since 1987 that had four unique numbers in the date. We got Hanukkah near Thanksgiving, a government shut down, some terrifying terror and bright blessings and famous births and deaths, and personal deaths. We got Princess Twilight Sparkle, Equestria Girls, all new Monster High, new Pokemon released worldwide simultaneously, and that movie based on the Snow Queen in the sense that there was snow and a queen--and that had no influence on AG's plans for dolls, contrary to what stupid shit posts in my tumblr tags said.¹ It's been a year of ups and downs and tears and joys and transitions, and I'm hoping that 2014 will be good as any year can be. 

In the AG fandom we got the year of Chiplote Mayo Artistry for our GotY--ugh--and stuffing Molly and Emily into the AG Vault--eh--and steady data that next year's Girl is another in the pattern of white privilege--fucking bells. I added two girls to my AG gang--both secondhand--and a lot of outfits and accessories. And also I started this blog and got my hands on almost every AG mag and every paper doll, and made lots of friends and a couple haters I keep to the left. 

I had debated doing the Year 2000 outfit today, but I may do it the first of the year. New, fresh start to the blog with an outfit old enough to sign up for sites all by themselves. Abbi and Naomi's sets have a lot of fiddly bits that we'll get into soon. And Felicity? Well book canon says she goes to her holiday dance on January seventh because long holidays were and are long, so at least by then. Don't rush me, I give you good detailed reviews, the least you can do is be patient about it.

So Tara is back again, in her own holiday set that doesn't belong to Samantha. I'm following silver with gold. Look at that, I'm far too clever. After Tara arrived in summer 2009, I needed to get her a holiday dress because everyone in the gang had holiday outfits and it was very important that I keep this fact up.² So I started searching eBay and luckily stumbled upon the 2003 super limited edition dress, the Shimmery Gold Dress: a gold dress, cream tights, gold shoes, gold hair clips, a gold and rhinestone choker necklace that my set came without, and stick on earrings. The dress was more limited than most holiday items because it couldn't be ordered via catalog. It could only be ordered online from the website or picked up directly in AG stores. Of which there were exactly two, one of which--the NYC location--had just opened that year. And it was shut down in 2004. Limited as fuck. I paid $24.65 which is a touch above the original cost of $24. Damn last second snipe attempts. It can be found on the secondary market for about that range and up to about $40 for a full set--with of course, the stupid price hikes that come with a lot of AG things and that you shouldn't bite down for.

Let's get this New Year's partying started right.

Clothes Reviews: Silver Belle Outfit (2008)

Otters doesn't mind if the celebration goes into January, and I don't either! 

So here we are with three days left in 2013--not including today--and the series on holiday wear continues. Because here the holiday wear will going on as long as I want, damn it, I do what I what to make things lovely.¹ Plus, after showing you everything I've bought for holiday wear from AG, I get to show you all the pretty outfits I've made too. Cause I'm talented like that.

Now it's no secret that AG characters are supposed to resemble ten year old girls, thereabouts. The books almost always start before they turn ten, they turn as such by their birthday book or at some point, and by the end they are still in that not near teen range. The dolls back this up--no figure to speak of, and with very young looking faces. However, I keep my gang a little older than that--in about the eleven to thirteen age range.² Yes, technically they should be hitting puberty at that edge and being more towards teens than girls, but I let some things slide for my gang. Plus, AG actually has good books for girls who are about to hit puberty and are like "why am I getting bumps and hips and freaking out about everything and feeling sexyfeels for other people and what do you mean every month?" It's better that making the dolls look or dress younger than that and being a creep. Yes, I have horror tales. Later.

In the AGGiB, Otters is one of the oldest gang members at thirteen and a quarter--the only one older than her is Kaya who's thirteen and three quarters. So she tends to wear more mature clothing--not too mature, but a little more sophisticated than the others. She almost never wears pink, and she doesn't wear ruffles, and she doesn't want floofypoof holiday clothes or flippy stuff. She actually owns a pair of black goth boots that no one else wears. She's goth-hippy-bohemian, which is why I'm amused when I walk through the store or look in catalogues or skim stuff on the site and see her in things like, for example, a cheerleader set. Her first year here I made her a holiday outfit rather than buying her one, because there wasn't much I liked for her in holiday wear. This was true for 2006 and 2007--I especially hated 2006's holiday set--and she wore the same set for her first two years. Then in 2008, AG came out with the Silver Belle Outfit--and Otters was like "I'll be taking that for me, thank you." And she's worn it ever since, with her curls pinned up just so and looking like the sophisticate she is. 

The outfit--with its punny name³--consists of a silk-and-taffeta dress with Chinese stylization at the bodice, heeled shoes, and two decorative hair sticks (and a short story in a book form because AG did reprints of short stories and little fact books before they switched to the charm beads). Original cost was $28; the set was, like most holiday wear, retired by the next year's season to leave room for the new sets. Since I didn't have a local AG store at the time, I still did all my ordering direct and ordered this in group that that also included spoiling Addy, getting the then-new meet outfit back when they were available separately,⁴ and jumping on more ballet wear for Marisol. Since it was only out for about a year, the secondary market prices are high in places but it's possible to get it for no more than $10-12 over the original cost. Short opening is short. Don't get used to it outside of Magazine Monthly--bringing it back next month. November threw me.

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: Garnet Holiday Outfit and Coconut's Christmas Accessories (2001)

Kaya and Macro are excited for Christmas Eve!

I'm all bouncy today. After all there's only one more sleep til Giftmas! And Giftmas is one of my favorite holidays. I don't do much right now, but the tingle is there.

When I was a kidlet, I loved Giftmas Eve, and Giftmas Eve Eve, and pretty much counted down the days from the time winter break started to Giftmas--the day of presents and ham and visiting relatives and the joy of the day. My mom would hang our stockings next to the tree in front of the window, and we used to use that spray snow in the windows that got you a little buzzed, and throw the long streamer style icicles all over our eight foot artificial tree that we started setting up at the start of December. I liked making ornaments in school, and adding a new one to the tree every year. One year my mom made a fireplace with wrapping paper under the mirror in the living room since we didn't actually have one in our apartment and I had panicked that Santa couldn't deliver things. (After that, she explained that Santa just came in the front door while we were sleeping.) I used to have a holiday stuffed flat doll that my mom told me to make my Giftmas wishes to (one year all I wished for was ponies, and I got at least one--MLP Yay!). And Giftmas Eve was the best. I'd set the radio to holiday music at about eight p.m.--this was before I was totally burnt out on most songs--and I'd watch holiday specials and slurp down candy canes and stay up until that beautiful stroke of midnight, where we'd have Present Frenzy, and then regardless of the temp I would get out one of my holiday sweatshirts and wear it to my grandfather's house.¹ I liked the plays--I was in a semi-nativity play once (I got to be a shepard with spoken lines and everything which was very important for six to seven year old me, and used my grandfather's cane as my crook), I used to perform or act with the school choirs (I was Vixen when I was acting for the Reindeer (w)Rap in 7th grade, and dyed old clothes deep brown to do it) and in fifth grade I got to play the ghost of Christmas Past in a retelling of A Christmas Carol (she was from the 20s). I still love Caroling of the Bells. I once went caroling with my college buddies. I have favorite commercials.² The I just adore the season.

When I had a job, I didn't like Giftmas Eve. Sure I got off work an hour early, and I liked Giftmas as a day off with my husband. But I also had to go in an hour early, I had to go in the day after Giftmas regardless of it being a normal day off or not, and I had to deal with so much shit the day before and after. Mostly people screaming at me that because the (3)DS(i) wasn't turning on or the Wii wasn't reading discs or a point cards got messed up or whatever, I was personally responsible for their issues and yelling at me would solve them. I would sometimes come home crying. from people's nastiness.³ The bright spot was wrapping and giving gifts to myself, my husband, and my gang. But I don't work there anymore, and in the two years since I haven't the holidays have become happy for me again. And even if I don't wrap gifts for the Gang specifically anymore, I still get everyone dressed up. I'm sure I'm going to be one of those moms that decks the tree out and wraps presents and spoils my kids rotten. But I will not ever do the Elf on the Shelf. Fuck that shit. I know that there are people setting AG presents under trees to be opened and loved by people of all ages (hopefully of an appropriate age, at least). And gang members are getting in or already in their wear. Thanks to these reviews, I've gotten everyone except a few into at least the first round of holiday wear, and the two who didn't have sets before will likely be getting dresses cut out tonight or tomorrow. And everyone has special fancy wear, generally.

And then we get to Kaya'aton'my. Kaya, understandably, does not have special holiday wear. Her third book, Kaya's Hero, is about general winter giving. And this is only marginally. Kaya wasn't Christian by the slightest--she canonically had her own Native faith. But AG has only made one third book that hasn't mapped to the winter and that is because Marie-Grace and Cécile are splitting a year. So Kaya's "holiday wear" with AG is generally her Adorned Deerskin Dress, if you go by her LE mini. I have it, mind, and when I first thought about adding Kaya to the gang I was sure she was going to want to stay in her own clothes, because I was a historical purist with everyone.⁴ But when Kaya first arrived with Josefina in early 2007, I learned quickly that--while she loves her classic clothes, and I've gotten almost every one of them for her--she is not about that Braids Beads and Buckskins life, and we started putting her in modern stuff. We tried various things with her for Giftmas wear--the Adorned set in 2007, the Jingle Dress in 2008, and Otters' first set I made for her in 2009.  Then in 2010 I got my hands on the Garnet Holiday Outfit and Kaya claimed it as hers, and so it has been ever since. At the same time I got a good portion of Coconut's Christmas Accessories. And while I do have a Coconut, she's not really part of my gang because I prefer more creative pets if possible.⁵ And Kaya has her own mini-pet: Macro the mini buffalo. While buffalo are not part of the Nimipuu situation--she's not a Plains Indian, let's not assume all Native people are stereotypes--she loves Macro and Kaya is a net girl. So Macro it was, and he's our display instead of Coconut. Some people would say I hate white dogs as much as I hate white people, but that's not true at all. How could you say that? Some of my best friends are white. They're just not, you know, white. I don't even see them as white unless they do white things like kiss their dogs on the mouth, threaten to move to Canada every time politics don't go their way, cry when called out on racist thought, claim that a handful of characters of color are enough for fandoms, or oppress the shit out of me.

The outfit itself consists of a garnet colored empire dress with faux fur trim, white tights, and garnet velvet ankle shoes and was the Super Special Holiday Set of 2001 and so was gone by 2002--it even had the special Shiny Box. The official accessories--barrette, purse, and gift box with snowflake ornament--are not owned by me. Coconut's set came out the same year but stayed around til 2003; it has a body drape, reindeer headband, stocking, and snowman and candy cane (the latter two are Sirs Not Appearing in This Production since don't got em). Original cost was $26 for the dress and $14 for Coconut's gear. I got one set I'm sure in a private purchase off Craigslist with the Coconut set, and while I can't remember how I got my hands on two sets of the dress I am 100% sure I paid less than retail both times--in fact, I got it twice and gifted a set to AJ when I sent her Miss Mari. (When I love you, I give you nice things all year long. When I don't like you I throw hexes all year long.) eBay shows the outfit rarely, sometimes with the box, often with the stocking, rarely with the accessories, almost always in the $15-30 range which is pretty respectable. The Coconut set is almost never complete, and most of the time bits of it show up with the dress.

Bonus unrelated hair clips, because Kaya twists her hair up nice. No LE. That's for when I do the Adorned Dress.

Clothes Reviews: Ice Blue Outfit (2001)

Ice Blue outfit on Michi for ice days.

It's rare that I get or have had a white Giftmas. Southeast Texas don't cotton to your snow falling bullshit most of the time, and up here in Seattle it often snows but not around Giftmas. And I used to hate it when it snowed worth a damn any time between the fifteenth of December and the fifth of January because while the man had the week off between Giftmas and New Year's most of the time, my black ass had to be in to work every day I was scheduled unless it was so shitty that they shut down CS. And the day after Giftmas was always scheduled, and there was no getting out of it because we had to deal with every asshole who got a Wii or DS for the holiday and was coming to yell at us because it didn't come out of the box shitting perfect rainbows and we had ruined the entire holiday.¹ Customer service for Nintendo, oh god. I have horror stories.

But enough about my ex-job flashbacks. Because it snowed today! And I react the same way every time: Oooo pretty let's go out in it oh god it's cold who told me snow was cold fuck this shit I'm going inside. Think a very excitable cat who has to be reminded physically that the white shit that falls from the sky is not sand. Today's snow didn't stick too much, and then it rained which means ice which well, fuck that. Hopefully if it sticks a good level later on, I'll put someone out there in the best winter coat set I've got and snap pictures.

Which segues into the outfit I'm doing today: the Ice Blue Outfit. This set was one of the first Mattel holiday sets, released in 2001 and not retired until 2003. The set consists of a blue wrap sweater, silver overlay circle skirt, tights, silver Mary Janes, and silver hair clips for $24. It shows up here and there on eBay and tends to get lost in the shuffle of ugly homemade blue outfits and ice skating dresses, and while there's always some dumb spikes it actually goes sensibly for less than or about original retail--the $10-25 range. I got it for $15 in that nice post holiday lull, partially because it had a couple little flaws. Seriously, you want things off eBay, start searching in that post holiday slump, when people start scaling back after blowing the end of the year loads.

This set is being shown off by Michi. Michi got here at the very start of the year. I'd wanted a girl like her in my gang for some time. I was nosing around eBay and saw her for a very low cost and in an outfit I didn't have just yet, and picked her up with no regrets. Veronica Michiru Taylor is half black and half Japanese--black mother, Japanese father. She likes to organize things, read books by Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein (absudish children books are the best), 30s and 40s era wear, traveling, and the thrill of performing the stage.

Mine was a little cheaper because it had no hair clips and some flaws that I was willing to fix up because fuck skipping broken shit I'm a seamstress. I'll point out these issues. The ponytail holders don't originally come with it. But they match so there. And while it greatly resembles the Frosty Party Outfit I reviewed earlier, remember this came first.