Doll Exhibition #1: Baby boom - French dolls 1960 - 1979

Hi all,

I realize i've been gone for a long time. Doesn't mean I've stopped collecting barbie dolls from the 80's, no way!

On my last post i've told you i've been trying to collect all Fashion Play barbies that were released in Europe, and that's what I've been doing! They're really hard to find and quite expensive, so, it's taking a while. But my collection is getting bigger and bigger and i hope i can show you all the Fashion Play dolls - and outfits - real soon.

In the meantime, we can talk about other dolls. Vintage dolls. I found a box full of toys i used to play with as a kid, and inside were also big dolls from the 80's and early 70's. They're much bigger than barbies, you know, the kind you use to pretend you're a mum… I will show them to you when i make good pictures.

But it reminded me i went to a doll expo last year and never put the pictures online. They were old french dolls from the 60's and 70's so i don't know much about them, but let's try to find out!

The doll expo was called : "Baby boom - French dolls 1960 - 1979".

In France, the major manufactures that were selling dolls were Raynal - Gégé - Clodrey and Bella.

Raynal was created by Edouard Raynal in 1932 under the name "Les Poupées Raynal". It became B.E.L.I.N.D.A. in 1957 but when Mr Raynal died in 1974 the company closed. In 1975 a new company called Jamarex was created and decided to produce dolls under the label "Raynal". The company definitely closed down in 1982.

On this first picture, you can see a Tinnie doll on the left. She was manufactured in France by Raynal in 1976, and could still be found until 1998. Of course she was manufactured by different companies through the years and even had a change of head mold in the late 80's. The one in the picture is a Tinnie by Raynal from the 70's.
If you wanna know more about this doll and if you can read french, here's a great website dedicated to Tinnie and her friends.
http://tinnie.voila.net/index.html

The other doll on the right called Swimmie is another product sold by Raynal. She was manufactured in 1979 but i don't know when they stopped producing her. She was made entirely in plastic and had articulated arms and legs that could move to make her swim by turning a mechanism on her back. (Here are some other pictures i found)

 

Here, you can see all the dolls that were manufactured under the license Raynal.

http://www.paramourdespoupees.com/t14239-PETITE-GALERIE-DES-POUPEES-RAYNAL.htm

Gégé was created in 1933 by Germain Giroud and was the biggest toy manufacture in France in the late 50's. They stopped making dolls in 1979.

The following dolls were my favorite of the expo! never saw them before but i loved the clothes and accessories. If the doll itself wasn't as pretty as Barbie, they were clearly an attempt to compete with Mattel.

The doll name is Mily and she was created by Gégé when Barbie arrived in France. Gégé decided to compete with Mattel by releasing on the french market their own fashion doll. She even had the twist and turn body before Barbie!

Two other dolls came with Mily: Jacky, her husband (yes Mily got married at some point! It seems she was a bit more stable than barbie who got dozens of wedding dresses without actually marrying ken ;)), and Baby, her little sister (which kinda looks like an old lady to me).
Unfortunately she couldn't compete with the giant Mattel and its marketing and Gégé stopped producing her after 1976. Ironically she is extremely valuable in America now and many collectors are searching for a Mily doll.

here you can learn all about Mily, Jacky and Baby (with many pictures too)

http://www.poupees-annees70.fr/crbst_30.html?id_album=10fvxkgc4r2p0oj&n_page_album=3

In the next pictures are dolls manufactured by Clodrey. The company was created in 1952 by Claude Réfabert. His dolls became famous when he made an elephant walk on one of them and it didn't break. Later, his daughter created Corolle, the famous brand for dolls.

http://www.paramourdespoupees.com/t6659-PETITE-HISTOIRE-DES-CLODREY.htm

When the movie Mary Poppins came out, many dolls were made after Julie Andrews character. Clodrey made their own, produced in 1966. You could find two different ones, the one i took a photo of, and another model (found the picture on the net).

Above Mary Poppins are two famous french character called Chapi and Chapo. They're from a short tv cartoon that was first released in 1974. They were manufactured by Clodrey the same year.

At the bottom of the picture is a toy representing Margotte from Le Manège Enchanté (The Magic Roundabout) made around 1964/1965.

Bella was created in 1946 by Lucie and Salvi Pi. Their most famous dolls were Cathie and Tressy  and are still very popular among the collectors. Bella closed in 1984.

Cathie was made by Bella from 1967 until 1984. When she was first released, Cathie was 44cm tall with straight legs and light make up. She then had three major changes during the following years. In 1969, Bella released a new Cathie with bendable legs and white tights. Another version was created with a lock of hair that could grow and retract with the help of a button on her back.
In 1972 the tights color changed for a beige tone and some special dolls were made with different hair colors. In 1975, the first black Cathie was created, her name was Candy. In 1982, Cathie got a hair cut and was sold with short hair.
The same year Bella was bought by Berchet and in 83 and 84 the doll was sold under the name Nathie. Her production stopped shortly after.

If you wanna know more about Cathie dolls, here's a wonderful website that will tell you all about the doll and how to restore it as well.
http://www.cathie.fr/

Tressy was an american fashion doll created in 1964 by Jesse Dean and his wife to compete with Barbie.
The first Tressy dolls were sold in France by Bella at Christmas 1965 under license from American Character Toy Company. In 1966, Bella bought the license from ACTC and produced many different dolls as the american ones. What made her special was that she had a growing lock of hair.

If you wanna know more about Tressy dolls, here's a web page with french and english explanations.
http://www.tressydoll.com/french-bella.htm

More Bella dolls.
If you wanna know more about Bella : http://www.poupees-bella.com/index.php?menu1=1

Other fashion dolls were Perle, sold by Delavennat and in this picture associated to Veronique and Davina "Gym Tonic" show. This doll was sold at the end of the 70's, early 80's.

Sylvie made by Joja was a barbie clone from the early 60's. This one is a bubble cut model but a previous model had a stripped bathing suit with a face looking a lot more like Lili (pictures found online).

I couldn't find much information about this doll.

That's it for the moment. I loved that exhibition because it made find out about dolls i barely knew about. And what i regret about the Barbies from the 80's is that their boxes aren't nearly as beautiful as the 60's ones. All those fashion dolls had really great boxes, i mean, that last Sylvie one is to die for!
There are more exhibitions to come at the Paris museum of dolls, and i will happily tell you about them soon.

meanwhile, take care. +++