Dressing Barbie: A Celebration of the Clothes That Made America's Favorite Doll and the Incredible Woman Behind Them Paperback – June 6, 2023

Barbie turned 60 this March of 2019 and this big, beautiful book really celebrates her early 60's years wardrobe creations well. I should first say I am a long time Barbie Collector- since her creation, so seeing and reading new things about Barbie is wonderful and extremely rare. I did meet Carol Spencer at the 1992 Niagara Barbie Doll Convention and she is such a professional, talented, charming and beautiful lady. Her love of Barbie comes through on every page in this book, and this book is huge- 13 inches by 8 ½ inches, having 160 pages, filled with Ms. Spencer’s life long stories and gorgeous large color photosWe get a rare inside look into how Ms. Spencer became one of the main Barbie doll clothes designers for 35 years, since 1963. We get to read about how a Minnesota girl learned sewing from her Grandmother to a fortunate month she spent in New York City, giving her a solid designing foundation to go back to Minnesota where she designed children’s clothes. From designing children’s clothes to answering an ad from Mattel in California, came her dream job of a lifetime- designing for the world’s most popular doll’s wardrobe- Barbie. I absolutely love Ms. Spencer’s first hand made Barbie outfits which landed her the job with Mattel- in gorgeous large full color in this book.Ms. Spencer designed two of my favorite sets of outfits for Barbie back in the 60's- the Sew Free Fashion Fun outfits and the Color Magic Fashions. I loved the Sew Free Fashions as a little girl- sewing without a needle or thread- just glue strips that held the fabrics together. The Color Magic Fashions changed colors with those magic solutions- simple mixtures that dissolved in water, based on vinegar and baking soda. Ms. Spencer went on for decades through the 70's, 80's and 90's keeping my favorite doll dressed beautifully. My favorite doll in this book is the doll Mattel created of Ms. Spencer for her retirement in 1998- it looks exactly like her! My favorite outfit in this book which she created for Barbie, is her first creation which got her the job- now can Mattel make one of these for all of us die-hard Barbie collectors- that would be the icing on the cake, along with this fabulous book! Thank You Carol Spencer for sharing such treasures, of your life with Barbie, which I absolutely cherish! 5 HUGE STARS.

This is a quick read, full of pictures of fabulous Barbie clothes. For anyone who loved Barbie, and lusted after her wonderful outfits, this is a memoir from her chief designer. Not much on office politics, or business problems, but rather the challenges of designing clothes for a doll and yet making them profitable and able to be produced on a large scale.

My wife is a HUGE Barbies fan, and a real fashionista. She loves designing clothes, studying fashions, and designing and creating outfits for herself and for her dolls. When I saw this book, I thought, there it is - the total package. So I got it.She was not disappointed! The book covers the history of Barbie fashions, how the outfits were developed and designed, who designed them, the changes they went through up to the final creation. Lots of pics, stories and background. It covers international designs and releases as well. My wife has commented many times that this is a book that would never be relegated to a shelf, but one that she will be taking down and referencing and reading again and again.

Book by one of Barbie's first fashion designers. Met her many years ago.

good history, photos

This book IS a pleasure, and I know most people who are attracted to it will LOVE it.I certainly enjoyed the book and the specific outfits the author described (and depicted) designing. Many of them were outfits I had owned and loved for my Barbie and friends dolls. I was delighted with them as a child, and am pleased Carol Spencer was around to make them happen. They were/are beautiful designs for Barbie. Her 80s stuff was mostly bad, but everything fashion-wise in the 80s looked bad (to me), and there were severe constraints on finishing details and fabrics used from the early 70s on when the business had a downturn (the major wave of Baby Boomers aging out of fully accessorized fashion dolls with teeny-tiny hairbrushes, girdles, and gartered stockings? Oil embargoes? Paper shortages? Changes in laws regarding tiny pieces in toys? All sortsa stuff went on that caused problems in the early to mid-70s, and I understand that Ruth Handler cooked the books at Mattel in the early 70s to make things look better---I know that from other books), so Carol Spencer and her team worked under the types of conditions many of us have had to work with since the 70s---less money, cheaper materials, more hassle from the bean counters. The Barbie clothing designers were ingenious problem solvers.However, the Mattel mark is on this, so to speak, and deeper specifics, which I would have loved to read (I don't mean damaging Mattel or personal gossip, just more on how things are made, designs achieved, blow-by-blow), are not really in this book. Some of it is there, but not nearly enough. But that is MY problem---I am fascinated by production details, and this book is relatively light on those---probably because of corporate restrictions on discussing those things, even this many years later. Every page doubtless had to be vetted by Mattel's legal department. I bet stuff was removed that Spencer had wanted to leave in. The narrative feels skimpy in spots, toward the end.I did want the full complement of info from a deep industry insider, which she was! I do wish there was more meat. But at least now I do know a little more about how they got their fabrics, and why so much stuff showed up in the white polka-dot on blue cotton...and similar things of that sort.I have respect for her, high respect. She made her mark and made my childhood even better. You will probably enjoy this book a lot.