Doll News Fall 2016 - 22

take a very diﬀerent direction the 1960 collection was entitled "The Portrait Series." Similar to the tradition of the French couture fashion shows, each portrait doll was given a name. The name "Cissy" is no longer used in the company's catalog descriptions. Cissy would now make her debut as a collection of six portrait dolls in lavish costuming. The collection would include the expected Bride #2180, and Queen Elisabeth II, along with the other portrait dolls of the series: #2183 Maid of Honor, #2184 Belle of the Ball, #8182 Creole Beauty and #2181 Godey Girl. In trying to identify these dolls in the past, diﬀerent publications had diﬀerent dates and style numbers for the dolls. A 2012 discovery of a 1960 Madame Alexander Company Catalog with the missing back cover ﬁlled in some important gaps and provided a research marker. 1960 was the last produced outﬁt for Cissy in contemporary fashion. Clothes were available for Cissy in 1961 and 1962, but via the new 21-inch fashion doll "Jacqueline." She unoﬃcially represented the ﬁrst lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. Intervention by the White House terminated the doll mid 1962. The doll was particularly notable in that Alexander now had its ﬁrst large fashion doll in the company's newly developed vinyl, which also included rooted hair. Cissy would take her ﬁnal bow in the company catalog as a 1961 Scarlett O'Hara #2140 and Melanie #2235 - Both were created for the 25th Gone with the Wind anniversary and Civil War Centennial. The 1962 #2180 Queen Elizabeth II of England would be the last Cissy shown in the company catalog. There are a number of other portrait costumed Cissys that did not appear in the company catalogs and may have been store specials: Renoir (Cissy) 1961 #2250, Scarlett in white organdy. Shown in the 1959 F.A.O. catalog as Gay Nineties and elsewhere as Godey Lady. There was a Cissy Bride #2170 that was possibly a midyear doll for 1961 or 1962. In the mid 1960s Cissy is used as a costume mannequin for the Ice Capades for their skating Ice Cappettes. By now Cissy was probably found on clearance shelves of stores or perhaps through Alexander selling oﬀ old stock. Looking at the reﬂection of the past, we can now almost see the deﬁning moment that determined Cissy's future. 1959 Barbie was introduced to underwhelmed buyers at the New York Toy Fair. Christmas found many retailers embarrassed not having Barbie on their selves. Mattel marketed directly to kids on the new format of TV, and it was love at ﬁrst sight. From that point on, Barbie was oﬀ and running with a level of success that has made her part of our culture. Barbie had the pulse of Mattel's audience and the change and shift of fashion. The baby boomer generation was emerging to the newly coined phrase "teenager." They would wield serious buying power that could make a doll or product a star literally overnight. Television was the new messenger and would bypass parents to get its message directly to a captured audience of kids. Fashion was doing what fashion does and virtually reinvented itself with a new group of younger designers who had come up the ranks of Parisian giants like Dior and Lanvin. They would streamline and edit their view based on the world as they experienced it. The fascination of space exploration would ﬁnd its way as a popular inﬂuence. Dior was now viewed as dated and would see the departure of a very young Yves St. Laurent to open his own fashion house established in this more modern vision still grounded in the traditions of couture. Hebert Givenchy and Pierre Cardin, both who apprenticed under the reign of the "New Look," were among those young designers deﬁning a new decade of fashion. Barbie was a better ﬁt for this shift, and her earliest fashions were tied closely to these changes. 22 FALL 2016 Cissy went into retirement after 1962. She emerged under new owners of the Alexander Doll Company in the early 1990s. Although not the most successful debut, this launch did start the groundwork for a very successful line of Cissy with 1996 designs from the late John Puzewski. Fashion designers Jason Wu and Isaac Mizrahi would take their turns creating for Cissy. Today, now under the umbrella owner of Kahn Lucas, Cissy is still a star, wearing fashion that reﬂects elements of the moment. In 2015, Cissy wore costumes based on the hugely popular American mid-century couture designer, Charles James' exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2016 Cissy was introduced as a tattooed bride - a reﬂection of the now dominating millennial generation. The fashion doll is still alive and well. Fashion, the perennial "fashion week" and the fashion show have become events that draw a huge audience to admire and critique the runway. The fashion doll, as it has and will likely always will, continues to be a reﬂection of it's times and inﬂuences. The elusive back cover of the 1960 Alexander Doll Company Catalog showing the entire collection of the six portrait dolls that Cissy was introduced as that year.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Doll News Fall 2016