Wednesday, February 12, 2014

MOD DOLLS
Part 4


Dolls that define the Mod Era are the Mod Barbies including Francie, Twiggy, and Julia (Diahann Carroll).  Crissy and Velvet have both Mod and Hippie clothes.  The 6” tall Dawn line has a remarkable Mod wardrobe. Tiffany Taylor, although more disco era, has the exaggerated eye make -up that I remember wearing.

In the late 1990s Doug James and Laura Meisner introduced the Somers and Field dolls.  According to their story line Willow Somers and Daisy Fields were “Mod Birds” who lived in London in the 1960s. Their fathers owned the Somers and Field department store.  Willow is British and Daisy is British/Indian.  This line was made by Knickerbocker and their clothes represent the designers’ love affair with the Mod era.

Look at the pictures here and see if you remember having any of these outfits.  Not sure if you were a hippie or a Mod?  Then, my dear, you must have been a square.



 

Sunday, February 9, 2014

MOD DOLLS
Part 3
 
 
Both sexes wore clothes decorated with the Union Jack or Pop Art designs.  Dessert boots or Beatle boots were popular with both sexes.
What were the social changes that influenced this movement?  You have a group of young people who came of age well after WWII.  They grew up in a world with a strong middle class.  Mod culture was influenced by music, notably R&B and blues. The sappy pop music produced for white teens in the ‘50s was rejected.   Mod youngsters would often hang out at coffee houses, enjoying the music and meeting other Mods.
Of note, more young women were working albeit often at low paying jobs.  If you were a young woman out and about you would want to mark your place in the world and what better way to do it than clothes?  When you reject your mother’s clothes, you reject your mother’s values (you think).  You are defining the world and your place in it for yourself.
Colorforms Dawn Dolls