VICKI

Here is Vicki, released late in 1968, as she is pictured on the 1968 Sindy catalogue. Specially for Zoe, from Canada. Vicki is Sindy's English friend and comes with a very «mod» 1960's dress...

Hi, Mary! Yes, I do have a Sindy and a Mitzi (a very valuable treasure nowadays, I guess). I think Mitzi was out quite some time before Poppet and Vicki were ready for release. Probably very early in 1968. Here she is:




I am planning to write some comments on the drawings and paintings from the first Sindy catalogues, as well as other Sindy releases, such as paper dolls, etc. They do take a very important part of our imaginary as children of the 1960's!

Mitzi, 1968

Mitzi, introduced in 1968 and released to stores some months before Vicki and Poppet, is nowadays one of the rarest fashion dolls in the world. Very few examples of mint and boxed Mitzi's exist. She is my favourite and I will soon post some more info on her «biography».

Patch, introduced to the Sindy Set in 1966.

A happy family.
PATCH (Sindy's sister).

The right to be different. European.



Vintage Sindy’s are worthless over here in Lisbon: nobody collects modern dolls. Later Sindy’s are not cherished by new buyers: every little girl wants yet another Barbie or, better still, another virtual game.

And that makes me think: why are we, European consumers, so influenced by foreign marks and markets? Why have we, European mothers, abandoned the doll that was once one of our most beloved friends? Why didn't we encourage our daughters to love Sindy like we loved her? Sindy has been constantly in danger of being discontinued because she can't sell as much as multinational fashion dolls? - I don't know. But I do know that when we can find the reason for this we will also be able to explain why so many Portuguese factories are closing. Why so many good and classic European products have disappeared from our stores and from our habits.

Bye, Sindy... or is it Hello?



I never knew what happened to my Sindy’s. One, I think. was given to the poor children of the neighbourhood (every year we used to fill boxes with old toys for the poor), Paul was badly bitten by our spanlel, my sisters must have drowned Patch in the old farm pond... I don't know. Thirty years later I still look for that easily-fulfilled happiness I shared with my first Sindy’s, I still look for the old versions of the dolls, I still almost cry when I find her again, laying on a dirty blanket at the flee market, her hands chewed, her hair frizzed. Because these dolls came from other little girls' laps, other houses where they were the only modem symbol of youth and freedom, other thirty/forty-something women who have forgotten that they once were those little girls.

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Paul and I

The firm representing Pedigree in Lisbon only imported one kind of Paul doll: the rooted-hair one. My first and only Paul was, thus, one of this version. When, in 1968, Sindy's face changed, her hair became longer and she was given a new body, I peremptorily told my mother I would only have good marks at school if I was granted this one wish: a new Sindy, Iike the ones in the downtown shop windows. I got one for my birthday. Paul never seemed to notice the changes his girlfriend had been through.

I, myself, had to wait for long, anxious days before our usual toy shop would guarantee they would have a new shipment of Sindy dolls in time for my eighth birthday party. So they did. I remember entering Kermesse de Paris (this beautiful toy store - Lisbon's oldest and most famous - doesn't exist anymore) and there she was: New Look Sindy with her long blue velvet dress and her crown. I chose the blonde one because my former Sindy had brown hair. That was one of the happiest days of my childhood.

SINDY, 1965

Sindy was introduced in Portugal in 1965. Most of the dolls for sale over here were brunettes, their legs were still non-bendable and the back of the head was marked “Made In England". My own first Sindy was auburn-haired and she was dressed In a different version of the Weekenders outfit: same pants and shoes but a plain red blouse that looked Iike Paul' s polo neck sweater, only with short sleeves and larger neck. In
1967, Sindy's sales doubled when an advert started being aired by the Portuguese television (only one T.V. channel in those days). The ad showed two girls playing with Sindy and the words for the music went: "A boneca que tu adorarás vestir!" ("The doll you’ll love to dress!”).

Portugal, 1968. Sindy, 1968

Once Upon a Time...

In 1968 we were living under a dictatorship. The dictator's name - Salazar - would later become one of those written in the Guinness Book Of World Records: he had ruled for forty two years, and no general strike, no opposition movement, no military insubordination had ever diminished his power. As a result of this, we had a tight censorship that would cut scenes from films, forbid books on certain themes, avoid the diffusion of such things as rock festivals or pop fashions. Couples kissing In the middle of the street were often arrested for interrogation and women rarely entered cafes or bars, even if accompanied by men.

I was little aware of this, being eight by that time. But one thing drove me mad: that girls and boys were not allowed to play together. Even when the schools were next to one another, even when those next-to-each-other schools were supposed to be English. Because my school was named "Princess Anne" and the next-door school was "Prince Charles". We knew little about the British royal family, being Portuguese. But our idols certainly were English too: they were called Sindy and Action Man. So we invented our own little "transgression" and enjoyed every minute of it: the boys would bring their Action Men to the fences near the playground. We, the girls, were waiting there with all our Sindy’s. Then, we would pick them up and take them to kiss all the "Men" through the wires. Sindy's small head could pass where our hands couldn't reach. She was the free girl we all wanted to be.

Forgotten.

I was born in Portugal in the 1960’s. Sindy was a queen back then. Sindy, the doll now almost forgotten by Portuguese children and their parents - who once played with her. Like some of the English collectors, I also asked around, in 1998, if they had stopped producing Sindy... and the answer from the Portuguese department of the Hasbro toy industry was then a plain "yes". In that same day I recalled another afternoon, some 30 years ago. Noticing that Sindy had vanished from our usual toy store, my mother called the Portuguese distributor of Pedigree and asked them the same. The answer had been "of course not!" Sindy was missing in some stores because they could not import ali those thousands of dolls as fast as they were selling them. That was the same year I got a Miss Beautiful doll for my birthday: 1968.