Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Ginny. The All American Sweetheart











I was recently inspired to write a piece about one of the fashion dolls that helped to create the fashion doll industry that we all know and love today, Ginny!

As most of you may know, Ginny dolls were a hard plastic doll that came about in the late 1940’s. The story of Ginny began with a woman named Jennie H. Graves who brought her dolls to life in Somerville, MA in 1948. One of the novel things about Ginny was that this was the first time that doll fashions were sold separately from the actual doll. Mrs. Graves designed all of the fashions, which I might add are all incredibly adorable and detail oriented. In addition, perhaps one of the best things about the vintage Ginny dolls is that they were made in the USA.

A part of the story I find particularly interesting was that Ruth Handler of Mattel had actually begun negotiations with Mrs. Graves to buy Vogue Dolls and Ginny. However, negotiations were unsuccessful. If Ms. Handler and Mrs. Graves had been able to come to a compromise doll history as we know it may have been changed, and Barbie may never have existed.


http://www.voguedolls.com/

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