Recently while reading a post on “Confessions of a Doll Collectors Daughter” I read about The Tiny Frock Shop. My immediate reaction was “What a great idea.” and I zoomed over to the website to have a look for myself. I loved it. It’s like an online department store for fashion dolls with clothing, accessories, homewares and even food.

Pamela Thompson is the owner of The Tiny Frock Shop which she runs with help of her team of artists, designers and photographers and of course CEO Lily, her daughter, who is seven. Pamela herself is a fashion designer and I love the way she has combined her professional skills, love of dolls and vintage fashions with a sense of playfulness to create her business.

I exchanged some emails with Pamela as I wanted to find out if she would ship items to Australia. As I have a large family of fashion dolls to dress I am always looking for new places to shop for them.

The Tiny Frock Shop caters for both the collector and for young doll lovers looking for fashion at pocket-money prices. This is what their press release has to say. For a link to the full release click here.

Tiny Frock Shop not only provides the market with a place to purchase inexpensive fashionable resale Barbie clothes, it promotes recycling, inspires play, allows parent and child one on one time to connect. It fills a void in the market for collectors and Barbie doll aficionados to find fashion forward and Vogue styled clothing for their dolls. In
addition, the shop features mini-shops and trend forecasting straight from the runways of Paris, Milan, London and New York all the while taking a tongue in cheek look at how the fashion industry actually works with model profiles and behind the scenes imagery and info. Tiny Frock Shop takes Barbie’s world of fashion and transforms it from a childs world to one even adults would love to live in.
The business, started in 2010, has achieved a long roster of fans and customers of all ages and from all parts of the world. Pamela’s mix of fashion, photography, styling, low prices and stellar customer service has helped grow Tiny Frock Shop from a hobby to one of the most important and far-reaching Barbie sites on the internet.
The shop consists of Barbie, and Ken sized 12” doll resale clothing, accessories, furniture, and fully editorial styled pre-loved Barbie dolls which include clothing and accessories. In addition, the shop has made available a variety of out of production and rare new Barbies at all price points, new Integrity Toys fashion  dolls as well as Kurhn Dolls known as the “Barbie of China” and Licca Chan Dolls from Japan. There is also a section dedicated to sewing your own items, which includes downloadable patterns, magazines, bags and more. Tiny Frock Shop also offers fabric and trim packs with some of the most beautiful materials available direct from the NY fashion fabric market. A line
of originally designed clothing has been released in January 2016 called TINY FROCK. The line is featured in the Spring 2016 FDQ Magazine and designed, patterned and sewn by Pamela.

Here is a sample of what you can expect to find at The Tiny Frock Shop, these photos were supplied by Pamela, the captions are mine.

I had a great time just browsing the site window shopping just as I would in  a real bricks and mortar store. Some of the wonderful furniture in the store is designed by Maryann Roy of “Welcome Home” no doubt some of you have seen her work on her WordPress blog.

Pamela has recently expanded her fashion doll clothing line with garments to fit the new Petite and Curvy sized Barbies which is good news as I don’t think Mattel has made much available for them so far. I recognised some pre-loved Fashion Fever pieces which would be very affordable for the younger collector and there are a variety of vintage fashions which obviously are one offs, you may find what you are looking for or you may not just like in the real world.

It was also interesting to see the Chinese “Kurhn” fashion doll as I had not seen these before. Yes, there are dolls for sale on the site as well.

Have I bought anything from the Tiny Frock Shop? Yes, I have. On my first visit I spotted a vintage Barbie dress that I always wanted as a child. I didn’t buy it right away because I wanted to check the cost of shipping but today as I was writing this post I found that it was still there so I bought it. My mum always used to say “If you are meant to have something it will still be there when you go back.”

Want to see?

If you would like to go and check out the Tiny Frock Shop for yourself you can find them here.