I went to Singapore with no expectations of finding any great dolls even though Naomi had found some wonderful things for me there in the past. The fact is that Mattel is not making a lot that I like these days so my best hope was that I would see dolls that are not usually available in Australia for a reasonable price. I hoped to see some of the collectible lines or perhaps the new Skipper dolls. Sadly this was not to be although I did see a Stacey who was quite nice I didn’t see anything that I couldn’t get locally or from eBay and prices were about the same as at home. The exchange rate is almost the same too so it was not worth buying dolls for rebodying either. A Made To Move Barbie was about $S30, much the same as at home. There were the usual Fashionistas, princesses, mermaids and so on but nothing really special. Naomi bought me two Barbies, both have been available in Australia and they were about the most interesting of a fairly uninspiring bunch. I am staggered that there don’t seem to be any stores selling collectible Barbies like the pop culture ones  or even City Shine. It seems the only place you can get these now is online.

I had hoped that I might see some Takara dolls too but I was not fortunate there either. I did see some Hasbro Disney dolls which were quite nicely made but I wasn’t prepared to pay up to $S50 for a doll I didn’t love.

Here are the two Barbie’s. I’ll show them off better later on when they have been deboxed. Naomi said that the Fashionista she picked out was different from the others in the display so we’ll look into this in a future post. It’s a Girl Barbie has a prettier face. Both dolls seem to have the Model Muse body that a lot of the playline are now using. At least they can have different clothing and accessories unlike the plastic clothed horrors that make up the majority of the playline.

Fashionista no. 16

Barbie It’s A Girl

I did have a look around to see if there were any other cute dolls on sale. I saw plenty of Baby Alive dolls and various other baby dolls which I thought were rather plain looking. Most have the big anime style eyes that seem to be popular now. I did see a lot of the “Journey Girls” and while I like the idea of them with their outfits and accessories I have to admit that I don’t like their faces any more than I do the “American Girl” dolls. They are a great concept but for me their faces are just bland so I would never buy one. I mean no disrespect to those that love them, they are just not my thing.

I took these photos to show some of the other dolls I spotted on sale. I can’t recall if I saw these in Toys’R’Us or another store now. Eve and Kong Suni are sort of cute but I didn’t like them enough to want one. I don’t know who the other little ones are.

There are several Toys’R’Us stores in Singapore and they don’t look as if they are going out of business any time soon. We also visited Hamleys and department stores Isetan, Takashima, Robinsons and Tangs looking for toys. As at home in Australia the department stores had tiny toy departments and most had just a handful of Fashionista’s and princesses in the once mighty Barbie aisle which these days is more of a Barbie corner which has to be shared with other fashion dolls. It’s very sad.