Taswegian1957

Fashion Doll Friday: Mattel Black Basics #8, 2009


Today’s Friday Girl is Black Basics Barbie #8. I had not photographed her in a long time as she, along with many of my display shelf Barbie’s, has been packed in a crate for more than a year. I brought the crate in from the garage a couple of months ago when I was looking for different dolls to photograph. She has the Mbili face sculpt so as she is the first doll I bought with this sculpt that is her name. Mbili is wearing a Fashion Avenue outfit from the Trend City series of 1999 minus the shoes of course.

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Published by Taswegian1957

I was born in England in 1957 and lived there until our family came to Australia in 1966. I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, where I met and married my husband, David. We came together over a mutual love of trains. Both of us worked for the railways for many years, his job was with Australian National Railways, while I spent 12 years working for the STA, later TransAdelaide the Adelaide city transit system. After leaving that job I worked in hospitality until 2008. We moved to Tasmania in 2002 to live in the beautiful Huon Valley. In 2015 David became ill and passed away in October of that year. I currently co-write two blogs on WordPress.com with my sister Naomi. Our doll blog "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls", and "Our Other Blog" which is about everything else but with a focus on photographs and places in Tasmania. In November 2019 I began a new life in the house that Naomi and I intend to make our retirement home at Sisters Beach in Tasmania's northwest. Currently we have five pets between us. Naomi's two dogs Toby and Teddy and cats, Tigerwoods and Panther and my cat Polly. My dog Cindy passed away aged 16 in April 2022.

11 comments

  1. Mbili is beautiful and her outfit is fabulous. Does she have the same face mold as tattoo Barbie? I’m not that well informed on the different face molds but she has a similar expression to my tattoo Barbie (who was another find in a charity shop and in excellent condition!)

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    • I’m not sure which tattoo Barbie you mean. There are 3 Tokidoki dolls wih tattoos. I’m not very familiar with them but they have a different face sculpt to Mbili although to me it looks similar. There are so many new ones now it is impossible to keep track without a reference. The two best sites I have found for researching face sculpts are Kattis Dolls and The Model Muse Wiki – https://modelmuse.fandom.com/wiki/Model_Muse_Wiki

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  3. I have my Styled by Chriselle Lim dolls! Mattel hit it out of the park with this collaboration. I really love the Asian doll with her chic bob hairdo. The other doll has a nice outfit but I don’t like her face sculpt. But it was worth it to get the set at a discounted price. The dolls are modelled after Lim and her assistant.

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  4. My tattoo Barbie is the one in the pink and yellow crochet bikini with the butterfly tattoo on her stomach. I think you have Kira and Teresa from the same set but said you were not keen on Barbie because of her eyes. I’ll look at Kattis dolls site again, that’s where I found out the Kenyan Barbie was Nichelle’s face mold. Thank you for the links, your site is always so helpful.

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    • Oh Butterfly Art Barbie. No, I don’t think that the Mbili face had been created in 1998. She looks like she has the Mackie sculpt but I have to admit that both Naomi and I always thought she looked a bit spaced out around the eyes which is odd because normally I like the Mackie face. Just something about the make up I guess.

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      • Yes, now you mention it, she does look like the Mackie sculpt, you’re probably right. She does look a bit dreamy eyed compared to some of my others, but , hey, I like a bit of diversity. I nearly always used to go for blonde haired dolls when I was a child, probably because I’m blonde myself but I’m getting more diversity in my collection now.

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