Naomi commented on our last vintage fashion post that she had bought a couple of Barbie Fashion Gift Sets to start us off when we first started buying Barbies. At that time we bought a lot of our dolls from markets and second hand shops and they often came nude or in clothes we didn’t like so we needed to dress them.
I decided to do a Google search for gift sets from the 1990s and when I did the name Arco Toys came up a lot. I learned that during most of the 1990s Mattel partnered with Arco Toys to release these low cost fashion gift sets, furniture, accessories and even a few dolls.
So who are Arco Toys?
Arco is an acronym for A. Rosenberg Company, a Hong Kong based production company started around 1967. Mattel acquired them in 1986 and they became a major subsidiary brand producing various dolls and toys including Polly Pocket, Other World and budget priced Barbie and Disney lines throughout the 1990s. Some of the Barbie playsets they made were office furniture, kitchen and living room furniture, beach, camping, hobby gear and much more. Here are a few outfits from one giftset that I recognised.
Simone in Arco Mattel Fashion 
Here is an example of the sort of things they made. Sometimes the boxes are marked Arco and sometimes Mattel or just Barbie.
After learning this I suspected that we probably have quite a few Arco pieces amongst our fashion doll props as well as the clothes. Naturally, as we bought many of our props from eBay most of them did not have boxes when we got them. The pieces are often unmarked so I can’t say if they are definitely Arco or generic Made in China. This office set which belongs to Naomi used to sit in her toy room and I took this photo several years ago.
I decided to have a look at some of my own accessories which are still packed in boxes awaiting a permanent home. I used to have a boxed Barbie pool set which I bought in my early collecting days. I wasn’t sure if I still had it but as it turns out I did. Here it is. It is Barbie’s Spray & Play Pool from 1991 and it was made by Arco. I think that the previous owner had added a few items to the box but it is more or less complete.
I did find a few other items marked Arco. I think have the grill tray from the BBQ somewhere.By the way our model today is Vicki who is wearing a retro swimsuit.
Some of these pieces of furniture were marked Mattel and are from 1997 or 1998 while others are unmarked. I see that even a few Fashion Fever items are listed as Arco products so they were probably still making them as late as the early 2000s.
Between us Naomi and I have a lot of doll furniture although not all of it is Arco/Mattel. We also have lots of appliances, food, dishes and assorted odds and ends and we’ll try to do a post about these another day.
References:
Here is a link to my Pinterest Board for Arco and Budget Mattel Fashions.
http://smallscaleworld-a.blogspot.com/2015/08/ahco-argo-arco-arcotoys-arcotoys-inc.html
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
I hadn’t heard about ARCO before. Thanks for sharing all the information and pictures. I love that first office play set! There are so many wonderful Barbie play sets, furniture and props. We all need an extra people-size house just for Barbie. 🙂 I’m going to look at your Pinterest board with Mattel’s budget fashions for Barbie. That should help with identifying some of the loose fashions I pick up now and again.
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Just looking through them quickly I found one we definitely have but I would not be surprised to find a few more when I have time to browse again.
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I will have to see what I have in my stuff, your stove reminds me of a frig I have. I have a pool set but older though. Really want to dig through things but terribly behind.. and the yard is going all Jumanji on me..Lost my yard helper..so I’m it ..doubt the squirrel who moved into my she-shed will volunteer.
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You don’t think he’ll work for nuts?
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The squirrel(s) in question apparently are stripping my loquat tree of the shriveled fruit..so as fast as I can divest the filing cabin-nest of eeds/etc.. steal more.. job security I guess.
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Reblogged this on themomshiediaries.
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Thank you for the reblog.
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❤️ thanks for bringing back my childhood memories… i have scheduled the post this Sunday ❤️ Great post!
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We have some other sets which may or may not be Arco that we’ll photograph another day.
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Looking forward to that ❤️
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[…] anything else, I would like to give credit to Taswegian1957 for her post about Mattel and Arco Toys. I’ve reblogged it here (please see below). The toys […]
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I have a Mattel/ARCO tagged Barbie stuffed Beagle (3″ nose to tail), covered in a type of felt-like material. I cannot find any like it and I was wondering if it is rare or valuable. The information on the one tag is genuine Barbie. The other tag says, “Mattel, Inc, Arcotoys, Inc., Westbury, NY 11590, USA. Made in China. Can anyone help?
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Hi Faith. Arco made a lot of clothes and accessories under licence for Mattel. They were mass produced so not super rare but if your dog is flock covered and still has all his coat in good condition he might be worth something to a collector. I’m sure you have already searched eBay for a similar dog but if one of our readers has seen one please comment.
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It is flocked in good condition. We could not find any like it on eBay so we reached out to your readers.
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Faith I am just about to post an article with a link to a post about Barbie pets. I hope it will help you or that some of our readers will know.
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[…] Faith about a Mattel/ Arco beagle dog she has. The comment was posted on one of my old posts about Arco toys so although I replied to it there I thought I would write this post as […]
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