Are Rebecca and Claudie's outfits accurate? // American Girl Deep Dive 

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The "sun fairy" doll costume looks like something a fairy-tale character in a silent movie might have worn.

The paisley shawl is actually a 10/10 in regards to accuracy! I myself live in a rural area in the Achterhoek area of the Netherlands. Tons of farmers & small villages around here. In the regional folkwear of this area, the paisley shawls were worn pretty much right up until the folkwear died out :) Even the poorer families would've worn them here, so I imagine it's highly possible for Rebecca to have worn such a shawl despite her background.

I had Ukrainian Jewish relatives who came to New York around the same time as Rebecca’s story, with the first generation born here being about the same age as Rebecca would have been. They worked in the garment industry, which was very common for Eastern European Jewish immigrants. They definitely were not wealthy, but they were always dressed impeccably l, and my relatives closer in time to them always noted how impressive their wardrobes were despite their lack of money. The garment workers sort of took care of each other in that respect, and really nice clothes were given as payment, traded in kind within the community, or heavily discounted to those connected to the community. It certainly doesn’t explain all of Rebecca’s finery (I’m with you on the fur!), but I just wanted to add that detail since I always thought it was so interesting. The very tight knit communities did sort of provide for each other to the extent they could manage, and the history of the Jewish community’s treatment by others really added to that. Maybe Rebecca’s wardrobe is meant to pick up on that just a bit, since her father could have traded his shoes for garments and may have been tapped into the Jewish garment community also. I’m not familiar enough with her story, but it is an interesting exercise to try and make a fur coat make sense for a poor child 100 years ago haha.

Maybe Rebecca’s mother shops in the second hand clothing stalls? Add some trim and… Oh wait! A wealthy patron of the shoe store gave the outgrown clothing of their children to them.

One thing that bothers me about Claudie’s collection (other than the size of it 😬), is that they gave her such lovely hats, that SHE CAN’T WEAR! They are sized for dolls with straight hair, and her curls cause them to pop straight off her little head 😭 In real life, curly hair may not have made such a difference, but plastic doll hair does NOT like being compressed. This is especially frustrating as AG dolls are meant for children, who are bound to be even more frustrated by this, and with AG constantly centering their white dolls over their dolls of color, it feels like yet another example of that.

How You and Rebecca the doll have a lot in common that's so cool. I'd love AG to have a historical doll named after me Rachel.

I remember in "The Sound of Music", the outfit that Maria wears when she is first sent to Baron von Trapp's family is from the "poor box" at the convent -- an outfit so hand-me-down that even the poor didn't want it! (And the real-life Maria married Baron von Trapp in the 1920s, not the 1930s as shown in the movie, so close to the period & economic circumstances of Claudia.)

Perhaps Rebecca's clothes were mostly second-hand or hand-me-downs from wealthy customers of her family's store?

I'm not sure how old Rebecca is supposed to be, but the 2nd "meet" ("meat?") dress in purple is the same as my primary school winter uniform dress. I wore a blouse or skivvy and jumper (aka sweater) on top of the dress. I meant that I didn't have to worry about keeping my top tucked in all day. The white portion would have been made of cotton or lawn or poplin etc and was seamed at the waist to a heavier weight fabric pleated skirt. This would have been in the late 60s and early 70s.

We really hope you do decide to continue on with Kit, Nanea, Molly, and Maryellen. We love these videos so much! I also love old movies like Shirley Temple. Her movies and others might show us some historical accurate fashions. 👗🩱👡🩷

I love these videos! I find it so interesting to hear from your expertise. I feel the same about Claudie's jazz performance dress - even when it went on sale I just could not see myself enjoying putting it on her even though it's part of her "collection." I did not know much about Rebecca's collection, so I loved seeing some of the outfits I had never seen before - that butterfly costume is incredible!

I hope the series continues. Perhaps catalogs could be helpful? In any case, I enjoy your AG videos very much.

SO excited to see this series come back! I love listening to you talk about the various outfits. I don't know why, but Rebecca's second meet dress always reminds me of Rose's boarding suit from "Titanic".

I feel like AG did Claudie dirty. They didn’t do their research on her history clothing-wise. I agree with the other comment that they didn’t make room with her hats for her curly hair. Her cloche doesn’t even fit on her head properly. I love Claudie, the 1920’s and I wanted more. More in her story, more in her collection and accurate clothing! I feel like AG moved on and to me that says they didn’t really want to make a 1920’s doll. I think they made her because fans had been begging for a 1920’s doll for so long and wanted more diversity. So, AG made her (stunning to be sure) and basically said, “Ok, we made her, happy now?” and then moved on. She is arguably one of the most gorgeous dolls in their collection with an amazing history that deserves better.

The old stuff from Pleasant Company was incredibly detailed and historically accurate. The things from American Girl are okay not as good. Still would love to see you to make Samantha’s old white and pink tea dress. So glad you make outfits like these dolls I remember you could buy the patterns but they were expensive. Glad you can make your own.

Seeing that Rebecca has 2 Older twin sisters that I believe are 15 or 16 years old her outfits are possibly hand me downs from her sister's when they were 9 and 10 years old.

Thank you Rebecca for your fashion knowledge. I really enjoyed seeing all of these outfits on your beautiful dolls. I learned a lot. Your channel is so fun and entertaining! It’s so sad that Claudie doesn’t have much of a collection. To cheer her up I have dressed her as Cinderella in my collection. She looks like such a princess. That sequins costume on Evette is really stunning. Love it!

I Love Rebecca's lace lawn dress Gives me Tuck Everlasting vibes, just wish she had stockings! I'm disappointed by Claudie's collection! There are so many colors and designs they could've gone with! Who wears long-sleeved dresses, especially while traveling on a crowded train in the summertime? Name one person AG!

Ngl, I'm thinking about getting some of Rebecca's outfits for my Claudie. Claudie needs more love

Though I'm not at all interested in the American girl dolls or their stories (though Rebecca's is excitingly similar to yours!!!) I really find it fascinating when they do a good job copying the fashions of the time. Thanks for sharing! One (maybe two) of my sewing machines is from 1914 and I keep trying to figure out an outfit from that era that I'd wear but I'm still not coming up with anything other than outerwear, so thanks for showing me more of that era, even if it's not my style (which can loosely be described as somewhere on the spectrum of "carpet goblin" to "shut up, it's comfortable" with coccasional dollops of "plaids my mom hates")

i have been WAITING for this video you don’t understand!

I love that you are doing these videos

ahh yes my girl rebecca! i’m glad you went through this. please keep making more of these!

Yay!!! I’m so excited to see another one of these videos! Such a great series. ❤

Thanks for sharing! I loved it! I hope you do more of these videos!!😃❤️

I love these videos! You should definitely continue!

I love these videos!!!! Hope you make more I recently stopped collecting because of the price increases along with decreased quality. But I love seeing all the old beautiful outfits they once had

YAY!!! You’re back!! Keep it going please!! ❤❤❤

These are always so interesting. I do hope you decided to at review Kit’s collection. She was my fav growing up and I have a picture of my grandmother wearing a very similar feed bag dress to Kit’s birthday dress.

Another great AG video. Please do continue on with this series. Love seeing your “girls” and hearing your critique 🥰

Excellent video! Can’t wait to see you talk about the 60s/70s 🙌🏾

Great video!

i love your AG breakdown of the historial girls! please don’t stop doing these 🙏💟you are THE BEST at it bc you know all the correct words when it comes to the eras/periods of time you do a great job & keep my interest during the whole video lol much love xo

i would love to see more videos, these videos are soo well made and so informative. how wild that you are so similar to rebecca!!!

I'm in LOVE with your American Girl collection!! 😍 Such pretty outfits!! (Even if some aren't period accurate. 😆 My fave is your Mini Me doll & outfit!! ❤❤❤

I really have no idea what they thought with Claudie's collection. I am however very glad to hear that Rebecca's outfits are so accurate! I think many of them would be cute as a historybound for school / university.

This is so nice. It's been a while. . .

I live for these videos ❤

If Rebecca's family is too poor to be able to afford nice dresses for her, I would wonder if her nice dresses were gifts (or hand-me-downs) from affluent people. Even though it's not very historically accurate, I admit that I do like Rebecca's BeForever meet outfit. It's too bad most of Claudie's outfits were not historically accurate. Her sun costume looks way too modern for a 1920s girl.

Please do at least Kit! I would love to hear about her feedsack dress!

I know this is a weird question but would you like to do a series of you MAKING more historical dresses and outfits? like "I made my ideal American Doll wardrobe" from a decade you love the most? I certainly would watch that, and I don't even GET them over here in the UK!

Could you do like a brief overview of like the 30s and 40s? Maybe not such a detailed, cover like the “main outfits?” Anyway loved this!!

Thank you, Rebecca! The dolls and their outfits are adorable! Love the history; how can they get one outfit so correct and the next so wrong? It would be fun if you were to draft doll-size patterns of the dresses you make for yourself...a mini you! ☺

Judging by the number of knitting and crochet pattern books that had patterns of sweaters and sweater coats for children, I would say it is very accurate for them to have little sweaters/cardigans.

fur trims on coats could have been scraps they found/received cause furriers tried to use all the animal scarps from what ive seen but yeah still would be odd for them unless it was repurposed or hand me down

I love Rebecca’s collection for the most part, but dislike the pieces that really don’t make sense. I’m probably the only one that doesn’t like the current Hanukkah dress since it’s very fine, delicate, and adult. Not to mention not very warm for a holiday that takes place in winter. I prefer the original dress, although I have the BF dress as well since I love the bodice on that one. The school dress is one of my favorites. Interesting that knitwear wasn’t in at that point. I always thought it might be better suited for Kit. Maybe Claudie, too? I wish they hadn’t connected the skirt to the white tank. I assume that it was supposed to give off a separate blouse and pleated skirt look. I think the only reason AG made Rebecca’s collection fancy despite her socioeconomic status was because she replaced Samantha. 😂 Samantha was archived by 2009. I wish Rebecca had a sailor dress! They are my favorites, to the point that I’ve bought multiple sailor suits for my toddler son. I love Claudie’s and really hope she gets more period accurate clothing soon. The designer costumes do nothing for me.

I love this video (and all of them, really)! I just bought Claudie. I wish her travel dress wasnt blue (since her meet dress is blue), but how do you feel about Tiana's work dress on Claudie? Definitely something i'm planning doing, regardless of accuracy, but i was curious as to what you think?

Given how children’s fancy dress is often just small versions of adults…

I kinda hope you’ll be able to do nanah

I wonder if Rebecca's butterfly outfit is for Purim! It's a Jewish holiday where we wear silly costumes and kids often do plays telling the Purim story. She could be dressed as Queen Esther

AAAAAAHHH REBECCA THATS MY GIRL i remember the exact day my library got her book (couldn't afford an actual doll lol) bc she was the only mainstream jewish representation i had growing up :)

Claudine is a lovely doll. I didn’t know of her, but actually read a Rebecca story or two. Have you ever designed and made a dress for a doll that didn’t have a proper wardrobe for their story? Would you?

I don't remember Rebecca butterfly costume at all was it before Beforever or after?

I always put my dolls on their stands regularly not under their clothes. I've seen a lot of other collectors put the waist holders underneath the dolls clothes. I don't know why

I would trim the bottom of the top at 6:00 with the ribbon.

I felt that some of the non historical accurate felt 1950s. The two piece outfits .

I've almost finished Caroline Abbott's story and she's from now what is new York during the war of 1812

The hair bows are soooo small.

this might be a silly question, but was the dropped waist trend on children in the 1900/1910s the reason there was the same trend but on adults in the 1920s? like the girls who grew up wearing the dropped waist wanting to continue to wear it into their adulthood?

why do some rebecca dolls have brown hair and brown eyes and other rebecca dolls have blue eyes and blonde hair?

What would a flower girl at a wedding in this period have worn? The 2nd Hanukkah dress looks wedding-appropriate.

Just a quick thought- Depending on where in NY Rebecca(?, i believe, the one that had the fur coat you featured, and said would likely be a wool) would have theoretically lived, it is possible, if they lived in or near the mountains or forests, there could have been bears, deer, wild cats, and other furry wildlife. If her family hunted as a way of getting survival food, it is also plausible that they would have used as much of the animal as possible and could have obtained furs in that manner. Having access to furs does not always have to indicate wealth, though, yes, it does tend to, it can also be attributed to frugal lifestyle. We still have Natives where I life that hunt deer and use the hides in their traditional ways to make clothes and other cultural materials for the preservation of their culture. They are neither rich, nor buying their furs/hides. Just saying this is a possible explanation.