Just because dolls are created / marketed for kids, they don't need to be garbage. Even my 5 year old niece can point out which doll is "nice" and which doll has "bad makeup" (pixelated).
They are definitely not doing quality like they once did. I don’t know if kids today will be able to play with and keep there Babies in the same condition as we did. That makes me sad 😞 Because there is nothing like being able to go back and get the Barbie you had for decades and it is still in very very good condition. That is real joy in that.
My 8 y.o. niece recently received her first Barbie. This doll has Saran hair and she keeps saying how soft it feels and won't put the doll down. If this had been one of the dolls with poly hair, I doubt my niece would be as excited about her, which means she wouldn't ask for another Barbie. That "cost -saving" measure isn't so smart when you look at it that way.
Mattel doesn't care. All those shapeless sack dresses and miss-printed facial screenings are just shameful. The Fashionistas line is just disposable trash now.😢. But the Fashion Fever Teresa from the early 2000s is absolute love! ❤. WOW! She's amazing! (And to think, that was a playline doll.😳)
I just opened the Down Syndrome Barbie. The best budget doll I have in my collection. They took time and effort on this one so they can do it they just don't want to most of the time.
The peaches and cream "tribute" was the most disappointing and the one I'd want the most. So sad. You talked me around on the other 2 because of the head sculpts, but I'm not excited about any of them. The ending was such an amazing find and show what Barbie has been and could be again. Happy Holidays!
Kids can absolutely tell the difference between a nice high quality doll and a cheap feeling doll. The modern playline Barbies are practically throw-away toys, like a McDonalds prize. I think they could raise the price and make better dolls. People would still buy Barbies for their kids. And they can just keep the "budget" Barbies they already have for that price point.
I love your comments on the headsculpts. Mattel has no excuse for such trash; by making a homage to dolls that only adult collectors love they are trying to appeal to adults. The execution is laughable: dumpy shapeless clothes and high pixalation. Thank you for ending on a positive note: that Teresa is gorgeous and I really want her! Hurray for McKays!
One of the main things about Barbie that ticks me off is how incohesive they are with their clothes and accessories. Like how in the world do the blue shoes and peach dress on 216 make any sense? 😭
I’m done with the Fashionistas. I’m tired of the lack of articulation, the cheap and uninspired clothing, and the pixelated faces. I’ve chosen the favorites I already have in my collection, and those will be the dolls I keep.
Barbie fashionistas just feel like they just wear some sort of t-shirt dress. I just think about when I was young and I had a bunch of fashion Avenue packs that I wish I still had. The quality was amazing I remember they were also snaps and layers. I just wish they had clothes like fashion Avenue.
The quality of Fashion Avenue was perfect. I'm glad I still have quite a bit from when I began collecting at that time. I did give away some to a co-worker's kid, though, when I thought I was done with Barbie. Ugh! I regret that now. 😂
As you know, I don’t have any good discount stores near me. But by chance I came across a early 2000s Barbie fashion, fever, doll at my local thrift store. Her box was completely destroyed, but the doll inside was in really good shape and I picked her up for a very good price. What she had in the box was two different outfits, a brush and two different pairs of shoes plus a handbag. I wish Mattel would go back to that.
Fashionistas are one of my favourite Barbie lines but when I say that I’m talking about the original fashionistas ( 2009- 2013) and then the 2015 - 2018 range before the quality starts to take a nose dive! They used to be such amazing quality,so it’s very disappointing to see what they have now become 😢
the modern barbies can be break easily. I still have the fashion fever barbies and still in good condition, my niece loves it and she find them pretty and fashionable compared to fashionistas
If they use pixal faceups to prevent the face being scrapped off then why would they keep using poly? Poly can not only become ruined if you play with it for 2 seconds but it also falls off after a decade-it makes no sense to claim the pixaltion is to prevent the face being scrapped but yet continuing to use low quality chesp hair that will fall out anyways
These are AWFUL. Why even put the original on the package? They should have just released them as-is and let fans speculate that they were a tribute to prior dolls. I don't think anyone would have, in a million years, but it would have been more fun to figure it out rather than be told and completely disappointed. I have Fashion Fever Hair Highlights Barbie. I never even noticed that she came with a second outfit. LOL
I litterally gasped when you said that the first one’s doll hair is poly. Mattel has Saran in the same shade of that black hair, why couldn’t they used that??? Pathetic. Also what a disappointing wave… I hope next year will be better. But the fashion fever Barbie looks so cool! And she’s really beautiful! And $9? What a good bargain! Awesome doll!
The sack dress doesn't even have zelcro in the back... If this is for a child why is there no zelcro... How the hell are you meant to get it off and on your dolls... Thats like temu or Ali express quality... The fashion play elements of these dolls are just not good
My area has the same stock issues, and what is there doesn't sell. Nobody had the holiday dolls. I still haven't seen most of the 2023 dolls. I think Mattel is going to have to try harder, because parents are over Barbie. Congratulations on finding any Fashion Fever out in the wild, she's gorgeous.
I watched a good video explaining what MGA & Mattel could be doing. MGA took moved most from RH & OMG to focus on Bratz. Kids that liked RH & Omg are grown up. So the soft reboot. And new older kids get articulated Bratz. Mattel maybe took their budget from Barbie ( now the movie hype is over) & put it all into Monster High. It made sense how the video played it, but I dont like it. I love RH & Barbie more than Bratz & MH. 🤷♀️
I must admit i do think that all the money that Mattel made from the barbie movie Maybe they could of been generous and gave the fashionistas no pixelated faces and maybe gave us made to move or even the other articulated joints? Im not surprised that Barbie is going down in sales every year 😔
Business in 50's "you will work hard in factory to improve your life style" Business in 90's "you're to expensive, but the factories go to China so that you can buy cheap stuff" Business in 2023 "the amount of money you pay a cheap Barbie doll can feed a family of the third world for a year. But the richs get richer."
That Theresa is beautifully made, but main interest are Ken dolls, Bratz boys, My Scene boys, action figures, etc, but also have some Barbie dolls and other dolls that cought my eyes, specially Holyday Barbies designed by Bob Mackie.
I got 217 and her facial pixie print is horrible! I’m keeping it in box because I love the face sculpt. Skipping this line entirely. Will buy the clothes off eBay.
Honestly this wave would've been better suited for Barbie Rewind. I received my Fashionista 216 the other day and was disgusted with the dress. Honestly it looks like the dress was found in a thrift store or handed down to this poor doll. They actually could've saved some fabric if the dress would've been more fitted. I received #217 which is overall cute, but her eyes are not painted on right. My absolute favorite is #215 because I love that face mold, her long black hair is soft and the outfit is decent. The only downside is the face pixelation. I do love that this doll is racially ambiguous so that each owner can decide what they want her to be.
Happy Holidays! That Fashion Fever Theresa is an incredible find! By the way, her "sticky" boots is a common condition that happen to all things plastic. I believe the technical name is "plasticizer migration" to the surface as plastic degrades. Just like rubber bands degrade over time, plastics will degrade too. You can use rubbing alcohol to wipe it down and then use a bit of talcum or corn starch to absorb the stickiness. Or you can use a bit of baking soda mix with water to clean it. But it is a temporary fix as it will come back. While I loved the Fashion Fever doll line, I hated that they almost always came with Kanekalon hair! One way you could tame the hair is to add a little hair conditioner to a cup of boiling water, mix well and pour over the dolls head and comb through the hair and let air dry.
This Teresa has always been my favorite headsculpt of all! Happy New Year and a safe journey, sweetie! 🎆🎇🎆 When I got all my stuff from AZ in September I found an entire box of Barbie clothes from the mid-90’s through the mid 2000. What a difference!
I might get the TNT one when she goes cheap. She's cute petite and would look good in this spare Rainbow High outfit I have. I got 206 and 208 from the last wave, and they are so nice both are some of the better Barbies released this year.
Your thumbnail influenced me into flattening my hair highlights Teresa, because mine's rubberband desintegrated and she was left with an ugly shapeless bump on her head 😂 I was literally leaving her wrapped on a bag with elástics soaking her covered head on boiling water as you were unboxing yours Needles to say, the bump was gone by the time you finished and I was happy to have her in a more presentable condition afterwards ❤
This Teresa doll is really nice and unique. I remember her in one of the shops here in Bulgaria but there were so many beautiful dolls then that I didn't buy her. And because I was into Mackie. I bought one Mackie with similar clothes. They were very expensive here. Nowadays almost no doll atracts me enough to pay money on it.
It gets even more confusing when it comes to the hair, I've seen Mattel use either poly hair or saran hair on the SAME Fashionista. I am almost certain they did this with Fashionistas 188 and 182, my 188 has nice soft saran hair but I saw a ton of people on Amazon complain about her crappy frizzy hair (and it looks poly in their pics). My 182 has horrible frizzy poly hair but when I watched Barbination's review on her it looked soft and beautiful and he said it was saran! So even if you watch a review you still may not know for sure what kind of hair you will get stuck with!!
love your review on these dolls. I have to cut back on buying dolls because I'm running out of room to display them. Since these are more of the same face mold I won't be getting these. The pixelation on the the faces is really bad too. The doll wearing the pink top with stars looks like a Native American. The contrast in quality between the new Fashionistas and the Fashion Fever doll is vastly different. Great comparison.
I only copped 2..218.. And 219..thankfully pixelation didn't plague them.. At least not badly for the girl.. It's sad it's a crap shoot like that.. My collection will be 90s and early 2000s dolls
not everything has to be aimed at collectors, that said kids do deserve quality products, with proper thought out designs and nicer fabrics. these fashionistas are disappointing, so much potential wasted
I have to agree with you about this wave because they could have been so much better since they're paying homage to some older dolls. But the clothing choices they picked are pretty horrible. That being said though I do get the fashionistas because I like the core doll like you but I usually will switch the clothing out with something better.
i stopped buying Fashionista lately..even the Holiday 2022 and this year 2023- becomes Cheap too- looks playline too considering its for collectors😢Sad..
People who say "They are dolls for children, they don't need to be perfect" have to remember the quality of dolls that mattel used to put out when we were kids was 1000% better than what children get today. so WE doll collectors know quality and what used to be, and those who don't know... sorry but maybe you should save you comments for something you are a little more educated for. "Stick to What you Know!" . P.S. Barbie's GBF, you are amazing, I love you videos, you were the first one that would talk about the face sculpts and I love that!
I have a question about Fashionistas #215. I agree with you that she is a beautiful doll and I am curious about her head sculpt/mould. I have been trying to figure out if it's a new mould or possibly one that hasn't been used for playline dolls for awhile?. You seemed familiar with her head mould, can you please tell me which one it is? I thought it might be the Karl mould but I am not sure. Information on her head mould will be greatly appreciated. I did enjoy watching your video, it's great to see a guy who collects 1/6 Fashion dolls:).
I love everything Barbie... Except where Mattel is heading with them lately. 😢 Children may love the non movable but i will never buy ones that don't articulate for them or for myself.
But honestly, I need to say this. We are also part of the problem, all of us who keep buying these really bad fashionistas. If we stopped buying them, the decrease in sales would definitely let them know that it's not ok to put them out on the market looking like that. But give them the money and of course they will not care.
Really bad face screening on the Peaches n cream inspired doll. It made her face look clownish and I couldn’t work out why. I have Barbies I’ve had for many decades. I used to play out doors with them, put them in the bath, everything and not one of them lost their face paint. The newer fashionistas I’ve seen second hand have. It’s got to be a money issue. Why is the clothing always nylon? Same reason? Because the cotton clothes lasted so well.
The red head looks like Claudia schiffer sculpt. I love the black doll with the braids. I want to get her and make a custom Sister Night (Aka Regina King) doll from Watchmen.
Considering that fashion avenue and fashion fever were also playline dollls, use thought that the fashionistas are playline dolls for kids, it’s not a valid excuse
these fashion wise are the absolute pits of what they are made to resemble ,i can just wonder did someone do a line of coke in a bathroom at mattel and was off there face when these were approved,the dolls are lovely but way off there playline previous dolls,carol spencer and kitty black perkins we need you now
