Sunday, October 12, 2008

Did I forget to mention Jenny???



Well, it started with Barbie and then moved to Jenny. Yes, I at one time collected Jenny dolls too. She was my first venture away from Barbie into the world of Asian fashion dolls. I was fascinated by this cute little doll with her cool clothes and for me, sometimes the most intriguing part of the collection, all those wonderful friends. I soon became a member of Biscuit's Club and couldn't find enough Jenny and friends. Now you have to remember that this was back in the dark ages of doll collecting.......NO EBAY!!! So though a publication called Collector's United, I found a lady in Japan who had a monthly auction of Japanese dolls......in particular--Jenny!!!

I bought many dolls from this lady and then suddenly the auctions just stopped. It was a Jenny desert for a couple of years before eBay took up the slack. Around that time Helene was bringing her wonderful Jenny site to a close. I just couldn't imagine letting all that information go offline, so I asked if I could move it over to my barbigirl site. Helene very graciously agreed and here is sits today: http://www.barbigirl.com/jennyhome.htm

Since the discovery of Momoko, Susie and Misaki, Jenny has fallen into decline. I haven't kept up with her as much as I would have liked. I think I owe it to her to get my rear in gear and update her section of the website.

For those of you who don't know her, Jenny is a 17-year-old high school student from Los Angeles (born on August 1st under the sign of the Leo). Her father is a film producer and her mother is a designer. She's a cheerleader at school, but she also has modelling experience and has made her debut as an actress in musicals. Jenny is good at all kinds of sports and especially likes horse-riding, scuba-diving, and aquatics.

Jenny began her career in 1981 under the name Barbie. It seems that at that time, for some reason, Mattel's Barbie was very popular in almost every country in the world, except Japan (maybe she looked too grown-up and glamorous?). That's why Mattel decided to collaborate with a Japanese company to develop a special Barbie, adapted to Japanese children's taste, exclusively for the Japanese market. The first result of their efforts was the doll known as Takara Barbie, and when Mattel withdrew their license in 1986, Takara changed her name to Jenny.

Today I have over 100 Jennys, hmmm, maybe more.

1 comment:

wtsrudi said...

from what I got to see - I think you must have more than 100 of them Larraine... definitely more... hehehehe

Like you - my Jenny collection also declined to just the newly issued friends -- since momoko... Lols!