Dakin Dream Dolls (1965)

Meet the ladies of your dreams, a pair of Dakin Dream Dolls (plus one Holiday Fair figure) !


They seem to be saying, "Oh hi! Fancy meeting you here!"

I cannot BELIEVE I almost left these at the Goodwill Outlet in St. Louis, MO. Bab and I spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to figure out how one would go about exiting the interstate (to which said Goodwill store ran parallel!) and getting to the location, which was apparently only accesible through a VERY counter-intuitive series of turns. I thought it was possibly a weekend without estate sales induced mirage. However! After turning around twice in weird, literally-next-to-the-tracks industrial area parking lots, we found our street (coincidentally, almost adjacent to the National Guard Armory Building, which is way more creepy, broken windowed, and Silent Hill esque than the photos on this site would intimate), and found these lovelies sticking out of one of the large Rubbermaid bins to which most Goodwill outlets seem heir.

I picked the one above out of the bin first, and a fellow shopper immediately fell upon me. "I remember those! I remember those kind of dolls from the sixties! I think I had one of those," she said, fondly touching the figure's greying head. I've seen dolls with faces like these before, but mostly on Asian souvenir figures and dressed in kimonos or other traditional garb. This gal was ready to go out on the town, Shindig style! I love the headband, the trim on her matching skirt/jacket ensemble, and her strange, Edie Sedgwick made-up eyes. Also, what's with the grey hair?

"Pinky" 's tag read "Holiday Fair, Made in Japan, Copyright 1965", which made dating the doll pretty easy, but I haven't come up with much on the Holiday Fair company through light Googling.

Pleased as I was with the first doll, I soon realized there were two more in the same bin! No grabbing, digging, or scouring required-- just sitting on top of the detritus, asking to go home with me.

The second doll has a "Dakin Dream Doll" tag, which, in spite of her resemblance to Pinky, probably makes her more related to the third doll (I'll get to that one). Dakin was a stuffed toys manufacturing company founded in 1966 that specialized in inexpensive novelty plush toys-- I promise you've seen some of these guys before, especially the Dakin Dream Pets. How spindly are their legs? How sweet are their expressions? I especially like the red head's (orange head's?) styled bangs and elfin hat. I think her outfit, if you replaced the white pom poms with white buttons, would be the most wearable. But you might also have to have fifty mile long, pin thin legs like our dolls to pull off the mini! (No knees here, folks. Keep moving)

Last, but not least, on my parade of Dakins, check out the Orange Head's sister, also known as "The Creepy One I Almost Didn't Buy":



Yet, like many an American underdog story, she's kind of becoming my favorite of the bunch. While she does boast the same albino hair, impish features, and terror-inducing stare as the subjects of the movie Children of the Damned, I can't say that the little sparkles surrounding her irises aren't kind of neat! "Beware the stare that will conquer the will of the world!"



You can tell by the wear on these dolls that the colors were initially a little more vibrant:



Pinky is probably supposed to be more of a "Scarlett", but I kind of like the shabbiness of the dolls better than if they were in mint condition. Knowing that during their past lives, they were probably on display somewhere, is a nice thought, right? Right.

Bottom line: THESE THINGS ARE GREAT. I have to resist upon resist Etsy or ebaying to find more of these girls' sisters.

Speaking of, I found this flickr account of one woman's Dakin Dream Doll collection. SHE IS KILLIN' IT, Y'ALL. SHE IS MAKIN' ALL THE REST OF LOOK LIKE SOME SUCKA COLLECTORS. Gosh!

Do you grab up vintage dolls when you see them at junk stores and estate sales, or are you one of those good pickers who only specialize in one kind of collectible (and thus does not live in what amounts to a giant kitsch museum, like myself)? Do you have any Dakins? Tell, tell!

Til next time.