The original title for this post was going to be “Someone at Mattel must love the styles of the Qing Dynasty” except that was way too long… sorry if the new title misled anybody 
Anywhooo… I have come to this thought because out of the few dolls Mattel has made of an East Asian Barbie wearing historic Chinese fashions, they have been from the Qing Dynasty – except the new-ish Empress of the Golden Blossom who is in a Tang Dynasty looking style as well as being super expensive – it is funny that out of thousands of years of recorded Chinese history and culture, only the Qing Dynasty has been noticed and that era was only around for about 300 years (ok, less… but almost) AND the rulers were actually sorta invaders in the first place… sort of not because they are part of China but sort of yes because they weren’t of the majority Han Chinese people, well nowadays they are mostly assimilated into the majority Han population…
Anyway, onto the dolly pics – Princess of China SKU# 53368 (official release year 2002) – this doll was actually made in China too in 2001.
Princess of China
Princess of China
It would be cool to see Mattel explore the styles of the other Chinese eras or even other East Asian cultures because not all all Asian people are Chinese you know…
Tags: barbie dolls, east asian, qing dynasty
I personally don’t mind long titles. I think it could be funny especially if you made the body very short. ^_^
I’m not very familiar with Chinese history especially the fashion the went along with every dynasty. I was wondering what could be in your wish list if Mattel was to do another historically inspired Chinese outfit.
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Therese Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 9:56 am
To be honest… I am very biased… but I would actually love to see historic Vietnamese characters in costumes depicting the origin legend of Vietnam (it’s pure fantasy but very cool) – I have been meaning to make my own set but… I keep delaying it hehe
Some History of Vietnam pre-colonialism and modern war…
I would like to see Filipino costumes before colonialist influence too
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Niel Reply:
September 25th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Vietnam legendary attires? That would be cool! As you know, I like fantasy dolls as well.
As for pre-colonial Filipino outfit, that would be very ummm… can’t think of a right word but controversial comes to mind, especially if they didn’t do much research.
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Therese Reply:
September 25th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
hehehe what do you mean? controversial to the commercial market ie. USA or to Filipino people? I can’t find much imagery of pre-Spanish information about the Philippines.
Colonialism makes me angry, it destroyed too much history.
Niel Reply:
September 28th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I was thinking to the Filipino people. I don’t know. It might misrepresent us.
And commercial and history don’t quite mix, do they?
Yay, a new DollsofColor post!
A collector on Webshots has some Asian Barbies from Thailand, Cambodia, and Japan. I think that there was at least one Barbie from Korea … not sure when though. Usually though, Asian seems to mean Chinese or Japanese … for most doll makers.
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Therese Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I actually do have Princess of Korea… she will be in a new post later today (probably your morning hehe)
I guess my issue has a lot to do with tokenism – one character of each nation (and then not even really) rather than a regular representation.
I don’t think I’ve posted info to my whole collection anywhere on this website… this is *almost* my entire collection – TN’s Dolls
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