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Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
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Doll
Plastic Barbie doll with blonde hair tied in pony-tail, wearing plastic gold-coloured ear-rings and 3 panelled sleeveless cotton 'Cool Cymru' dress, depicting Welsh flag.
Body consists of head (of soft plastic), upper torso, arms which are movable at the shoulder but not at the elbows (where they are fixed at a right angle), a lower torso which can swivel from side to side at the waist, and legs which have movable joints at the hips and knees (the thighs and calves are not made from separate pieces of plastic: hence, the knee-joint is internal to the leg. It does not move smoothly like the other joints, but moves at intervals) Body is skin coloured, except for her lower torso (below the waist) which is white and textured with a relief pattern of floral shapes, dots and B's.
Her face is painted in black, white, brown, blue and red (blue eyes). There is a hole in the ring-finger of her right hand for the insertion of a ring-stud.
Dress has white shoulder straps. Handstitching throughout using white cotton thread (Z-twist) and green cotton thread along lower hem (Z-twist) All edges have single turn-backs. Made up of one front panel with darts at the sides of the bust and curved areas above bust, as well as two rear panels (joined by vertical seam at centre back). Dress is very short: does not even cover all of upper thigh.
Elastic hairband is made from braided green synthetic fibre with interlaced strands of thin gold-coloured plastic and gold coloured metal bracket holding band together. Her hair is very long and straight and she has a fringe which curles over her forehead.
Doll is held upright on a steel stand: it consists of a foot which is painted green/grey, and a non-painted upper section which is inserted into the foot. At the top, the upper section is curved round at right angles to the front to support the doll at the waist. This curved section is covered with soft rubbery white plastic.