The Doll Podcast
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The Doll Podcast
Celebrating Sindy
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British toy designer Rachel Godfroy joins host Louisa Maxwell to celebrate over sixty years of fashion doll Sindy.
Sindy was launched in 1963 by Pedigree toys at a time when British fashion and music were sweeping the world. The Beatle’s topped the charts with “She Loves You” and Mary Quant’s mini skirts set off a youth quake in fashion. Sindy was a doll created for the British market and she reflected the culture and fashion of a very exciting time.
Louisa and Rachel chart the course of fashion doll Sindy throughout her six decades and her enduring legacy as a time capsule of popular culture and fashion.
Rachel Godfroy, who has worked in the Toy industry for twenty years as a designer, illustrator, and brand developer and was the designer for Sindy’s relaunch in 2020.
Celebrating Cindy
Speaker 1Welcome to the Doll Podcast . I'm your host , Louisa Maxwell . Cindy , the fashion doll that was launched in the swinging 60s , celebrated her 60th birthday in 2023 . It's a milestone birthday for a doll that's a firm favourite with vintage and modern collectors alike . To discuss Cindy and her history , my guest is British toy designer Rachel Godfroy , who has worked in the toy industry for 20 years as a designer , illustrator and brand developer , and was part of the design team for Cindy's relaunch in 2020 . Rachel Godfroy , welcome to the Doll Podcast .
Speaker 2Thank you very much . It's amazing to be here . Thanks for inviting me .
Speaker 1Well , it's really lovely to talk to you again . We spoke before , when you were working on the Cindy project in 2020 , and that resulted in some fabulous dolls , and it's really great to talk to you again because we're both Cindy girls , aren't we ?
Speaker 2Absolutely yeah .
Speaker 1I had Cindy in my childhood and I really enjoyed playing with her .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Oh , me too . How do you feel ?
Speaker 2about Cindy reaching the milestone birthday of 60 years . I mean 60 years of Cindy it is . It's completely amazing . And I think it's amazing for a doll brand to have gone on this long , for 60 years , because there are a lot of other doll brands and toy brands which just haven't lost the distance . And if you think back to older brands like Thomas the Tank Engine , Rupert the Bear and Paddington , They've all had TV series and movies and books about them and Cindy hasn't had that .
Speaker 2You know she was always the girl next door and I think that both the pedigree and other companies that have had her before Cindy was kind of designed on her own strengths .
Speaker 2She was so different from other dolls and so for me I'm not surprised that she's lasted this long , even though she's had a lot of changes .
Speaker 2But I think definitely during the last 20 years or so , I think Cindy really has been carried on by the collectors out there because they are so passionate about Cindy and they organise meet-ups and get get togethers . And there's an amazing doll convention in Lincoln which happens every year , called Dollycon , and my friend Mel Quint it's amazing she organises it and the amount of people who go and are on waiting lists to go , because it's such an amazing day where a lot of Cindy people really have the same personality , amazing day where a lot of Cindy people really have the same personality , the same interest , so everybody gets on really , really well . It's lovely , and it's been so lovely for me , being a doll collector and a doll fan , to be able to design these dolls but also being able to hear from their points of view of what they wanted for Cindy too . So I think that from the last well , especially the last few years , there's definitely been a lot of collector input , because a lot of them are my friends and complete Cindy fans , just like me . So , yeah , it's great .
Speaker 1You have the distinction of having been part of the design team for the play line and you've also been part of the design team for the collector line . That came out a couple of years ago and they're beautiful dolls . I have the recreation of cindy in weekenders , which is a lovely blue and white we'll have pictures on the website but lovely red , white and blue top . But this , the doll itself , is vibrant , really beautiful hair . I mean it's one that personally , I would keep in my collection forever . It's just a beautiful doll , and isn't it ?
Speaker 1fantastic that there's a convention like DollyCon and that everyone can get together and there's so many activities online . When you go on Instagram , for example , some of the pictures are extraordinary that people do and the reroutes and the creativity around Cindy . It's a fantastic , vibrant community .
Speaker 2It's amazing and I love it , when people get vintage Cindy's that they found in a charity shop and they completely save them and they show them online and everybody's like this is amazing , we love , you know , and it kind of cheers other people on to do it .
Speaker 2There have been a lot of people who have not really had the confidence to paint cindy like paint cindy's face or to re-root her hair , and other people have just kind of they're being cheerleaders for people who are trying to get into it . So more and more people are doing it and it's becoming such a massive thing that when I look on doll collector groups now , you do obviously find a lot of the vintage Cindy's there anyway , but a lot of them are these amazing Cindy's that other people have done and placed it with these incredible dioramas where they've got amazing shops and tiny living rooms that they've created for Cindy Just incredible . You know I love it . It's such a massive world of Cindy compared to you know what we think of other doll brands . You know I it . It's such a massive world of Cindy compared to you know what we think of other doll brands , you know I think it's incredible you know , the amazing thing is living here in Vienna .
Speaker 1I always associate because I had Cindy when I was growing up in Ireland , um , and yeah , yo , I was fantastic . But here in Vienna Cindy was also a thing too . So we do find Cindy in the doll collector shops , but sometimes in flea markets and other places . Oh wow , it's great to know that the Cindy community is just as into it here as everywhere else . She's really a worldwide phenomenon and that's a wonderful thing . And I also saw Cindy's . I was at Puppenfest in Germany . It's the big doll festival in May . Wow , I mean , it's a whole town devoted to dolls . You look up and down the streets and there are stands selling dolls everywhere . It's a bit . My husband got in the car and ran away .
Speaker 1And it was just amazing to see Cindy . I love seeing her as a worldwide phenomenon , and of course she was in the US as well . So you know , we've all grown up with Cindy .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's been amazing . And I met somebody at Dollycon a few years ago . Her name was Elizabeth and she had come all the way from the Far East and she absolutely loved Cindy . And it's amazing to hear from people from all parts of Europe and Australia and the US absolutely love Cindy in all her forms , whether it's one of the brand new ones or whether it's one of the vintage ones . Everybody seems to have such a love of Cindy , whether it's nostalgic or something new , that they've kind of started collecting or whatever .
Speaker 1It's something that's amazing , it's great , I love her and I've been very lucky here because we've really good doll hospitals so you can bring in . Some of my limping cindies have now been had their legs put back and all kinds of things and you know , they just look as good as new . And then I love a reroute yes so I'm there with the big needle and my husband just looks at me like what are you doing ? Sticking that ? Oh , I , I'm like , do it Cindy's Reroot . But there's such joy in it .
Speaker 2I think there really is a thing of dolly therapy I really do . There's so many people I mean I love rerouting doll's heads that it's something that you can do , which is very mindful . You're working on something that you absolutely love maybe you had it as a child and when you remake , especially one of your old favorite dolls , you know and bring it to life in a completely new way . I think there's something so thrilling about that . It's amazing .
Speaker 1My favorite thing with Cindy is to find a destroyed , poor side part Cindy who really needs a makeover and to really give her that beautiful side part look again and then had kind of a flip hairdo . I mean , it's one of my favorite Cindy looks . It's just wonderful therapy , like you said , and there's just so much information . If anyone is listening to this , I'll give lots of links to sites that allow you to learn how to do all these amazing things for Cindy , because it is a very relaxing thing to do .
Speaker 2It is .
Speaker 1Cindy was launched in 1963 by Pedigree Toys at a time when British fashion and music were sweeping the world . The Beatles topped the charts with she Loves you , yeah , yeah , yeah , and Mary Quant's miniskirt set off a youthquake in fashion . Cindy was a doll created for the British market and she reflected the culture and fashion of a very exciting time . Rachel , do you think Cindy is a time capsule of British pop culture ?
Speaker 2Absolutely .
Speaker 2I think it's amazing . I visited the V&A Museum of Childhood a while ago . There was something on there about toys reflecting the social culture from every decade and it really brought it home to me that Cindy was absolutely the epitome of that , especially for British culture , because I think we have something which is very different from other countries , especially when it comes to fashion , and I think , especially , as you've mentioned earlier , with the 1960s and Tuffington Fall and I think when it got on to the 1970s , when you really saw some of the fashions really explode , cindy was wearing all of them . It was incredible . She had so many outfits and they really reflected the flares and the long collared tops that she had and all of the dresses that she had . All the patterns and the colors were all so trendy . It was things that you could see . If you'd walked into a store in the 70s any high street store in the UK you would have found something that Cindy would have worn , which was kind of
Designing Fashion for Cindy Doll
Speaker 2incredible .
Speaker 2And then for me my childhood of Cindy was the 1980s , the early 80s . So for me I was watching Top of the Pops and Princess Diana was going to get married to Charles , so of course , like that was enormous . And you know , pedigree brought out a Cindy with short hair like Princess Diana . Her wedding dress looked very much like the Princess Diana wedding dress that you saw , looked very much like the Princess Diana wedding dress that you saw . And of course they had the Emanuels who designed Princess Diana's wedding dress design a whole load of evening dresses for her as well .
Speaker 2And again she had just masses and masses of clothes , which I used to go into a shop called Chelsea Girl which was kind of a high street , very trendy store and you could buy things in there that you would find on Cindy Not exactly the same , but you could tell that the whole thing had been influenced by what was happening that year in fashion . It was absolutely brilliant . And of course , all the hairstyles as well . It was very , very 80s . It was great . And then even with the furniture as well , with the 1970s , the amazing kitchen that you could buy you could have found that in any kind of catalogue and it was amazing because it all worked . And that's what I think I thought was just fantastic that you would be able to open the door and the light of the fridge would come on .
Speaker 1Oh yeah , the stove had something in it as well , it heated up if you put batteries in the back it did something you know .
Speaker 1It was really interesting because it captures . You know , if you watch like stuff like now , my era is more of the 70s . But if you watch things like mary tyler moore , for instance , or any of these famous sitcoms you know from the 60s , 70s , 80s , you see cindy's house reflecting that kind of distilled look that they want to get at the time to capture what's in like in any Littlewoods catalog or whatever Sears if you're in the US folks , or wherever we are around the world . But it's really interesting that the dolls were reflecting what was going on . But it was so tiny details like little potatoes to go in the pot that went on the stove . And , of course , everyone's favorite yes , folks , cindy's toilet , let's . Yes , cindy was brave enough to say I have a toilet . Yes , that girl could keep it real . I mean , I don't know , I don't remember barbie having a toilet no , never she'd an airplane .
Speaker 2She'd a camper , she had multiple vehicles , but I don't remember having a toilet , I mean yeah , and I mean , how much fun did every child have pretending that their cindy was going to the toilet ? I thought it was brilliant , brilliant , and the bath went with it . So you know the shower and the bath .
Speaker 1You'd have one in the bath , one in the toilet and you know your younger sister would decide to put water in everything .
Speaker 2Yep Not realizing . You know there's a lot of cardboard involved in this house .
Speaker 1So maybe water is not a good idea 's . It's brilliant because it allows children to really act out . You know a little life for the doll and then think about what kind of little life they would like .
Speaker 2You know if they're their own little house and I think as well . I think that especially young children , they have a lot of rules they have to follow , you know , obviously just to keep them safe and everything else . So I think that Cindy especially , and other dolls , but I think for me especially , you could act out whatever you wanted to with Cindy , with no rules whatsoever . You know she had a house , she had a car , but to me she was a young teenager which in an adult world obviously you wouldn't have . But you could make her . You know you could make her do anything that you wanted to . A lot of the time I used to like pretending that she was a princess in an enchanted castle . You know I'd make a cardboard castle for her and pretend that we were back in medieval times . You know she wasn't always for me like the 1980s trendsetter , but she was for everybody . But I think that was it . I think a lot of the furniture and the doll's house , the tv studio and the hospital that she had there was a hospital .
Speaker 2There was a hospital . Well , it was a hospital play set and it was amazing you'll have to look it up because it's incredible and it had two sides to it . So one was the operating theater and the other side was a hospital ward where she had the bed , and it literally I'm not kidding it came with like a tiny plastic syringe . It came with a bag that you could kind of hang up on one of those lines so you could put an iv drip into her , had x-rays and things that turned off and turned on , and a little um , a little tray that went over the bed which had water and a bit of food for her , and I just thought it was brilliant . Oh gosh , that is brilliant .
Speaker 1I wish I had that . I have the tv studio that was amazing .
Speaker 2I loved that , you know , and what was great for I think for me especially that where they had the weather , like the weather charts on the back , that was exactly like the BBC's , you know , there'd be somebody standing there , a guy called Michael Fish who was like the weatherman at the time , and he would be sticking these stickers . But it was that kind of thing , I think . For me , cindy , compared with Barbie and other dolls , cindy felt more real , I think , because she was , even though obviously she didn't look realistic in that way . She had a well-cautioned body but obviously her head didn't look realistic . But for me she was more real than any other doll that I had because of the world that she lived in and because of the clothes that she dressed in , because it was what I was seeing all around me and then I could recreate straight in front of me as a child , which was great .
Speaker 1It's not a fashion model style . It's , as you said , the kind of thing you went into a shop as a young teen and bought on a Saturday . So if you were looking at your older sister and being a bit aspirational , when you walk down the high street , you were seeing the same kind of clothes as Cindy wore and , of course , Cindy's . As you said , Cindy's first wardrobe drew on the talents of design team Tuffin and Foll and they did fantastic graphic print mini skirts and dresses and these were the thing to wear shopping in the boutiques of the King's Road or Carnaby Street .
Speaker 2And then , of course , mary .
Speaker 1Quant is another famous name associated with Cindy , so the pedigree design team and designer Valerie Saunders transformed these couture designs into looks fit for fashion doll Cindy . Rachel , when you're designing fashions for Cindy , what's the biggest challenge ?
Speaker 2I think the biggest challenge today is that there are so many trends going on and fashion is so fast that something that back in the 1980s and even the 1990s , you could pretty much predict what was going to happen next year and you'd be able to do the doll's eye knowing that it would be relevant for the year afterwards . What we have now is that , with Instagram and social media and teen fashion going so quickly all the time , it's knowing then which fashion trends you would like to capture for Cindy and which ones that you think I don't think that's going to last or not . So there's an awful lot of research that goes into that , because sometimes it can be hit and miss . And the other big design challenge , I think , is that Cindy and , for now , a lot of fashion dolls is that the children who are playing with Cindy are much younger than they were , like you know , 20 , 30 years ago . So they're much younger . So you need to make sure that , keeping with Cindy's girl next door character , that all of the fashions are age appropriate and fun and that the clothes can be put on and taken off and exchanged really easily , because that's really frustrating when you have a fashion doll and you can't put the clothes on , and then also obviously , making sure that all of the fashion is still on trend . And I think one of the ways that I get around that is I always see Cindy as a teenager through a child's eyes , so you never think you 'd never have to think that you're an adult . When you're designing anything for children , toy wise , you have to think you know it's a child's rules , and so for me it's a lot
Designing Affordable and Trendy Cindy Doll
Speaker 2of .
Speaker 2I think when people were certainly saying with these new Cindy play line , they were saying , well , there's a lot of pastels , there's a lot of pinks and lilacs and that kind of thing . And we know that the reason that we used a lot of those colors was because it sold really well . That's the colors that young kids are dressing themselves in , and it was the colors that they liked . They chose for their accessories as well and their bedding and their bedrooms , like they chose for their accessories as well and their bedding and their bedrooms . And we did try other colors . We did a lot of market research , but the young kids that were looking at this really preferred all the pinks and the lilacs , so we were going with them . You know it wasn't kind of something that we thought that we would just dream up .
Speaker 2We went out with a lot of kids' opinions and I think also , I suppose for me as well , thinking of the budget obviously that you get , which is very boring and technical . I mean , if it was me , I would love Cindy to be like this doll , that you could have every accessory possible in with it . You know , and I always wanted to design a doll which has a whole lot of clothes that went in it as well , and obviously you can't do that when you're designing commercially . So a lot of things and accessories that I would put in these dolls were eventually taken out because they just would have been too expensive . The design team , we all agreed that we needed to keep it at a price that would be affordable for everybody , because the collector's dolls obviously were expensive and for a play line . We knew that there were other dolls out there , like the LOLs and the Rainbow Highs and Barbie , which were really really expensive , and we wanted Cindy to be really high quality and to have moving joints and everything . It wouldn't be a basic doll Every doll would be the same and have the same quality to it , but we wanted to make sure that we were on budget as well .
Speaker 2So you have all these things to think about budget and then fashion trends , and then are kids going to like it ? Are they going to be into this next year ? And then you also have to look at TV shows as well and what they're into . What movies are coming out next year too . So I often find myself living the life of a six-year-old , watching the movies on Disney and that kind of thing . And it's funny when I do meet young kids and they kind of look at me like this grown adult and I'm chatting to them about something . And then I say , oh , have you seen this movie recently ? And they kind of look at me and they're like , how do you know about that ?
Speaker 2Or what's your favorite Care Bear or my Little Pony and they're like , wow , how do you know about that kind of stuff ?
Speaker 1Yeah , I know , they think everything started with them and they're like wow , how do you know about that kind ?
Speaker 2of stuff . Yeah , I know they think everything started with them . Yes , absolutely yeah . So it's really important , I think , especially for me to remain relevant all the time . So , but I am . We're all looking at adult fashion as well as teen fashion and child fashion and trying to get a good balance between all of that and the budget too . So it's not really just , I suppose , one challenge . There's a lot of different challenges that all come with it . But , of course , if you're designing for Cindy and it's designing for , like , your childhood idol and best friend , and we all really put our hearts and souls into it , so every , every tiny decision that we put into it was really really well thought out . You know , just because we love the doll so much , it it was great .
Speaker 1Well , it's true , it's like even us together making this podcast . I mean , why are we making it ? Because we love Cindy . She just spoke to us throughout our childhood and , as we mentioned before , thousands and thousands of people all over the planet love Cindy . She's just so popular . The planet love Cindy . She's just so popular . When I think back about Cindy my favorite- still is Weekenders because it was such a kind of cutting edge thing Jeans were coming in as a thing and I remember getting a pair and that was really new and she wore jeans and you identified with that and it meant you were .
Speaker 1It made you feel teenage , it made you feel separate from adults , even though there's a lot of great fashions to wear and mod fab stuff going on , even as a kid , but what was really lovely was that she was just this little model that you held in your hand and you felt like she really did shop in really great boutiques where teenage girls would actually shop . What's your favorite Cindy outfit ?
Speaker 2Oh my goodness . Well , I think I'm an 80s Cindy kid , so the early 80s was just my biggest thing for me , and although I wasn't really into fashion as a kid , I was really into kind of more fantasy , I suppose . So one of my favorite , favorite Cindy's her look was space fantasy .
Rediscovering Childhood Memories With Cindy
Speaker 2I'd never seen a doll with pink hair before and especially Cindy and that she was wearing this incredible like pink and silver outfit which was totally out of this world . I'd never seen anything like it before . Although I'd seen her in the catalog , I didn't actually get her until about 10 years ago when I got her in the box winning her on an auction . It was one of those amazing kind of childhood experiences suddenly flashing back to you and you think , wow , I've actually managed to get this after all these years . And you know , I think I was just as excited about getting that doll as I was when I would have been about nine . It was incredible .
Speaker 1I really understand this . I bought for the first time . I bought Cindy a present for her 60th birthday , oh , brilliant . But I bought her Paul because we never had a Paul in my collection or my sister's collection and I just feel , you know , it'd be nice for Cindy to meet him .
Speaker 2But more about him later .
Speaker 1It is an amazing sensation when you find that childhood memory . I remember because my Weekenders doll went a long time ago and when I recreated that memory by buying one , it was an amazing moment . And then after that , I found a photograph of myself holding my original Cindy so it's like you get a little bit of that person back and you think about the person you are now .
Speaker 2So getting the pink haired one .
Speaker 1That's a great doll . She looks like something off Top of the Pops from . Legs and Co . They used to have all these dancers . For those of you who didn't grow up with Top of the Pops , they have all these fabulous dancers . They're really marvelous dancers who used to come out and do these great routines to whatever the top number one song was , and Cindy was capturing that . Look that we saw every week .
Speaker 2Yeah yeah , they had another one called Starlight Cindy and she was wearing this really sparkly , shiny , crazy suit that you would have seen pop stars wearing on top of the pops . And she was another one and she had crimped hair . Of course crimped hair in the 80s was really in , and she was another one of my favorites as well . I thought she was incredible . There were so many . I suppose the one look , which is very I suppose it's what Cindy's really most popular for was the ballerina . She stayed with me , you know , always , and I even remember as a little kid , you know , doing up her little laces at the back , these little plastic laces , and making her pose in different ways .
Speaker 1The little laces on the shoes once they came undone . It was a nightmare .
Speaker 2It took hours , hours , just for the popper Kids .
Speaker 1that's how we kept out of trouble way back then , because we didn't have mobile phones . So we were there trying to tie Cindy's shoes on instead of having an iPhone and being on TikTok .
Speaker 2Yeah , take you hours . Just the same amount of time , I think .
Speaker 1Yeah , it was wonderful the ballerina was a really beautiful Cindy and it came in this rather long box where she posed doing a split and the costume was excellent and the mobility of the doll's body , the joints , the hand joint , the ankle joint it was really beautiful . It was a beautiful doll .
Speaker 2No one had ever seen that before either . I think , especially for me when Barbie was just starting to come in to the UK . Then , and I think that what really got me , my mum bought me a Barbie when I was about nine or 10 and it was peaches and cream and it was very , very glamorous , but she had arms that were just kind of stuck at the halfway elbow position and didn't move . I found that Barbie's body and her hands were really made of hard plastic and of course , cindy had these wonderful vinyl limbs which was soft , and I found her very easy to dress . And I found in Barbie's shoes I was always leaving them somewhere because they were so tiny and with Cindy you had these shoes which were easy to put on and stayed on . You know , I also had shaping up Cindy as well , which was one of my favorites , and she obviously was right out of the 80s .
Speaker 1she looked like she had just come out yeah , she was going for the burn with Jane Fonda .
Speaker 2Yes , and I remember getting the box . I remember having it at Christmas and it had written on the front over 115 poses and I remember sitting there on Christmas morning trying to work out which one would be the 115 poses .
Speaker 1You know , what would be a great thing to do on TikTok is get that doll and try and do the 115 poses you know . Put it in a reel or something it'd be amazing , try it out . Someone's going to do that now they will send it to us send it to us .
Speaker 1We want to see it , but that's the thing the chat know . A toy should challenge you . It shouldn't just be something that's plonk there in front of you . You need to engage and she engaged . All through the decades with various trends like fitness . There was a lot of royalty themed dolls . There was dolls that came out to celebrate various milestones in the late queen elizabeth's reign and various anniversaries and things and they were beautiful dolls and they were , they were , they were channeling .
Speaker 1There was a kind of a . You know , the maxi dress was a big thing in the 70s . They kind of channeled that edwardian vibe but it was really cool and on trend and , as you said , the Emanuels , so many wonderful designers who worked with Cindy .
Speaker 1But we mentioned of course she had this boyfriend , Paul , and she had little sister Patch . And you know , just like Cindy , Paul's wardrobe , his wardrobe was really on trend too . He shared his name with heartthrob Paul McCartney of the Beatles , and that can't be lost on pop fans , and he drew his fashion inspiration from pop star style too . So did you have Paul or Patch ? We had Patch . My little sister had Patch , but I had Cindy , and Patch was so cute with the school uniform and all those things . As I said , I didn't get Paul till now . Did you have Paul ?
Speaker 2Funnily enough , no . So I have a little brother and he had Action man , so I was quite happy . I don't think I ever asked for Paul , because obviously Cindy had her Action man and they could be articulated in the same way that Cindy could . So that was brilliant . They were always going off to dances and getting on adventures together . And I didn't have a patch doll . I always wanted one but I never had one . The closest I got was a doll called Amanda Jane , but she was very much smaller than Cindy . But yeah , I suppose back in the early 80s patch wasn't sold again . You know that that was the end of it was at the 60s .
Speaker 1When did ? When was she withdrawn in the 70s ?
Speaker 2it must have been the 70s . Yeah , it's a shame , but I mean when I started working for Cindy back in the late 90s , when Vivid Imaginations had taken the license for manufacturing Cindy from Hasbro , they brought back Patch and Paul in a different form . So they brought back Patch , as Cindy's little sister Didn't look anything like the original Patch . I thought she was a bit of a not very good looking version , but so they called her Patty instead of Patch . So I wanted maybe I was supposed to update the name and then , of course , paul . In exactly the same vein as they named Paul , cindy's boyfriend was called Robbie .
Speaker 1Wait a minute , that's a bit controversial .
Speaker 2Yes , it is , isn't it ? I don't know if I'd want my child playing with Robbie Williams .
Speaker 1That's true .
Speaker 2This was kind of in the old , like the very start of the Take that era .
Speaker 1I'm thinking of when he was first . I mean , he's a great performer . I'm a fan , don't get me wrong . Well , you know , when you're dealing with children , you kind of want a pop star . That you know . You know , paul mccartney seemed super . The beatles looked , yeah , super squeaky clean , but of course , at the time , their hair , their haircuts and Paul had that same haircut to adults who had grown up in the 50s the Beatles looked very , very different . So I suppose maybe that's the the element you always need , that you're thinking ahead on what kids are engaging
Cindy Doll's Evolution and Challenges
Speaker 1with today .
Speaker 2Yeah , as you said , I think yeah , especially because around that time as well was when the Spice Girls were around . So the reason that Cindy's best friend was called Mel was after Mel B . So you know the scary Spice . So you know she was really much a millennial girl . Back then , again , she took inspiration from pop stars and that kind of thing too , pop stars and that kind of thing too . So a lot of the friends that she had , or the um , obviously Robbie that she had as well the outfits that they had , even though obviously they weren't as beautifully created as the ones back in the 60s and 70s , they were still very much kind of millennial on trend at the time yeah , it was what was happening , yeah in the UK especially yeah , it is really interesting because the UK is a very fast-paced fashion market and it just moves so quickly and Cindy had to stay right on trend with all of that and that's amazing that she did .
Speaker 1Yeah , cindy has had her share of different looks over the decades . In 1986 , she opted for a new face sculpt and a more slender figure , and in 1989 she had to make over again with a more adult face and figure . Do you think she was trying to be more like her rival barbie ?
Speaker 2yeah , I , I think , well , I think from . I suppose my perspective is that Hasbro took over the license to manufacture Cindy and of course they're an American company and I think they really wanted to bring Cindy to the mass market and introduce a competitor to Barbie , and I think that's why they thought , right , well , let's make her look more American to appeal to that market . So of course , they made Cindy look far more like Barbie with this , as you say , the slender figure and the smaller , more realistic head . But of course Mattel then filed a lawsuit against them , saying that you really can't have a doll like Cindy who looks so much like Barbie . Now , so apparently I think Hasbro sent over a whole load of face sculpts to Mattel and they were the ones who actually said well , you may have these ones , you can choose from these ones . These ones are the ones that we will accept , we will not sue you for , but the other ones that you have used we're not . You know we don't need to use them . So so , yeah , so they kind of carried on that way .
Speaker 2But of course , cindy Reid didn't make any US markets . She was still very big in the UK but , as you say , barbie was massive , she was becoming enormous in the UK as well , especially because of all the American influences that we had , all the TV shows that we had . You know those movies , you know it was amazing . So Barbie suddenly became more relatable to kids because they were watching American TV shows and getting American popular culture .
Speaker 2For me , I think that was one of the worst decisions that were made for Cindy , because she had such a unique look and I think they could have carried her on in the same way that in Japan , the Takara Nikuchan doll hasn't changed her face since 1986 . And she's been really popular since . And although I know , obviously , that our culture is different there and the population obviously favours a different look for the doll , I still think that we had such an individual and classic look for Cindy that I think we could have pulled off for the last 60 years , you know , just by changing little bits here and there . So although I think that Cindy's gone through so many different changes after looking very much more like her American counterpart , I'm so pleased that now we managed to get her back to how I thought she should have originally have been . She should have been like my favorite doll , which was the early 1980s one .
Speaker 1When she came back and you were part of the design team that brought her back in 2020 , she was right on trend because she came back , as you said , with a face sculpt , which was from her earlier era , and she was back to being Cindy but her jobs and the things she was doing . She was exploring life as a media influencer , also a pet groomer , and she came with all these cute tiny animals . It was really , really sweet . She was a stylist , she was a dancer and ballerina , she was a florist , came with loads of great accessories and a baker too , so she was getting ready to get on TV and win one of those challenges . What challenges did the relaunch of such an iconic brand give you as a designer ? Because everybody grew up with Cindy , so the moms who are there buying for their children are looking and going it's Cindy . It was a big challenge .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , I think for me , because I'd had about 30 years of thinking about it and I really had promised my nine-year-old self . I really promised myself that I was going to change Cindy one day , because I didn't like her look when she changed in 1986 . And so I think in my head for many , many years I thought it really Cindy . For me , the epitome of what Cindy should look like in my own opinion was the Cindy from the early 80s . And when Pedigree contacted me to say that kit creations were going to had got the contract to make a cindy doll , uh , I met , uh , linda osborne , who's the um ceo of kit creations , and I had just been making some . Well , so , just getting vintage cindy dolls from the early 80s and making them look like by rerouting and repainting , making them look really , really on trend for like 2019 , and they'd been looking at other body sculpts and everything before I'd even come on board and Linda said to me well , what do you think in your opinion Cindy should look like ? And I literally just pulled out of this , this bag that I had with me , one of my 90s or 2019 Cindy's and even made the box for it and everything . So it really did come off the shelf and she took one look and she just said , oh my god , oh my goodness me , I didn't realize that this 1980s Cindy could actually look so modern . I think , whatever we're doing , we need to start focusing on this doll sculpt . And I was like brilliant , this is great . And I was explaining as well to her . I said , look the the shape of Cindy's body is amazing as well because , um , she's well proportioned to which , obviously in um , this day and age is really , really important . You know you , I didn't want to do a stick , thin , kind of Hasbro-esque Cindy . We wanted to make her with better proportions and also then obviously then that carries on to designing clothes that will fit her really well , that you can dress and undress really easily if you're a young child .
Speaker 2So I actually I gave Kid Creations one of my childhood doll heads . The whole doll , I think , had been so loved and played with . There really wasn't very much more I could do with that . I was going to re-root her myself , so she didn't have any hair , she was completely bald , and I gave the head to Kid Creations and they sent it off to the factory for them to prototype from that head . So it was . I think it was a 1983 Popsinger . I think that was a 1983 pop singer . Um , I think that was the , the dog that had the one with short hair . So she really was .
Speaker 2And I said , like we really got to get her like the 1980s body . So I was taking photos and we were doing measurements of everything just to make sure that her arms were the same length as Cindy's . And although Cindy had the vinyl rubber arms and we had , we couldn't do that obviously , because it's like manufacturing health and safety these days . If you compare the arm width and the arm shape to an active vintage 80s Cindy doll , they should be pretty much the same shape and the same length as an 80s doll . She's got the same hands as well as the 80s doll too , as as an 80s doll , she's got the same hands as well as the 80s doll too . So really , I mean , even like right down to um , you know how I make them and everything , I was like this is a doll . We've got to do so I think , from from that part , that was definitely , uh , not a challenge for me because I was so headstrong , I suppose , but I think , but in another way , after we'd kind of got all of this .
Speaker 2Of course , there was so many design challenges that came on after that because Pedigree obviously you know I just wanted to bring back Cindy as she was and Pedigree said , no , we need her now to be more than just a fashion doll because of everything else that is out there . You know , we've had everything . You know dolls are fairly outrageous now and we need to bring back Cindy in her lovely , wholesome form but still in a way that would get her noticed . So we kind of went back to the drawing board and I was , uh , thinking for ages and I thought I need to go back to what's the basics of why I love Cindy and nostalgia about it . And before , um , I got a Cindy house , I used to love making stuff for Cindy and I was always like I was even trying to make dresses out of tissue paper . It was crazy and I was always getting cardboard shoe boxes and making beds and you know , really decorating all of that kind of thing . And I remember I thought to myself it's funny because I always had as much fun doing that as I did .
Speaker 2Once I put Cindy in my little mock-up that I had made and I thought , well , we've got this , we're not going to do any furniture for the launch . We had a very small budget . So why couldn't we make something like Cindy was supposed to be ? Because Cindy was always one doll and her world around her . I always thought that was the way she really differentiated herself from Barbie . With Barbie , you have one doll that was a ballerina , and if you wanted a mermaid doll you'd go and buy another doll . You had an outfit for her and certain dolls came with certain play sets . But with Cindy , you had your one doll or several that you really bonded with and you brought in different furniture and accessories to add to her world .
Speaker 2I thought this was really important and something which was very different , and so we started looking at the doll box and how much play value we could put into it , and that's when we started coming up with . So when we were doing , say , the bakery , why can't we put something in there that you can make ? We'd have to cut out yourself . We were going to just put them in so you could just build . It can make . You'd have to cut out yourself . We were going to just put them in so you could just build it . We thought , no , let's really get into crafting here , because arts and crafts are massive in the toy industry . Young kids love doing crafts . You see it all on YouTube . There's a lot of people out there who are making things for fashion dolls , for their dioramas or for playing with it's all over Instagram .
Speaker 1Both adult collectors make things . I have to confess that I walked into Ikea last week and I wasn't the least bit interested in whatever book case or serious thing we came for . I was like , look , there's tiny furniture over there and I said I don't know , I don't really need it , but I really want it and I thought it was a bit mid-century modern , so it'd be really cool . Of course , when will I have time to do this ? I don't know , but I loved it and I just said this would make a wonderful photograph and you know , that is also part of what kids are thinking when they set things out and set out their little world .
Speaker 1And those dolls with the florist or the pet groomer so the pet groomer doll . I thought this had great play value . Yeah , because it's . It's a wonderful piece for a child to get all these little fun things to do . All the dolls . I really love what you did with the doll's hair , because they had a lot of hair play value , a lot of length , a lot of different colors , a lot of different textures , and you were exploring how kids look now .
Speaker 2Yeah , that was so important , I think back in . Well , back in the early 80s , for me we had Cindy that was dark , brunette , auburn and blonde , and for me Cindy was Cindy , regardless of her hair color . Every single Cindy was exactly the same to me . You know I was thinking this is Cindy , but she's got , you know , ginger hair and I think that was something that really stuck with me and that was another thing that really put Cindy's streets ahead from other fashion dolls at the time , a long time ago , and it was one thing that I really wanted to bring into the doll when we were designing her , because I was saying they were saying , well , do we do Cindy with a whole lot of friends with different ethnicities ? And I just said , well , no , I said you know , for a long time Cindy's tagline in the early 2000s was Cindy , she's just like me .
Reflecting on Cindy's Legacy
Speaker 2And I said , well , if , yeah , if we're kind of promoting a doll with blonde hair and blue eyes and saying this is what you've got to look like , to be like cindy , I said that's kind of it's ridiculous . You know , every child is really beautiful , so we need to celebrate that cindy can be all of these kids , you know , um , whoever they are . I want them to be able to go into a shop and go oh my good , mommy , look , this doll looks like me , or look you know , it's the most important thing completely , I think , especially from hearing from collectors and myself . I didn't know that there was a black Cindy until I got the History of Cindy book and there's a black ballerina on the cover . I just thought she's the most beautiful .
Speaker 1Cindy ever .
Speaker 2Yeah , I have two . I'm so lucky I bought them a long time ago , not the crazy prices that they are now . So I love Gail . She's incredible .
Speaker 1Even when Cindy was everywhere , they were hard to find . Yes , they were hard to find , and now things are getting much better because children have friends from all different ethnicities . So why shouldn't everyone see themselves as Cindy ? It's meant to be a reflection of you . Yeah , absolutely .
Speaker 2And I think for me , I always said that for every cindy doll that we were going to make , we were going to make it slightly different , though there would never be one cindy doll the same , because , also as a collector in my collector's hat on you don't want the same doll in a different outfit . You want a different doll , even if it's in the same outfit . The fact you have a doll which has got slightly different eye color or different skin color , you want that for your collection , because otherwise it's not a whole collection , you know , and it's something a little bit different .
Speaker 1They have a slightly different character . It's the same doll , so she plays a different character . So maybe she puts on the sparkly dress or something I thought was really wonderful , and that's the onesie because there was a huge trend where the onesie was everywhere , and one of the fashions that came with Cindy recently is this really cute little onesie and I bought it for my collection and actually kept it in the box because I just thought great , moment in time fashion , it's not such a big thing now .
Speaker 2But yeah , just 10 years ago christmas morning we were all wearing our santa claus onesies or reindeers or whatever it was a big thing um , yeah , yeah , you know , and she was reflecting that , and that's a really important thing and I think what was what was brilliant I think as well about kid creations was that they really went into detail , like the original sims . How I remembered it . So , with that unicorn onesie , she had little wings on the back which you probably couldn't see from the package , and the hood was actually embroidered on . You know the little face . So there were so many little tiny things that we could put in within budget as well which just made Cindy that extra , a little bit extra better than things that you'd see , and it's extra better .
Speaker 1Pardon me .
Speaker 1It's extra better play value whether you're an adult collector or whether you're a child , you know it's play value , play value for us that photograph the dolls and enjoy them that way through social media . But more important than that , folks , is that the kid gets it out of the box and says oh , I love this . Look at this cute thing . It reflects something about you know , the marvelous thing about childhood is that we're allowed to reinvent ourselves . We can be Spider-Man one day . We can be Fairy Princess the next day . The dolls should reflect that kind of fun . Yeah , absolutely yeah , completely . Rachel , when we're talking about all these wonderful dolls and wonderful memories , I believe there's going to be a new Cindy released for Cindy's 60th anniversary .
Speaker 2And I've seen that online .
Speaker 2She wears a sparkly dress and she's got blonde hair and she's a really beautiful doll yeah , well , kit creations , who I now work for , are manufacturing the doll , and pedigree made all the design decisions . So it is probably pedigree's doll and she's beautiful . She's got the most amazing details . The only thing that I think we couldn't do were the rooted eyelashes on the doll , because the company that we used for the collector's dolls , sadly it closed . Maybe it was the pandemic , I don't know , but the company isn't around anymore , so the factory that we would always use for that kind of thing had shut down . But I don't think . In a way although with collector dolls they do they love the eyelashes and for me , you know , if I could have somehow got the eyelashes on , I would have loved that , and there'll be an awful lot of collectors who will be putting eyelashes on their dolls .
Speaker 1I'm sure let's get the needles out now , ladies .
Speaker 2Yes , yeah , I'm sure she's got gorgeous dark blonde hair . It's a lovely colour and her dress was going to originally be pale pink but with little sparkly bits on . The pedigree really wanted the dress to be very diamond-esque for , I suppose , her diamond anniversary . So it took us a very long time to find a fabric that was manuable enough to make into this dress design that we had , especially with the puffball underneath the puffball skirt , and also looked really sparkly as well . And we managed to find some amazing fabric , which the factory were able to find as well , and make the dress how Pedigree wanted it to .
Speaker 2And then we went back to all of the different sources that we had that had done the original collector's , cindy dolls for all of the tiny shoes and the handbags and the beautiful accessories .
Speaker 2And so she's got the most beautiful little diamond drop earrings that she wears and she has a necklace , because she has an off-the-shoulder dress , so we thought it'd be nice . But she was going to have a bracelet . We thought , no , let's kind of accentuate the neckline . We she's got a beautiful silver necklace with a heart , what looks like a diamond heart pendant on it , and then her shoes I think are the most fabulous things you'll ever see , because they are gorgeous . They're tiny , silver , sparkly , strappy sandals with a real buckle . They just look amazing . They really do . And she has this gorgeous silver , sparkly handbag with a little heart on it and I thought it was really important to kind of put the the heart in to all of this because , yes , she's , she has been loved for 60 years . But also , I think Cindy has always been synonymous with hearts in the heart shape to Cindy logo yeah yeah , and the tokens that she's had .
Speaker 2So I think that we wanted to put something else like that into it . And yes , and so we . Now we just do the manufacturing . It's all now up to Pedigree . They're going to be doing the magazine and everything else . They're the ones who are going to be selling . I think you can now pre-order them on the website . So for me , it'll be great to see them when they , when they eventually come out because , um , it's all now . It's all now pedigree's baby , isn't it wonderful ?
Speaker 1there's another cindy to look forward to and of course , we'll put links to all the information about that on our doll podcast website , rachel . It's amazing to think cindy is 60 and I have to say that , and I love Barbie , but I always will be a Cindy girl because I can remember my mom giving me my first Cindy and it was a really lovely moment . She was giving me something and she was the first fashion doll I had and I really felt that this was a really special thing and it was a special moment . It's an amazing thing to think that she's been part of so many people's lives . So I know I'm still a Cindy girl . Are you still a Cindy girl , rachel ?
Speaker 2I will always be a Cindy girl and I think a lot of my friends definitely feel the same way as well . They are definitely Cindy people and I think it's because she resonated with us so much at the time we were able to relate to her so much . To me she really was my best friend . You know , if I was feeling lonely I would just take out my Cindy dolls . It was also when I had new friends at school . First thing I would be asking was do you play with Cindy , you know ? And so I had a lot of fun , not just only playing with Cindy on my own , but with my friends too , and I think that just kind of throughout the the years , that kind of most nostalgic , firm bond that I had with Cindy still remains . And I think this is why Cindy is just such a beautiful and a magical doll for so many people , because I think they feel exactly the same way that I do .
Speaker 2There's a lot of warmth , a lot of nostalgia and a lot of love for this British fashion doll . But to me it wasn't so much of a fashion doll . She was so much more than that . To me it was about Cindy's world and the world that you were able to immerse yourself into , and I think I will always be a collector . I'm always still collecting vintage Cindy from all decades , yeah , and I just hope that Cindy carries on for the next 60 years in whatever guise she's going to be in .
Speaker 2You know she's such a , I think , an important fashion and toy icon for the UK and I know that a lot of women who had Cindy when she first came out , who are now grandmothers themselves , you know , are thankfully still buying Cindy because they're still on the shelves at the moment and giving them to their grandchildren . So they're still carrying on this memory . I even know of collectors who have got together just to buy the new Cindy's and spend an afternoon doing the crafts from the boxes all together and sent me photos of them doing it . It's just lovely . It's just such an amazing kind of energy that people have . It's like Cindy energy . It's incredible . Yeah , once you are a Cindy person , you are always a Cindy person .
Speaker 1Well , I couldn't agree more , and I hope that Cindy has 60 years and many , many more . Rachel Godfroy , thank you for joining us on the Doll Podcast to celebrate Cindy .
Speaker 2Thank you so , so much . It's been wonderful to be here .
Speaker 1Thank you it's been such fun every time we get together . Thank you , rachel oh , thank you .
Speaker 1Thank you , brilliant , I've loved it thank you for joining us on the doll podcast .
Doll Podcast Returns in 2024
Speaker 1To find out more about c and designer Rachel Gottfroy , go to wwwdollpodcastcom . Thank you again for joining us on this season of the Doll Podcast . It's been a bit busy for me as I moved home and moved cities and I have to say that moving over well , let me say conservatively over a hundred dolls I'm not admitting to anything and thousands of books was quite a task . So the Doll Podcast has had quite an interesting season . But the good news is the Doll Podcast returns in 2024 , in October , with a whole new season on lots of episodes that we're recording right now . So , from everyone at the Doll Podcast , thank you for joining us and have a great rest of the summer . The Doll Podcast is a product of Niche Media Productions . The Doll Podcast copyright Louisa Maxwell 2024 . All rights reserved .