Best of 2020 - Before the Countdown - Let's Hear It For Barbie!

2020 will always be remembered as a very challenging and difficult year.   I've made it almost through a pandemic and continued to teach elementary school (face to face with students for the past four months!). 

I believe many collectors turned to their hobby for escape from the pressures of the world.  With so many "sheltering in place", there were no restaurants, no movie theaters, no place to go.  So ... we stayed home and played with dolls!

When Integrity Toys (IT) was not putting dolls into collectors' hands, Mattel was able to step it up this year.  (Note:  All photos property of Mattel.)

What a great year for Mattel!  Many of these dolls could've made it into my Top 10 list this year!  Let's take a quick walk down memory lane ...

Sadly, Mattel failed at their attempt to add articulation to their Silkstone line.  Let's face it, many Silkstone collectors stayed with the line because they liked the original body style.  Collectors who wanted the articulation, didn't like Mattel's interpretation.  It was a mess and no one seemed happy.  While celebrating its 20 year anniversary, Mattel decided that 2020 would be the last year for the Silkstone collection.  I was able to grab my favorite from the 2020 releases, The Best Look.  (BTW, Silkstone ensembles look great on the East 59th Street girls!)

Last year, I actually put the flagship collection of BMR1959 as #2 in my Best of 2019 Countdown.  Collectors loved the diversity of this line, which combined modern interpretations of Barbie characters and Made To Move bodies.   Mattel gave us a second round in 2020 with four new dolls.  All of these were phenomenal (Ken and Midge deserve a special shout-out; they easily could've ranked higher on my list)!

We have a terribly cute, pale skin, redhead male with freckles!

There was a tall girl ...

A short black girl ...

And an amazing doll using the Midge mold (those heavy eyebrows were controversial, but so many fans loved her "in spite of" or "because of" them). 

Just when we thought articulation and funky dolls were exclusive to the BMR1959 line, Mattel throws us a new line called "BarbieExtra".

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

WOW!  These ensembles look great on Poppy and The Industry bodies.  But the dolls truly stand well in a collection on their very own.  They all came on articulated bodies (but would have been perfect had they been on Made To Move bodies).

Speaking of articulated dolls, we got a whole series of Barbies for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

There was climbing:

Baseball:

Skate Boarder:

Surfing:

And Kick Boxing:

Mattel continued to surprise their Fashionista fans with some very cool dolls.

A couple standouts from this line were

#135 Barbie with vitiligo

#150  Barbie with alopecia

#154 A lavender haired ken

And #164 A black Ken with shaved sides to his hairstyle (my favorite fashionista of 2020).

And the striped dress on #147 should be on everyone's radar.  It looks great on every doll I tried on it on.

Another doll whose ensemble was a must was Hudson Bay Barbie!

Then we have the PUMA clothing line!  How many collectors spent the first few weeks of 2020 haunting Walmart to acquire this entire collection?!

If vintage was your thing, then we have the reproduction of The Barbie Dreamhouse, complete with a gorgeous reproduction platinum bubble and three reproduction ensembles!

The final group of dolls truly showed Mattel's innovative thinking.  Who would've thought of dressing Barbie as male Star Wars characters?  These dolls were truly amazing!  Here is only a sampling of four dolls offered (not shown are Darth Vader, Princess Leia, or R2D2).

There was a lot of strong Mattel product this year, and the offerings were quite diverse.  I think there was a little something for everyone.  (And you could probably buy everything in this post for less than you might pay for one Poppy Parker on secondary market!)

Since several of these found their way to my house, Mattel and Barbie definitely deserve a place in my countdown.