Barbie is Now Queen. But for my generation, Sindy reigned supreme.

July 28, 2023 7:26 AM

Viv Groskop invokes dolls’ breast size as a feature of national stereotypes: "It wasn’t an idea purely of my own invention, aged five or six, but by the late 1970s I had acquired the understanding – by social and parental osmosis – that there was something “off” about Barbie. She was vulgar, American and very possibly a bit up herself. (The very worst things a female, whether doll or human, could be, we imagined.) I realise now that this was all really to do with what these dolls looked like naked: Barbie’s boobs were obvious, pneumatic and borderline pointy; Sindy’s boobs were more demure, subtler, almost self-effacing. Barbie represented something unapologetic and very possibly sexual. Sindy was safe and wholesome."

Groskop isn’t the only one to discuss Sindy vs Barbie in these peculiar terms: Barbie sparks a Trans Atlantic Doll Feud: 'A Bit of a Tacky Lady'. (Ungated)

Sindy was launched in 1963 as a British clone of Tammy. Originally she was dressed like a mod in an outfit designed by Carnaby Street duo Tuffin and Foale. The doll kept pace with London style trends until a disastrous decision in the 90s to imitate Barbie more closely, which saw Mattel threaten Hasbro with legal action.

In 2017 Sindy received her own commemorative postage stamp, in a Royal Mail collection of notable British toys which also included Space Hoppers and Spirograph.

Despite several attempts over the years to resurrect her, Sindy is not currently on sale. Vintage collectors have a healthy social media presence, in addition to hosting old catalogues which showcase Sindy’s holiday caravan, orange bathroom suites complete with fringed toilet rug, and a variety of sensible kitchens. Her down to earth accommodation is perhaps why Twitter users joked Ken Loach might be interested in directing a Sindy movie.

If Sindy doesn’t float your boat, you may prefer another vintage collectable doll with a large head: Blythe.

posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye (25 comments total)

I admit that I am entranced by the Swedish woman in the WSJ article who runs her own tiny Sindy museum, open by appointment only, for twenty visitors a year. My main takeaway is to wonder whether I too could create my own museum.
posted by Frowner at 7:37 AM on July 28, 2023 [13 favorites]

Barbie doesn't need any men to complete her life. Her life is just fine as it is, being Barbie, doing Barbie things. That's something I always missunderstood.

Ken is optional, he is sold separately.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:38 AM on July 28, 2023 [27 favorites]

I think my sister had Sindy, but I don't remember the head being so big. I wonder if she was related to the Tefal Scientists?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:38 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I love Sindy and own several but her enormous head is why I can't take any argument based on her more "normal" proportions seriously.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 7:42 AM on July 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

I love Sindy and own several but her enormous head is why I can't take any argument based on her more "normal" proportions seriously.

And also the fact that her feet are cut in such a way that she has to have high heels on otherwise she can't stand up (or at least the one I have does, in contradiction of the article). Her husband Action Man never had this problem.

(I still have my Sindy and have had to work round this problem when casting her in stop motion films a few times recently)
posted by dng at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

There was also, mercifully briefly, Leggy. She had Barbie's head dynamic and Sindy's demure, subtler breasts but she also had freakish male-gaze praying mantis legs and was thus horrifying to behold. My cousin and I had a two-minute blitz in her bedroom during the course of which I dismembered her Leggy. Cousin retaliated by headbutting me with her spoon doll, whereupon, maddened with pain, I seized and whaled her with some other 1970s toy I unfortunately don't remember clearly. It was yellow and green and made with unsatisfactory soft plastic. I remember the yellow part had squishy accordion folds. Leggy lost the first battle, but my cousin and spoon doll won the war.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:51 AM on July 28, 2023 [12 favorites]

And also the fact that her feet are cut in such a way that she has to have high heels on otherwise she can't stand up (or at least the one I have does, in contradiction of the article).

And here's some photographic proof (Sindy's weird feet, plus the kind of frightening back of Sindy's skull branding mark), just so no one accuses me of being part of some anti-Sindy conspiracy.
posted by dng at 8:06 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh, Barbie was supposed to have Ken! Mine had wild catfights over him, at least until his head came off and wouldn't go back on.

It's interesting what's naughty and nice for children's toys, isn't it? Barbie was vapid and self-esteem-destroying right up until Bratz dolls came in, with their thick lips and brown skin. Now she's a lady!
posted by kingdead at 8:30 AM on July 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

My Sindy hot take: don’t let the looks fool you. Bitch is collecting receipts.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:33 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I never heard of Sindy. But, that name. Sindy? C'mon. Maybe I'm just too jaded, but I can't imagine anyone at the company not understanding the way it might be read.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:35 AM on July 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

My sister hit the Sindy demographic square in the middle, and I as the 3-years-younger little brother learned my role as Agent of Annoying Chaos very well. My sister had the full Sindy pony club thing (including suspiciously solid plastic pony), which provided much opportunity for me being annoying and then being clobbered by said heavy plastic pony. I may still have scars, but I did start it, so.

My sister also had the smaller Pippa and Britt dolls, which I discovered had very squishy heads. If you squished them just right, their faces would completely cave in, then slowly reinflate to the right form. Initially, this annoyed the hell out of my sister, but then it amused her, so we'd play Pippa & Britt vs The Head Squisher. While they were in a squished state, Pippa and Britt would speak in a very nasal voice, like the one we'd hear every week on Animal Magic when Johnny Morris pretended to be a camel or an anteater.

Good times.
posted by scruss at 9:22 AM on July 28, 2023 [16 favorites]

It might be the make, dng. Mine have angled feet, but I can pose the ballerina/active Sindy's ankle so her feet are flat. This was my main frustration with Barbie, actually, as a child - the poseability was poor. I didn't care about the waist or breast size, I cared that her arms were fixed in a rigid L position. I tried to adjust Barbie's head position once, when I was about five, and her face ripped because she wasn't properly jointed. Put me off Barbies for years.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 9:23 AM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Although - I've only ever had one set of playscale fashion dolls that could stand unsupported, and they were custom made for me to use in these dioramas.
posted by Ballad of Peckham Rye at 9:34 AM on July 28, 2023 [11 favorites]

I wasn't allowed to have a Barbie but was allowed to have a Sindy and I remember my older sibling raising that same point about her enormous head also being an unrealistic body type.

Sindy had a little felt teddy bear and at one point I dropped it in my guitar and couldn't get it out, so there it stayed. That is my main Sindy memory.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:48 AM on July 28, 2023 [7 favorites]

Barbie has gotten some more posable iterations but that was always the main issue for sure.

In the US, Barbie's big-headed competition was even less wholesome, i.e. Bratz.

Adult hysteria around doll sexiness is weird, though. I never really thought of Barbie as sexy, she was mostly a blank slate for melodramatic plotlines, and spent a lot of time wearing costumes I made for her (badly) from old fabric scraps. If I'd had a Sindy doll she would have been played with the same.
posted by emjaybee at 10:07 AM on July 28, 2023 [8 favorites]

My grandmother's adult best friend lived across the street from Ruth Handler so I always heard stories as a kid about my mom's experience with everyone. Playing w all the children and my grandmother's experiences with Ruth. They were mostly centered on her mastecomy prosthesis days, not Barbie, but, I guess that was just normal living in LA at that time kind of life? My grandmother had since passed, but she lived into her 90s, and has a million crazy stories, including neighbor famous people giving her her lifelong nickname, etc. We're just LA normies.
posted by atomicstone at 10:14 AM on July 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

[Sindy's] feet are cut in such a way that she has to have high heels on otherwise she can't stand up

At the end of a Barbie toy commercial that is currently airing in high rotation, the super high speed voice legal proviso announcer's final warning is: "Dolls cannot stand on their own".
posted by fairmettle at 10:37 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Oh my. In between my first Barbie (Miss America, which my older brother peed on "to see what she looked like in the rain") and my second Barbie (Ballerina Barbie, of whom my dad remarked alarmedly, "I've never seen a ballerina shaped like THAT"), I had some sort of farmer doll that looked a bit like Sindy, but she had flat feet and a more benign expression on her face. She didn't hold my interest.

Barbie was always considered classy, but maybe a bit prudish in my friend group. For "worldly" (I guess that means tacky in the context here), we had Suntan Tuesday Taylor. A caftan! Big ol' sunglasses! Stickers you were supposed to put on her body before she went in the sun! I imagine she smoked Tareytons.

To bring it full circle-ish, I am seeing that Tuesday's little sister Dodi came from the Tammy doll line.
posted by queensissy at 10:48 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Adult hysteria around doll sexiness is weird, though. I never really thought of Barbie as sexy

Barbie is beautiful and she leans in. Her beauty and confidence in her capability are both at the forefront. WHAT IF OUR GIRLS DID THAT 😱

Ya I can see the pearl clutching. Oh my don’t let our girls navigate the world on their terms. Then who’s going to protect them???
posted by St. Peepsburg at 10:59 AM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

→ some sort of farmer doll

Stephie, from The Sunshine Family?
posted by scruss at 11:23 AM on July 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ha! I can't believe you remembered The Sunshine Family, scruss. No, this was different. I did have The Sunshine Family, though, and the dad was NOT A GOOD MAN.
posted by queensissy at 11:27 AM on July 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

"...plus the kind of frightening back of Sindy's skull branding mark)" posted by dng

Heh. Now I want someone to get this as a tattoo on their head.
posted by symbioid at 12:16 PM on July 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Barbie is beautiful and she leans in. Her beauty and confidence in her capability are both at the forefront. WHAT IF OUR GIRLS DID THAT 😱

Yeah, maybe today, but Barbie's confidence in her capability was not at the forefront until relatively recently. I don't think me leaning in was what my valedictorian, masters-degreed-chemist, trying-desperately-to-navigate-the-world-on-her-own-terms, soon-to-be-sole-supporting-parent and head-of-household mother was worried about when she refused to let Barbie in the house. She was already allowing the women of Playboy, Penthouse, Oui, and countless others in because that was what confident self-actualized liberated women survivors of the sexual revolution who were not insecure prudes did in the 70s.

I think primarily she wanted to spare me as long as possible from fixating on how painfully tiny--and physically unattainable--the set of allowable human female bodies was at the time. Not welcoming in yet another leggy busty creature of the 70s male imagination, this one specifically tailored to her 7-year-old daughter, to serve as a model for all my future impossibilities? That refusal was her allowing me to discover my capabilities rather than the opposite.

Here's liberated Leggy and her young mistresses showing off confidence in their capabilities. That was the culture my mother was up against. I do not presume to question her decisions.
posted by Don Pepino at 12:22 PM on July 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Leggy: the opposite of furry porn for the giraffe market.
posted by fairmettle at 11:33 PM on July 28, 2023

Lest you think that geneticists were deprived of dolls when they were children, the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster has a chromosome 2 gene ken or ken-and-barbie: so called because mutants of this gene have no external genitalia.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:05 PM on July 29, 2023 [4 favorites]