I did a load of doll-dressing yesterday. As you might recall, I undressed ALL twenty-one of my girls back in November, and have been slowly dressing them one or two at a time since. I had nine girls dressed, but twelve still standing around naked. I got some kind of bee in my bonnet, I guess, because last night I dressed all twelve of those girls! I don't mind saying it took a few hours. I wasn't even being super picky or trying on/rejecting lots of things. I just enjoyed each dressup, brushed out a few girls' hair, took a while to get out/put away again all of my dolly wardrobe stuff. (I have so much, after fifteen years of collecting.)
One of the first dressups I did was to put Holland in this 90s-ish babydoll dress from PrettyBomb, which I got FOREVER ago, in 2023; I included it in a haul video where I even said, "With a pair of combat boots and knee high socks?? Please." I decided to finally execute the look I was envisioning! I found some yellow knee-high socks in my stash and fortunately I had some black boots without heels.
I wanted to try and make a mood board to see if I could represent the exact 90s fashion moment I was recalling...
This was actually way more time-consuming than it should have been, because the internet doesn't want to show actual 90s fashion pictures when you look up "90s babydoll dress," et cetera. It wants to show you Gen-Z's ideas of what 90s fashion surely was, which is mostly inaccurate and what I would call "tumblr soft grunge" at best. I'm not mad at Gen-Z for this, though. I definitely think they should feel free to take 90s trends and do their own versions, incorporate them into a "now" look; the 90s did that with the 1970s, after all. Every fashion cycle revisits/reinterprets its predecessors. But it's really hard to find actual 90s images for some reason.
The 90s was my childhood (I turned 7 in 1990, and 17 come the year 2000) and I remember veryyy distinct phases of fashion as the decade went on. 1992 fashion (think Full House, still reminiscent of the 80s) does not look like 1998 fashion (think post-grunge: Spice Girls, baby tees, Madonna's "Ray of Light."). You weren't going to find Blossom hats past a certain year (in fact I've never seen anyone revisit Blossom hats -- only bucket hats). Early 90s and late 90s fashion are completely different!
The look I'm going for with Holland here is more early/mid-90s, maybe 1994-ish. Pre-Delia's catalogues. Pre-Hanson. I remember the celestial themes (what might now be called whimsigoth) and the Zodiac motifs all the Claire's jewelry had; the yin-yangs and the smiley faces. Chokers were "in" but those tattoo chokers were not a thing yet. I recall all the Nirvana/Loony Tunes/D.A.R.E. tees and plaid shirts and Vans and baggy jeans (pre-JNCOs). I had plaid babydoll dresses and wore scuzzy navy blue Converse high tops that I'd written/drawn all over. I recall the sheer knee-highs (a la Clueless, hence the inclusion of Cher on the mood board) and Doc Martens and the grunge/skater influence. Even feminine styles had a lot of that grunge influence with more masculine notes. The pink Power Ranger was wearing floral babydoll dresses paired with biking shorts and hiking boots, okay! DJ freaking Tanner looked like a construction worker with a cute bob and a choker.
All that about accuracy and stuff being said, I don't think of this hairstyle as 90s at all, but I don't want to disturb Holland's curls! At the same time, I really wanted to dress Holland in this dress. And I just had these bits of black yarn hanging around because I took them out of Zasha's hair. So, I am just a hypocrite.
Anyway, if I could add a single thing to this outfit, it would be either a little plaid shirt to tie around her waist or a denim vest. Often outfits in this era of the 90s were very bedecked with accessories; lots of silver jewelry, buttons and pins. I think she could use some more visual interest/clutter like that, but I'm not sure what...
Get ready for more doll outfit posts. I took some pics of Citron and Tiphanie today too.
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