PTP: Koosa Clothes

All about Koosas clothes.

Koosa Basics

Koosas are a Cabbage Patch friend produced by Coleco from 1984 to 1985.

“According to the legend printed on the back of the Koosa Box, Colonel Casey saved the Koosas from a big flood in Wykoosa Valley. He delivered the frightened, shivering creatures to the Cabbage Patch where the Kids recognized them as a very special, loving breed that become friends to all in need and also bring good fortune. The Cabbage Patch Kids took the Koosas to Babyland General Hospital and devised a plan to find special friends for them.”
Ref #1, p. 148

A picture of a number of Koosas playing on my couch. One is reading, another is reading to others, two are laying on the back of the couch, and two are wrestling.

The first run was produced by the OK & KT factories. A second run that came out later in 1985 was produced by the SY factory. They are recognizable by their eye patches (Ref). Koosa’s come in cat (A-2), dog (A-3) and, lion (A-1) head moulds and in a variety of body fabrics and hair colours.

They came with a collar, and like the kids, you could send their adoption papers away to name your Koosa. They would send back completed ‘registration papers’ and a sticker with your chosen name, which you put on the collar.

Pink koosa wearing a plaid dress in a CK koosa box. She also had a koosa hand tag. — In box with tag

Brown velveteen bodied koosa with off white cat head and brown tuft wearing a red felt overalls and plastic collar with name sticker. — In box with tag

Koosa Clothing Basics

There are four Koosa outfits, and each comes in 3-5 variations. They were made by the OK, KT, and SY factories and the doll factory matched the outfit factory. The outfit codes all start with P, and I have no idea why. Maybe it stands for Pet? The number represents the outfit style, and the letter represents the fabric/pattern/colour.

P1 – Shortalls

Koosa clothing outfit P1, a pair of shortall's. It comes in jean pattern, blue with white pin stripes, and red.

P2 – Terry cloth shirt with bear or cat patch

Koosa clothing outfit P2, a terry cloth shirt. It comes in white, peach, stripes and mint green.

P3 – Shorts with rainbow suspenders

(Patches can vary but are generally as shown)

Koosa clothing outfit P3, a pair of shorts with rainbow striped suspenders. It shorts come in light blue with duck applique, mustard yellow with giraffe applique, and dark blue with elephant appliques.

P4 – Cotton apron dress which ties at the back

Koosa clothing outfit P4, a terry cloth white cotton dress that ties closed at the back. It comes in white with multi-coloured hearts, pink gingham, white with multi-coloured polka dots, brown and blue plaid, and large purple and orange plaid.

Oddities

In late 1985 they came out with the second run of Koosa’s and outfits. For this run, the P1A and P1B had yellow footprints on them. They were made by the SY factory.

> I have multiple examples of a white P3 outfit. They are real, but they’re bleached. The final proof was this example. You can still see the blue dye, and if you look closely, you’ll notice that the orange is bleached out of the ducky patch (Thank you, Lori Clark), and the thread is still blue. Unfortunately, bright colours like those used on this outfit will fade easily, so I can understand why so many might be bleached.

What I have and what I need

Here is the matrix that shows what I have recorded. For example, I have P1A OK, but I don’t have P1A KT. If you do, I need pictures! Do you have anything that doesn’t match the matrix or isn’t on the matrix? I’d love to hear about it if you do!

For details on how to take clothing tag pictures, jump to Taking Tag Pictures .

References and Resources

Encyclopedia of Cabbage Patch Kids the 1990s, Ref#1, p. 148
Fundamentals of Cabbage Patch Kids, Ref #4, p. 308-316
Koosa of Wykoosa Valley World Collectors and Friends Facebook page

PTP: This Jacket or that Jacket?

I am trying to find identifying features in the jackets. You can help by filling out a survey. Read for details.

The 1983 Windbreaker outfit (#10) is one of the hardest to record accurately. The only piece that is labelled is the shirt, so if the jacket and pants get separated, it’s hard to know which ones go back with which shirt. And if you’re me, you indiscriminately upgraded jackets over the years and have no idea which you did this to.

I am currently working to determine distinguishing characteristics between the jackets. This is where I need other collectors to help!
If you have even one complete windbreaker outfit I really, need your help. Please read to the end and complete the survey.

The Logo

The following pictures show the difference between Coleco, Jesmar, Tsukuda, and 25^th Anniversary jackets. However, there does not appear to be a visible difference between the Coleco factory jacket logos.

The Bottom Hem

A friend and I recently noticed that the bottom hem (that is elasticized) is finished differently around the zipper on various jackets. Unfortunately, I am unsure which pattern goes with which factory.

Zipper Pull Tabs

My friend and I also noticed that there were at least two different zipper manufacturers used for the Coleco jackets.

Most of the zippers in my patch are made by the KKK Company. This is an Indian company that opened in 1980 and is now a major producer of zippers. The second is the VKK company. I found little information on the company, but the initials appear on many items from the 50s and 60s which are described as ‘fakes’. I have no idea if this is the same supplier that CPK used. Currently, there is a zipper company based out of Manila with the name VKK Manufacturing Company.

At the moment, using my small sample to try and see a pattern, the P factory used VKK, while the other Coleco factories used KKK. If that is the case, we can at least match P jackets with P shirts.

The only Jesmar windbreaker outfit that I have has TREBOO on the zipper tab. The 25^th Anniversary outfits have white plastic zippers with no label on the pull tab.

How you can help

If you have a complete windbreaker outfit (it all came together and you know it), please take this survey. (Done through Google Forms, but you don’t need it, to use it.)

CPK Windbreaker Survey

The survey shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. In fact, for those of you with kids in boxes, it will probably take you longer to get the liner out of the box! You can fill out the survey repeatedly for each outfit that you have. One outfit or ten, the more feedback I get, the more accurate my conclusions will be. Please, I need your help.

CPK Windbreaker Survey

PTP: Which OTHER outfits came on IC and UT kids?

Your UT kids have more clothing options than you thought.

Thanks to the assistance of another collector, one of my many theories has been confirmed.

Most of the time, when a kid is mint-in-box, the outfit factory and the kid factory match. (For details visit HERE.) However, there are some exceptions.

Recently, we determined that AX factory clothing came on IC kids. For these kids, the outfit tag and the kid’s tag would not match.

There were several other factories in Taiwan, but the only one other produced dolls, the UT factory. I speculated that AX outfits may also have come on UT kids. However, until this past week, I had no proof.

Thanks to Melissa W., I now have that proof. She was able to confirm that her MIB UT kid did come with an AX outfit. This discovery was accidentally serendipitous!

undefined

So, we now have proof that AX outfits came packaged separately AND on IC and UT kids. This goes a long way to explaining why IC and UT clothing is so difficult to find.

Unfortunately, I do not think we have any way of knowing what percentage of IC and UT kids came with AX outfits.

Some of the other Taiwanese factories produced specialty outfits for the All Stars series (HRS), Sports Collection (CY, FD), and the Western Wear Kids (CY). Like the AX outfits, these outfits normally came on IC kids. Of the remaining Taiwan factories, the only other factory that may have provided outfits for boxed kids would be WW, but my gut says it did not. So far, there is no indication that WW outfits came on kids.
Can you prove me wrong?

Update (April 2021)

I was proven wrong! (read above) I now have proof that regular CPK outfits from Taiwan factories other than IC and UT came on these kids. This includes AX, UT, WW, and HP. This goes a long way toward explaining why there are so few IC outfits and so many IC kids!

Beneficial Buttons

Buttons seem so small, so insignificant. However, sometimes they can be helpful.

How do you know which outfits came on 1983 kids? In most cases, it’s impossible to tell. Outfits with button accessories are one of the exceptions.

Apparently, for at least a portion of 1983, they used clear buttons. I am unsure exactly when they stopped, but they were no longer using them by 1984. (Ref#4, Vol. 3, Issue 8, p. 4)

> This applies to:

Later buttons were white with an outside ridge.

Sailor Suit, outfit #20

This does not apply to the Sailor Romper because, although we call it a part of the 1983 outfit series, it didn’t actually come out until 1984. By this time, they were no longer using the clear buttons. I don’t think this outfit would look good with clear buttons anyway.

Ducky Dress, outfit #11

All 1983 Button ducky dresses will have clear buttons, but because the only ducky dresses with buttons came out in 1983, there are no ducky dresses with white buttons.

According to J. Mullin, Jesmar Ducky Dresses have buttons, and some of them are coloured. (Ref #3, p. 378)

PTP: Silk Label Secrets (Updated 08/21)

Those little silk labels are holding a secret . . .

The little silk label that’s on most CPK outfits, hold a secret. Special thanks to Jodi Punki Patch and her amazing observational skills for catching this and making me look into it more.

Within the Coleco factories, you can use the silk label to figure out where the outfit was made, to a point. At this point, I have found that there are four different labels.

For a list of all the factories that produced CPK material, visit Factories and Companies.

Chinese factories use the regular label that we are all familiar with.
Factories: OK, P, CC, FW, KT, LF, PMI, SS, WS

Two China labels, KT and OK. The right will be used for continued comparison.

Factories from Taiwan use a larger label is that is white in colour.
Factories: AX, CY, EX, FD, IC, UT, WW, HRS

Labels from the Korean factories (IJ, SY) look like the regular China labels, but they are slightly darker in colour.

Outfits from the USA factory are larger, white and made of a canvas-like material.

Jesmar outfits tend to have a slightly smaller tag, with a slightly darker green. I’ve also noticed that sometimes the stitching is done badly where it is sewn on. For more information on Jesmar outfits visit: Jesmars and J Clothing

How to match bloomers and dresses

Find out how to match bloomers to dresses!

Many outfits were made using the same fabrics, which can create confusion when trying to determine which pair of bloomers go with which dress. After all, the patterns look the same, why can’t we just match them up?

It’s all about the frill! (Or lack thereof)

For almost 90% of the outfits I have recorded, the lace used around the sleeves is mirrored around the hem of the bloomer leg holes. If the sleeves don’t have any lace, then neither do the bloomers.

If they don’t match, they don’t go together!

This holds true for all the original 1983 outfits and all the 1984 preemie dresses. Of the later outfits (#100+), most of them follow the same pattern.
These are the exceptions that I am aware of:

162 – lace on bloomers, not on sleeves
164 – plain white instead of patterned
165 – lace doesn’t match at arm and leg, but the fabric patterns were not used for any other outfits
168 – lace on bloomers, not on sleeves
505 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves
656 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves
705 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves
726 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves
707 – no lace on bloomers, lace on sleeves