Hilary's Cabbage Patch Clothes Closet
Learning about 1980's Cabbage Patch Kid clothing.
Let us raise a glass to 2021!
Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas, from Pam’s Patch
A hood to keep your little one warm, and more lace then ever before!
B Series Preemie Outfits Summary
Bunting bag with attached hood. The hood is one colour/pattern, and the remainder of the outfit is another. There is lace around the armholes, the hood, and the edges of the yoke. There are also three large rows of lace around the bottom of the bag. The hood opens at the back to allow it to be put on the doll. It ties closed with a white ribbon.
Almost all of them have a curved ‘Cabbage Patch Kids’ patch on the breast. Right now my THEORY is that only the OK factory didn’t use the patch.
Footwear: Knit booties
This outfit was sold only on dolls manufactured in 1985. Preemies were not made in 1986.
My goal is to find every version of every outfit that was produced. Below is a record of each version of this outfit that I have, up to the date indicated. To understand clothing codes, factories and variations, please refer to the suggested readings below.
Suggested readings: 1st Blog – Why do this project?, What are Clothing Tag Codes
If you have an outfit that is not recorded here or does not match my information, (e.g. you have a B502D SS that is pink, not blue) I would appreciate hearing from you. Information is best sent in the form of pictures. For details on the pictures required, jump to Taking Clothing Tag Pics.
> 1984 Preemie Series outfit #2: Hooded Gown
The obvious differences between the two outfits are the rows of lace on the bottom and the CPK patch.
Do you and your kids want to play bingo for the holidays?
Celebrate the holidays by sharing with your cabbie friends!
Homemade, CPK, softie . . . everyone is welcome!
Instructions: Post one response for each square to your own Facebook feed and/or share/post it on Hilary’s CPK Clothes Closet (@HilarysClothesCloset). Title each post: ‘Hilary’s Holiday Bingo’
Three posts would be a regular BINGO, nine posts is a BINGO BASH.
Posting does not need to be on consecutive days. In fact, you could post them all at the same time if you want!
I will be posting my Bingo entries on my Facebook page so please join me there! I will be trying for a BASH.
Soft and warm, this velour bunting bag is beautiful on any preemie.
B Series Preemie Outfits Summary
This outfit is a velour bunting bag with an attached hood. They are all solid colours. They have lace trim accented with a ribbon that runs around the sleeves, the hood, and the bottom. The hood tightens with a ribbon. Most of them have a curved logo patch on the right breast, but not all.
Footwear: Knit booties
This outfit was only sold on dolls manufactured in 1985. Preemies were not made in 1986.
My goal is to find every version of every outfit that was produced. Below is a record of each version of this outfit that I have, up to the date indicated. To understand clothing codes, factories and variations, please refer to the suggested readings below.
Suggested readings: 1st Blog – Why do this project?, What are Clothing Tag Codes
If you have an outfit that is not recorded here or does not match my information, (e.g. you have a B501G SS that is pink, not purple) I would appreciate hearing from you. Information is best sent in the form of pictures. For details on the pictures required, jump to Taking Clothing Tag Pics.
The second, and fancier, line of Preemie clothing!
For basic information on preemies and their outfits, jump here.
1984 – First Series of Preemie Clothes
1985 – B Series (This Post)
1987 – Preemie Mimic Series (707 – 716) (Future Post)
1988-89 – Random outfits in the 100’s (Future Post)
I am unsure what the B stands for. I theorize it indicates that this was the second series of outfits, but I have no proof of that. These outfits have a 500s number as they were produced in 1985. For more information on this, jump to: What are Clothing Tag Codes
Some of the codes were put on the tags with stickers. It may be they were reusing leftover tags from other outfits until the correct tags were available.
NOTE: These outfits do not have conventionally agreed-upon names. Therefore, the names used below were created by me purely for the sake of expediency to distinguish one from the other.
There are six B Series outfits, and they were made predominately by the SS factory. However, some are OK, and some are WS. All are Chinese factories.
I do not have enough information to propose ‘primary’ factories at this time; however, so far, outfits J and K appear to be primarily from the WS factory. Based on my research to date, it seems that letters A, B, C, and I were not manufactured. The highest letter I’ve found is K.
Almost all the BSeries outfits have the curved Cabbage Patch Kids applique on them. I have only seen one or two that did not !
NOTE: These outfits do not have conventionally agreed-upon names. Therefore, the names used below were created by me purely for the sake of expediency to distinguish one from the other.
B503 – Fancy Hooded Blanket and Gown
B504 – Bubble Romper with Blouse
You will find that these wonderfully chatty kids, with their beautiful dresses and demands for their cup, will easily talk their way into your heart.
Talking Cabbage Patch Kids were only produced by Coleco for approximately one year and started becoming available in September of 1987. (Ref#2, p. 86) They are quite large and came with fancy outfits, cornsilk hair, a Parent’s Guide, special birth certificates, and a ‘magic cup’.
They were a remarkable toy for their time and had many surprises in store for their new parents, including a mobile moving face, numerous hidden sensors, and the ability to respond to their new parent and other talking kids! Two or more together will often be heard singing in around. It’s amazing! (Video) There seem to be a variety of different ‘scripts’ that the kids use when speaking, but the dolls can learn new phrases and words from other talking kids they interact with. (Ref#4, Vol. 2, Iss. 5, p.3) The first 250 sold at their ‘opening event’ were signed by Xavier Roberts. (Ref#4, Vol 2, Iss. 3, p.4)
The dolls came in only two head moulds, T-8 (one dimple) and T-9 (big grin, no dimple). Coleco produced AA talking kids but no boys.
These dolls were pretty fancy, and unfortunately, may have been ahead of their time. Many considered them creepy. It got worse when the first of the Chucky movies was released in November of 1988. These kids were also plagued with poblems, such as:
There are eight different talking kid outfits made by the OK factory, numbers #695 – 702. I believe there are six versions of each outfit, letters A – F; however, they used eight different colours of velveteen fabric overall. (Aqua, Burgundy, Grey, Medium Blue, Navy Blue, Pink, Purple, Red)
Four of the outfits consist of white cotton dresses with a velveteen pinafore and matching cotton bloomers.
The other four have a velveteen dress and a cotton or taffeta pinafore. The outfits with cotton pinafores come with plain white bloomers, and the outfits with a taffeta pinafore come with taffeta bloomers.
The lace used on the bloomers, dress, and pinafore always match. All of them come with solid white tights and odd white or black faux leather shoes. The black shoes seem to come most frequently with the navy blue, burgundy, and red outfits.
There are hints that some talkers may have come with regular lace-up shoes instead of the ‘talker shoes’. I have no proof at this point.
Although these outfits originally came only on Talking Kids, a few can be found on ‘regular’ kids from 1988 and 1989. They likely did this to clear out leftover outfits. However, it is not something you’ll see often.
I have the following outfits recorded. If you have one of the outfits that I am missing, I would greatly appreciate pictures of the clothing tag and the outfit. For details on taking pictures jump here.
Instructions on how to search this blog for information.
There are a few ways you can search my blog for information.
Along the right side of every page of my blog is a list of categories. If you click on a category, any post that has information in that area will be listed.
NOTE: This option gives you the entire content of the post, not just a list of posts.
Sample search: If you had this outfit or even just the sweater, you could search by any of the following categories (depending on what you already know): Cornsilk outfit, 300 Codes, OK/P/KT factories
Below the category section, also on the right side, is the keyword search box. You can use any descriptor of your clothing piece when using this search option.
Sample search: If you had this piece, you could search by any of the following keywords: romper, elephant, Preemie, patch, collar, 13, 13D, CC. There may be others I haven’t thought of as well.
In the Pages section, on the right side of each page, is a page entitled Post Archive. Once there, it’s a matter of scrolling through the titles and blog descriptions to see if they match what you are looking for. You could also do a CTRL+F search with a keyword.
NOTE: Before doing a CTRL+F search make sure to go to the bottom fo the page and make all the posts visible.
Along the right side, in the sidebar, is a list of the outfit series that have already been completed. You can search through the pictures of the outfits to see if you recognize yours.
Although a lot of information is available on this blog, it is not yet a year old, and there is a significant amount of information that is NOT yet up. If you can’t find what you are looking for, it may be that it’s just not up yet. Additionally, some pieces are not useful for searching (e.g. plain pink bloomers).
I encourage you to contact me directly and ask your question. I love to help and share information when I have it. My contact information is available on the Contact Me page in the Pages list, or you can contact me through Hilary’s Facebook Page.
Just in time for winter, warm knit outfits for your preemie!
1984 Preemie Clothing Series Summary
These two outfits only came packaged. They never came on dolls. They are similar to the 1984 Knit outfits that were produced for regular-sized kids, except that they were produced at the FW factory (Chinese), not the EX factory (Taiwanese). They were most likely sold only from 1984 – 1985.
Outfit #15 – Sweater and Pant Set
This outfit consists of a long-sleeve tri-colour striped sweater and a pair of white pants.
Outfit #16 – Scarf Outfit
This outfit consists of a white shirt with coloured trim, a pair of pants in the same colour, and a thin scarf that is white and colour striped.
Footwear: They did not come with any foot covering.
I have recorded all the available versions of this outfit. There were only two of each. However, I could use pictures of the following:
For details on the pictures required, jump to Taking Clothing Tag Pics.
This outfit was made in the biggest variety of fabrics! Click to learn more.
1984 Preemie Clothing Series Summary
This outfit consists of three pieces: a blouse, a hat and an overalls/romper piece.
The blouse is white cotton and has short sleeves, a pointed semi-spread collar, and two white buttons.
The romper is made of a variety of materials, all one colour/fabric and has a sailboat patch in the lower right corner.
The hat is the same fabric as the romper and has a small red anchor patch on it.
Footwear: Regular shoes and socks
This outfit was most likely sold only from 1984 – 1985. Some packaged versions may have sold later than that.
My goal is to find every version of every outfit that was produced. Below is a record of each version of this outfit that I have, up to the date indicated. To understand clothing codes, factories and variations, please refer to the suggested readings below.
Suggested readings: 1st Blog – Why do this project?, What are Clothing Tag Codes
If you have an outfit that is not recorded here or does not match my information, (e.g. you have a 14C P that is pink, not navy blue) I would appreciate hearing from you. Information is best sent in the form of pictures. For details on the pictures required, jump to Taking Clothing Tag Pics.
> It seems like every factory that made this outfit used a different fabric.
OK factory – Corduroy
P factory – Rough Corduroy
SS, WS Factory – heavy polar fleece
FD factory – Taiwan Corduroy (smoother than regular corduroy),
Silky cotton fabric
> The sailboat patches have very little variation; however, there are subtle differences between the Taiwanese factory patches and the Chinese factory patches. Take a look.
One other very weird patch has come to light. This patch was found on an OK outfit. It doesn’t seem to have been bleached, but where did the purple come from? Special thanks to Jana Smith for this tidbit.
> Mimic Outfit: #712 – This outfit comes in only one colour, light brown, and has a red anchor patch on it. The fabric is like a rough polar fleece. The shirt is almost identical to outfit #14. It was made by the OK factory. It came with knit booties, not regular shoes.
