Packaged Outfit: an outfit that was sold separately in its own box, without a doll.
Early Coleco Packaged Outfits
Coleco marketed four different packaged clothing lines.
Line 1
The first was produced in 1983 and was never sold on the kids. It was called the Casual Wear Line and included at least eight outfits.




Line 2
The second line was small, with only three outfits, and was produced in 1984. I call it the 1984 Knit Series. It was produced by the EX factory.



Line 3
The third came out in late 1983 I think, or early 1984. The contents are all 1983 series outfits. Although outfits from many factories were packaged, the CC factory only produced clothing for packaged outfits. If iti’s a CC outfit, it didn’t come on a doll.


Line 4
The fourth ‘line’ consists of the specialty outfits that were produced in 1985 and later. Some of these outfits were intended only for sale as packaged outfits but were sold on dolls eventually. Eg. Sports Collection. Others were only packaged when Coleco found itself with an overabundance of outfits. Eg. Twin outfits, World Traveller Outfits. Although these outfits were not officially promoted as a ‘line’, they all came out around the same time.





Transitional Coleco Outfits
In 1989/90 Coleco started producing a number of outfits that were only sold in packages. These make them hard to find as they were not sold for long and were only available separately from the kids.
The Outfits line included outfits in the following code series: 120s, 130s, 400s (that I am aware of to this point), and transitional Hasbro outfits. Some of these outfits were also produced by Hasbro and do not have recognizable tag codes.




The COLECO Deluxe Outfits line includes outfits in the 140s series along with other new pieces.



However, there was a concurrent HASBRO line.
Transitional Hasbro Outfits
Hasbro must have found themselves with an overabundance of Designer Line (DL) outfits, as the Deluxe Outfits that they packaged (on virtually the same packaging as Coleco) consisted of entirely DL outfits. Currently, I have evidence for the use of the 170s and 180s series of DL outfits, not the 150s series.



Hasbro then produced three packaged outfit lines independent of Coleco. This most likely occurred from 1989 to 1990+. As they are not numbered in the ‘traditional sense I cannot slot them into the clothing record I am creating. However, they are interesting, nonetheless. They are:











Splash and See Surprise Pouches.
During the transitional years, Hasbro also produced a type of packaged outfit that included a ‘gimmick’. As many of the outfits used were already in production, it may be that they were trying to get rid of extra stock. This is not clear.
The Splash and See Surprise packages contain an outfit and a small pouch with a surprise in it. When you wet the pouch it would melt away and your surprise was revealed. During a 2020 Facebook group discussion, it was noted that these pouches were included with kids as well. (Ref. FB discussion, Jodi (Punki Patch), Feb. 7, 2020) The surprise items included sunglasses, hair barrettes, hair combs, or outfit pieces. Some of the clothing came from the 150s clothing line produced by Coleco in 1989 and some only have Hasbro tags.




Foreign Packaged Outfits
Some of the foreign factories produced packaged outfits as well.


If you have any packaged outfits that you can ‘unpackage’ safely, or that have already been ‘unpackaged’, I would love to get pictures of the outfit and its tags! I have many information holes that need filling.
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