World Traveler Wear

They’ve been around the world and returned wearing wonderful outfits.

World Traveler Kids were only produced in 1985. There were six different outfits manufactured to feature five countries.

The kids came with a suitcase/bag, a World Traveler hand tag, a passport, an airline ticket, a white t-shirt, and a regular birth certificate. The passport had one of three countries on it: the United States, Canada, or Australia. The Australian version is VHTF. (Ref#5, p. 13)

Picture of the items that came with the China world Traveler.


World Traveler clothing tag codes are different. They have A – #. (For more information on unusual clothing codes, jump to Oddball Tags.)

World Traveler (WT) dolls and their clothes were made by the OK and PMI factories. I believe that both factories made all of the outfits, but I still need two outfits to prove this. Other CPK reference sources indicate that WT outfits also came on P kids, but these would have originally been sold on twins, not on a World Traveler. (See below)

This graphic shows the production factories I currently have recorded.

The Outfits

A-1 China.

The shoes are hard to find and difficult to keep on.

Picture of the pieces of the China World Traveler outfit.

A-2 Holland

Like the outfit and the doll, the shoes are labeled with the factory.
The blue fabric used for the dress can come in a variety of shades.

Picture of the pieces of the Holland World Traveler outfit.

A-3 Russian

The Russian World Traveler was not produced as long as the others; therefore, it is harder to find. (1986 NYC Toy Fair Report, p. 2). This may have been because they were not very popular. In fact, stores at the time were reported taking them off the shelves due to lack of popularity. (Ref#5, p. 27)
The shoes are also likely labeled with the factory. Thank you to Kendra for confirming this. They have been found with OK and SD factory marks.

A-6 Scotland

This is one of the only outfits to come with brown Mary Jane shoes.

Picture of the pieces of the Scottish World Traveler outfit.

A-4, A-5 Spanish

There are two Spanish outfits. A-4 is the boy’s outfit, and A-5 is the girl’s. Both factories made both outfits. The boy’s shoes and hat can be hard to find. The girl’s veil and black lace tights are also hard to find.

Actually, there are numerous versions of the girl’s outfit. Each factory produced a long-skirted version and a short-skirted version. Then there are the white accent versions and black accent versions. Here are the combinations I have recorded so far.

Spreadsheet of the Spanish girls dress style and the factories that made them. It shows which have been recorded and which have not.

There are visible differences between the details of each factory version. The boys outfits have different stitching detail on the jacket flaps, and the girl’s outfits use different fabrics, different lace, and different densities of lace.

The White T-Shirts

These were manufactured by the CC and SS factories. If either CC or SS came with a specific factory, I have not noticed yet. The CC factory shirts are made of a thinner material that is more see-through than the SS fabric.

SS vs. CC T-shirts

I have recorded CC versions of all five t-shirts, but not SS.  I am missing China, Spanish Girl, and Scotland.

Broken Promises

There was a second set of World Traveler outfits announced at the 1986 New York Toy Fair, but they were never actually produced. The countries included in the new line were England, Japan, Italy, Ireland, France, and Switzerland. The prototype outfits that were used for photoshoots and at the toy show are out there, as they sold on eBay in 2005. (Leah Salt, FB post, Aug. 10, 2020; Ref #3, p. 93) For pictures of the prototypes, refer to Ref#3, page 98.

The Excess

Like many of the other special editions that came out in 1985, the World Travelers did not sell well due to their higher price point. Eventually, to get rid of overstock, Coleco started putting all sorts of weird combinations together. Consequently, the outfits can be found on twin sets, some of which were Jesmar kids. Twins came out earlier in Canada, and many of the oddball twin sets are found in Canadian boxes. (Ref#5, 82) They can also be found in ‘single’ kid boxes.

Both the WT outfits and the white shirts that came with them also came out packaged separately. They can be found in a variety of packaging styles.

Other

Butterick created a sewing pattern specifically for the World Traveler outfits.

Picture of a Butterick sewing pattern package for the World Traveler outfits. Pattern #3729. Outfits Scotland, China and Holland.
  • This is the advertising picture from the 1985 Coleco Catalogue.

2 thoughts on “World Traveler Wear”

  1. I have a World Traveler Russian boy and his boots do indeed have a factory code inside. One says “OK 3 Hong Kong” and the other says OK but the number is an upside down 2 and then Hong Kong.

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