I made ABBA's Cat Dresses for my Barbies

Back in September, 2022, I had to bought for myself a set of Barbie Looks Made to Move Barbies, one barbie and one ken, to use as models for poses for when I draw pictures, and the barbie one that I picked out is one with red curly hair and green eyes, reminisce of Frida from ABBA's hair from mid-late 1978, so I named her Freeda. 

In the most recent Barbie Looks launch, they came out with a blonde hair-blue eyed barbie that I decided would be awesome to add to my collection as a barbie reminisce of Agnetha.  So I named her Anyetta.  So now I have a blonde and a redhead.  

I've had Anyetta for a good while now, and I realized it would be fun to try and recreate some of ABBA's costumes in Barbie size, something that I have never really attempted before.  The smallest cat dresses I had made before were for mini-dolls I made for my friend in 2016, and those weren't as small as barbies but definitely still complicated to make.  So why not make my life harder and attempt something even smaller?????  

And let me tell you, these were complicated haha.  I am definitely not the best at sewing in smaller sizes, and even worse with a fabric that frays like CRAZY, and then even more difficult is painting in miniature!  As a perfectionist, it was extremely difficult telling myself that mistakes and coloring over the lines were okay, and yeah there are some errors, but at the end of the day, who really cares other than me?

So here they are in all their glory: Barbie Sized Cat Dresses!  Just to be clear, these barbies are not meant to be Agnetha and Frida, they don't look like them, but rather they are models or just fans or even in their own tribute band.  (And you maybe thinking OMG Becky don't you hate tribute bands???  Yes, the inauthentic ones.  But those that try their hardest to act/sing/move like Agnetha and Frida and Benny and Bjorn in a not cringe, respectful, and certainly not robotic way, then I have no problem with it.  Plus they actually care about sounding like them.  Freeda just so happens to be a Mezzo-soprano and Anyetta a Soprano, and they just so happen to have to right hair colors as well! xD )  

The dresses themselves were made out of satin, and I used acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium to paint the cats.  To secure the tops of the cat dresses, normally I'd use snaps, but I do not have teeny tiny snaps nor did I have to time to find some and buy them, so I used velcro.  Of course my velcro doesn't work very well in when cut so small, so maybe someday I'll replace them w

ith snaps should I get them in a small enough size, but for now it is what it is.  I also glued on teeeny tinnyyy black sequins on the shoulders.  The belts are made out of cut pieces of ribbon, and the boots I got from etsy and glued on even tinier white ribbon. 

As of right now, I have not made the longer skirts, but it's something I'd like to add at some point.  I'd also LOVE to make the boys' outfits, but I do not have any Bjorn and Benny lookalike kens, and I don't think Mattel makes any that look enough like them, so that'll have to wait.  

However I did finally get my hands on yellow satin, so I took the time to seam rip the old linings from my regular cloth doll-sized Cat Dresses, neaten up the edges on the inside because I apparently sewed the insides extremely sloppily hahhhaa, and replace the original cotton lining with more accurate satin, and it looks SO MUCH BETTER!  I have yet to try it on my ABBA dolls because I'm working on another set of outfits right now that may or may not have been taking me two years to complete.

I also for fun made a video on how I made the cat dresses.  Not a tutorial in anyway, just something I filmed for pure enjoyment purposes. 

So that's it for now!  :)