Aging

Whether it’s gracefully or otherwise, we are thinking ahead.

Regain your youth without resorting to expensive surgery: re-visit your childhood with a vintage doll collection. Or maybe it’s dressing fashion dolls in outfits we’d never have the guts to wear ourselves, even if the figure permitted. Our dolls remain pert and pretty with the passing years, immune to sagging cheeks unless too near a heat source. Lines and wrinkles are unheard of, although age spots are a possibility if the plastic is poor.

A rare exception is the venerable Grannykins, made by the Royal Doll Manufacturing Company from the late 1950s. Her sculptor created a beguiling face with history. From the twinkly eyes set with crows feet, to the top of her silver hair, she looks very much her age.

The makeover ended at the head, as she has the body of a twenty-year old. A clever feat many of us would like to emulate. Grannykins uses a standard fashion body of the period, similar to the 20-inch Revlon dolls. Perhaps a decision based on cost and to ensure that this doll could also wear her granddaughter’s outfits should she choose to.

Remco was another champion of the older doll. When they created their short-lived Littlechap family, they were keen to make the parents look like real grown-ups of the 1960s. Both Lisa and Dr John Littlechap, Ma and Pa to Libby and Judy, had distinctive grey hair and were made to look older than standard fashion dolls.

The Dr John sculpt was especially blessed with tell-tale signs of age: the merchandising booklet describes him as ‘handsome, with a masculine movie star physique’. The years were kinder to Mrs L: her maturity was suggested by a streak of silver in her severe beehive, the merest hint of laughter lines, and a particularly matronly range of clothes.

Amongst modern dolls, we don’t see the passage of time to the same degree. Sculpts remain resolutely youthful and any indication of the years is initimated by a sprinkling, or slice, of grey. As seen in D.A.E.’s Monty, the Jamieshow silver fox Trent, Integrity Toys’ Zita Charles, or Tonner’s glamorously platinum great aunt, Regina Wentworth.

As author and screenwriter Nora Ephron once explained, “There’s a reason why 40, 50, and 60 don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye. In the 1950s only 7% of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and LA where there are no grey-haired women at all.”

It’s interesting that in the real world there’s a trend amongst the young for grey hair. Italian youths are asking for a George Clooney at their local hair salons. Their naturally dark tresses being died salt and pepper for the latest fashionable look.

So why the rush by those blessed with the attributes of youth to adopt the follicular version of granny chic? In fashion terms grey is the new black, as trendy twentysomethings, inspired by the likes of Lady Gaga, Girls star Zosia Mamet, singers Pink and Rihanna and Kylie Jenner, dye their hair 50 shades of grey.

But ask women with naturally grey hair who have been spoken to as if they were old, deaf, or an imbecile, and they’ll tell you a different story. Sadly, until western society values its older members for the experience and wisdom they bring, the status of our hair as a cue for instant value judgment will continue.

This story first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine, 2015