I grew up in the 1970’s, when Ken dolls were few and far between on the shelves in stores. Even harder to find was any type of fashion for Ken dolls.

And based on the kinds of emails I get relatively frequently, it’s still a lot harder to find clothes and accessories for Ken than it is to find clothes and accessories for Barbie. Today I want to talk about this dilemma, share a few memories, and hopefully hear from some of you as well, in terms of what’s out there for Ken and what happy memories you have from your generation.

Before we dive into this topic, I need to make my required disclaimer statement: As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how affiliate marketing works on my website, please go to the Privacy Policy page. Thank you!

Most of the girls I knew during my childhood years had four or five Barbie dolls, and many girls had no Ken dolls whatsoever. However my best play pal was my cousin, Virginia, and she had at least one Ken doll per dozen Barbies in her vast collection.

I also had a single Ken to every dozen or so Barbies in my own collection. But dressing Ken was another story.

In the 1970’s, Malibu Ken came only in a pair of swim trunks, and for a lot of girls, that’s all he ever wore!

If you look at the catalog image above, you’ll see that lots of doll clothes packets were offered for Barbie, but on that (very typical) page from a Barbie catalog, there are none for Ken. Clothes for Ken were scarce in the stores as well, since store owners knew that most little girls didn’t own a Ken doll.

Of course I could sew, and therefore my Ken dolls usually wore a pair of pants. But in my early years as a seamstress, I didn’t have any actual sewing patterns for Ken. I was altering my Barbie patterns from a very young age, and frankly, these early attempts at pattern alterations weren’t my finest work ever.

One year for my birthday, I asked for more clothes to fit my Ken doll, and each Ken outfit I was given that year came with the exact same pair of penny loafer shoes.

These came in limited colors and only the penny loafer style. The Ken from the 1960’s had a few other styles to choose from — a sandal, a dress shoe, and a loafer that looked a little different from these.

But for my generation of girls growing up in the 1970’s, I don’t remember any Ken shoes that didn’t look exactly like these goofy penny loafers.

Of course I was growing up in rural Washington State, and I only knew of one store that actually carried Mattel Barbie dolls and clothing packs. So maybe there were more Ken clothes and accessories available to kids who were growing up in urban areas at the time.

Whenever you’d buy a new Barbie doll, they would come with a little fold-out catalog (like the one shown above) that displayed clothes you could buy for Barbie, Ken, Skipper, Francie, and some of the other members of the Mattel lineup. But I don’t remember ever seeing these fashions in an actual store.

I’d love to hear from you, my friends and followers. Do you remember finding fashion packs for Ken in stores? And if you did, were they a rare find? Did you ever see any shoes besides the penny loafers? And if so, what period of time would that have been?

Today’s Ken dolls have a much more varied selection of shoes, but even today, when I go into a brick and mortar store, I almost never see fashion packs for Ken dolls. They’re all for Barbie.

The shoes you see above have wonderful detailing, realistic shapes, and varied styles, but where did they come from? I ordered them on eBay, so I honestly don’t know.

It’s possible these so-called “Ken doll shoes” (as they were listed on eBay) originally came on a male Monster High doll or a  Harry Potter character doll or one of the BTS dolls. The blue wingtip-style shoes with the yellow laces actually say “Ken” on the bottom, so that makes their origin pretty clear, but as for the others, your guess is as good as mine.

In any case, the advent of the internet has made it easier to collect male dolls’ clothing and accessories, but why aren’t there any of these items for sale in regular stores?

Now it’s your turn!

What do you remember about Ken dolls’ clothing and accessories from your childhood, and what period in time would that have been?

Do you struggle to find clothes and accessories for your male dolls? And if so, what is the nature of that struggle?

Please join the discussion by leaving a comment below.

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For anyone who would like to expand their dolls’ wardrobes, you should really check out my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course and my “Design Your Own Doll Pants Patterns from Scratch” classes on the Creative Spark online learning platform. Here’s my bio page on their website, where you can learn more.

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*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include Amazon, Etsy, and the eBay Partner Network. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how my website uses affiliate marketing, please visit the website’s Privacy Policy page.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.