1986 Disco Magic Sindy

1986 was a big doll year for me and a big year for Sindy. Jem was released in October 2006 and caused ripples in the doll market with its huge sales promotion.

I for one was fascinated with it's feature length film and casette tapes issued with each doll!

I loved Pop music so to have dolls that could sing songs was amazing for me.



"The Changing Face of a Legend"

After many years of looking the same, Sindy had had a facelift in 1986, presumably (and this is my own personal presumption) following a quiet year after a huge onslaught from camp Barbie in 1985/86.

Pedigree released the new look Sindy in 1986, some a re-hash of 1985 dolls (Starlight, Jazz-dance) Also in late 1986 was a set of Sindy dolls called Disco Magic. The Disco Magic dolls where released in 3 different hair colours, Blonde, Auburn and black. They all had pink bangs and where issued in funky fashions.




Images used with permission & Thanks: Jolanda Graaf from http://www.petradolls.co.uk/ site

A set of Disco Magic fashions where also released but I have heard these are quite cheap and flimsy.


These dolls have been really hard to find out much information about however as the images from that years catalogue only shows some regular dolls with the fashions on so they must have only been at the early development stage?





Since investigating these dolls I have come to some conclusions about the Disco Magic range.

Pedigree was bought by Hasbro sometime in 1986/87, the date I am not sure of. Hasbro had a highly popular pop star doll out in late 1986 called Jem. Jem had pink hair, her own band & boyfriend as well as a rival band. Hasbro's 'Jem' dolls also had a full set of reversible fashions to create different looks for its duel character Jem / Jerrica. Jem was a big doll for me in 1986 & 87, while I still collected Sindy I don't really remember a lot about the range due to the Jem line.

It does seem a little odd that Pedigree had a set of 'pop star' dolls with pink in their hair that year too, and even a set of reversible fashions.



I do wonder if Pedigree knew about a pending takeover from Hasbro so had been asked to rush out a set of dolls to get kids into the idea of a pop star doll? The dolls are not of the best quality so I find them a little rushed. Either that or they had found out about Jem prior to their late '86 release. Mattel had found out about Jem prior to the release and had rushed out a set of dolls by the name of Barbie & The Rockers (or Rock Stars as they are known in Europe) which where also similar to Jem.