The Little Miss Retro store is open. In it, artist Tiffany Gholar gives Barbie back her childhood- and you can have yours with her products designed from a “cute, colorful, fun, and whimsical photo series of little vintage dolls.”
“It’s nice to have accessible, affordable art to offer people for under $100.” -Tiffany Gholar, Founder of Mixed Media Art Design
Artist Tiffany Gholar’s new body of work rescues vintage dolls to make affordable art anyone can use or wear- and just in time for school supply season. A prolific painter and writer who also handmakes stylish jewelry from safety pins (who knew?), she converted her latest series to on-demand tote bags, notebooks, binders and more at her Little Miss Retro Zazzle store.
A Dash of Whimsy to School, Office and Life? Yes, Please.
Gholar has taken a huge risk in these heavy, quarrelsome times: to have fun. In fact, she describes the Little Miss Retro collection as a “cute, colorful, fun, and whimsical photo series of little vintage dolls.” She wanted to circulate the digital photographs and her message beyond her Chicago Fine Arts Building Studio. You can join in the fun when you settle into the store and customize unique products including wall art based on “model,” photograph and size.
Shop there for notebooks, binders, drawstring backpacks, paper weights, mouse pads and more school or office. Stickers have made a comeback as a generation’s laptop and tablet identity markers of choice. Pick out designs for a girl’s bedroom or throwback conversation starter for your home. Find durable totes to replace the faded ones from your old neighborhood’s grocery store. Even pick up some quirky jewelry.
I haven’t seen a more novel idea for girls’ parties or special occasions than the store’s jewelry and party favors such as earrings, lockets and magnets. Choose your model, product, background, number and voila… party started.
And hallelujah for amazing adhesive wall art. I cannot succumb to one more remote saying or hokey image peeled up where we urbanites can’t drill or nail holes to hang real art on.
“It’s what I love about stores like Etsy and Zazzle and adapting work to them,” Gholar says. “People can own products and wearables that really are original art.”
If display art is your thing, you can also customize traditional canvas or prints of select designs and collages. Just choose the size, format and shape. Acrylic, metal, triptych and glossy posters are also options according to your needs and budget. For instance, wood canvases start at $40 for an 8 x 8 inches design. Transfer this to a 2 x 3-feet canvas for $265. I highly recommend these to liven up classrooms, bedrooms and activity spaces.
I was surprised to learn adhesive backing instead of regular canvas and print was available for many images.
“As an artist, I’ve become conscience of people living in apartments,” Gholar says. “Many places don’t allow people to put holes in the walls. That shouldn’t be a drawback to having good art in your home.
The “Models”
(Counterclockwise from top left: Penny, Mimi, Honey, Jan, Holly, Jackie, Jill, Pepper)
The collection features little girl dolls Gholar rescued from thrift bins and sourced on sites like eBay to repair, redress in many cases and photograph. She spotted fabrics, various cloth and even cocktail napkins to match backgrounds with the dolls’ clothes.
She gave the dolls fun names like “Jackie” and “Jill.” Their wardrobes stretch from average 60’s schoolgirl vibe to an 80’s punk aesthetic. As imagination disappears from even child’s play in favor of screens, Gholar envisioned activities and worlds for the dolls to catch the perfect photographs. Then she set them to model various poses and moods until one hit.
Personality and soul leap out of the collection similar to Lorna Simpson’s knack for expression and emotion in every face she depicts. Her epic fine art collaboration with Rihanna as subject was Essence Magazine‘s response to the call to boost the world’s morale and keep the arts at the forefront in January 2021 after the pandemic year.
I am also reminded of the confidence and optimism I sense from women in Simpson’s work, as in her installation of flower crowns on Black women’s heads, a motif Gholar has adopted in other works. Also an interior designer, Gholar’s eye for shape and color makes whole worlds come alive in artificial replica.
The Message
For many years, Gholar has sustained ongoing interest in and protest of harsh body image and weight standards Barbie dolls impose. Her “The Doll Project“ body of work is also based on posed and photographed dolls. She wrote an art book to outline her process, personal life and mindset during its few years of creation.
Gholar’s concern near to fury is evident in her installations and dioramas. They convey the emotional distress and anxiety women endure for unrealistic weights or beauty standards. She was shocked to discover a little pink scale and How To Lose Weight book as official Barbie accessories from the 1960s.
It’s Complicated
Barbara Millicent Roberts was born in 1959, just in time to take over the 1960’s. 64 years later, her biopic if you will was one of the highest grossing films of recent times- and no slouch either, given Academy Award nods. Who doesn’t love Barbie? Who didn’t have her in their lives if not bedrooms as a kid? Mattel birthed a romantic, gym-going, professional, active woman in her own right. Her popularity may have made the problem. For too long, Barbie was the only one or most important one for many who would never look like her.
The Doll Project displays how this American icon both represented mass body image culture and distorted it. Little Miss Retro takes a turn to the girls like Gholar was who played with her. I was one. I learned about sex from Barbie. The best my father could do for “The Talk” was to come into my pink bedroom, pick up the doll I’d forget about and manipulate it in ways attempting to explain things. I can never not smile about her for that.
Turns out, I had other options beside her and so did other people. Those options just were not widely available or advertised. They were often from small companies who could in no way compete with a behemoth box store toy giant.
And they weren’t aspirational. They were only boring little girls like me. As what older girls and even adults could admire, lone Barbie crowded our discovery of so many other enchanting figures Gholar rediscovers.
The Process
“I’ve been working on this since 2011. It just feels like the right time to bring them out. I’m going to be adding so much more. This is just the beginning.”
I spoke with Gholar about her process behind creating the series and conceiving its mass distribution. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Beauty News NYC: I like how savvy you are about posing the dolls and communicating narratives in subtleties of gesture and gaze. How are you capturing these images?
Tiffany Gholar: I use a basic Samsung Gallery S25 camera from my phone, but the key is I take pictures in natural light on a nice day. I usually get a nice little picture if I put my vision on the windowsill with the sun shining.
BNNYC: These backgrounds match the doll clothes so perfectly. Did you paint or graphic design backgrounds to match?
TG: No, I used just ordinary things. Dottie is in front of placemat from Crate and Barrel from back when I first moved out of the house at 22. You remember, the old days when household things came in colors that were not just neural and gray? Mimi is standing in front of a cocktail napkin. Penny is posed in front of a vintage bonnet hair dryer from the 60’s. Jackie, Jill and Jan are in front of little plates for parties. Color schemes and patterns just matched.
BNNYC: Wow, so normal play and imagination with just the things around us, like kids do or we all used to. How did you collect or choose these dolls?
TG: They’re random. I had a ton of Barbies of course, always have. But they were White and blonde. I wanted other dolls so started with ones I had. Penny was a hand-me-down from one of my big cousins, from 1963. Jan was one of the first Asian dolls ever here and I found her online. I did not like a big head on a little body so I switched out her body. I wanted variety but realistically.
BNNYC: I do see more dolls than Barbie but rarely pay attention to them. She’s the one I go to for gifts and everything really. Others can be finding these old dolls to take them out of landfills and restore them. How?
TG: Many toy companies who made these went out of business. The internet is helpful, thrift stores and vintage stores as well. I wanted a diverse variety of these dolls, no Barbies. I wound up scrolling through so many listings online, eBay, other sites. I had to refine my search tools so much to stay away from racist tropes. For instance, it’s a voodoo doll because it’s a Black girl. That was the crazy part of this process. It was hard to look for something vintage without coming across something racist. I didn’t want to take it back to the 60’s where I saw doll families that were white but the only Black was the maid.
BNNYC: Yikes, that was so normal in those days. And you’d just find them, take care of them…?
TG: Many require work. I had to clean up the dolls from the 80’s because the hair changes colors when you put them in water.
BNNYC: I so remember those.
TG: Yes, I had those dolls. I was excited they made a Black girl, Jackie, for that. And I didn’t know about her when I was young. They made all the dolls out of the same brown plastic so I take care of any knicks, bruises. It’s been nice to get dolls that were probably a dollar at Woolworth’s, dress them up and re-present them. Mimi is big, the same size as a Barbie, so easier to dress. She’s a souvenir doll from Hawaii. I also found other doll enthusiasts who handmake their clothes.
BNNYC: I love how the clothes signal the eras. They really are retro. I see the 80’s, the 60’s, even the 90’s.
TG: For many dolls, I know I’m going to change the clothes. I am going to start making clothes to keep it retro. I only need a little piece of fabric, a little piece of thread, a needle. I can get a white t-shirt, cut it up and put stickers on it of unicorns or teddy bears so people get that the doll in the picture is from the 80’s. I found a popular seller on eBay for all doll clothes. I can tailor and cut the clothes to achieve the look I want.
BNNYC: So you really are giving these dolls life. No more just sitting on a shelf or a bin. They are seen, they are stars. And people can know their story, yours, behind more diverse and varied females.
TG: I thought the images of this series in particular worked well for school supplies and things girls or kids would use. But also adults who want a little fun, too. That’s why there are notebooks, binders and drawstring backpacks along with paper weights, mouse pads, wall art, jewelry, party favors… It feels good to offer original, collectible art that’s accessible and affordable in these times.
Visit the Little Miss Retro store this holiday weekend or back to school shopping season. And visit Tiffany Gholar’s Mixed Media Art Design online to see more work, subscribe and follow.
