This website, originally designed to showcase my collection of vintage Kens, his friends, and their outfits, has since expanded to become the most informative and thoroughly researched resource for male fashion dolls and clothing from 1961 to 1987. It contains over 5000 images, and is added to, and improved, on an almost daily basis.
Using contemporary documents and NRFP items as a guide, the site presents the basic facts of ‘what, where & when’. I am not affiliated to Mattel in any way. The information is derived from my own ongoing research, so is liable to change as new facts come to light: items and variations I didn’t know existed, for example, do still occasionally turn up, especially in Europe and Japan.
Various clone copies of Ken and other, non-Mattel, male fashion dolls are also mentioned here, but as there is very little documentary evidence available these sections are very much work-in-progress.
To assist other collectors and complete the picture, I have included photos of some catalogues and original packaging I do not personally own – thanks, by the way, to everyone who has sent me scans and photos over the years. All dolls and outfits are for reference purposes only.
It is great hearing from other collectors! Do you need help identifying something? Have you discovered a rare variation which is missing here? Do you have additional information to provide? Do you have a foreign Ken I have not mentioned? I am particularly grateful for photos of NRFP items I’m missing, and good scans from catalogues and booklets, which I only have in bad quality. Please write/send pictures to Anthony at: contact@somethingabouttheboy.com.