Sweet Gail


Informational Site Only This is Sweet Gail, which I acquired in what I thought was a royal purple dress. She has her original three quarter length fingerless gloves and her original necklace and earrings, but is missing her crown. I have had a couple of ladies email me that she had one of these dolls when she was young, in a royal blue, and from looking at the dresses from a seamstress point of view, I have come to the conclusion that the purple dress that is found more often than not, is actually a fade-down from the Royal Blue dress, and that Gail should actually be blue. If I look at the hems of the dress, they are finished in a blue bias tape, and blue stitching, and no factory that I know of is going to take a purple dress and put blue stitching and tape on it !

Evidently the fabric does not retain the dye well, and even though this doll, and my sister's doll shown above, with her original box, were not played with, the old tale of not storing things in cardboard boxes, (wedding dresses, etc) is true, you start losing colors.

But, as you can see, there is fading at the top of the dress, turning almost a purple. My royal purple Gail is beside her, and you can almost detect the remnants of the original blue in her dress.

Here is another lovely lady in the same dress as Gail and Ann. Her dress is a pale fuschia, and I added new flowers to the sides for her, the same as her sisters. I believe the mystery is solved as to her gown's name. Her gown is a Gail dress!
The reason I have come to this conclusion, is the bias tape on the dress and stitching inside the dress is BLUE ! I believe the blue dress fades down to purple and on down to the fuschia.
I have also seen the the red fade to kind of an orange color. I sure don't trust the sun to any of these dolls dresses.
But the doll herself is still a mystery.

I recently acquired another of these dolls in an auction, advertised as with a blue dress. The picture used for advertising shows a really blue dress.

Also, if you look at the graphics on the boxes of these two ladies, Ann and Gail, you are seeing that they are reversed. Ann in the red dress has a blue box, and is showing a red dress. Gail in the red box, is showing a blue dress...not purple.

Here is a picture of her a la natural...She is almost twice as heavy as the other doll, and has a twist waist. No markings on her neck, but that is an unmistakable Deluxe face. Here she is shown with her Ann-Gail Sister body.