Shirley Projects, Pt. 1

In the final scene of Shirley Temple’s 1934 film “Bright Eyes,” she wears a cute cloche hat and coat set trimmed with foxtail tips. Ideal dolls manufactured this set for their 1930's composition doll in a corduroy fabric; the one I have is modeled by a 20" Shirley doll and I believe the trim is mink (or so I've been told by a fur expert!).



When this very outfit came up for auction in 2015, it was revealed that it was a peach/pink color. This made me like it even more! Here is the catalog description from Theriault’s:

Of a coral-rose wool, the coat has an unusual marble button and loop closure, cuffed sleeves, embroidery detail, and a stand-up collar with attached scarf having foxtail tips. Along with a matching cloche with foxtail tips trim. The coat has the label of "DeBetty Alden Shoppe Los Angeles". Generally excellent. The coat and hat were worn by Shirley Temple in the 1934 film "Bright Eyes".



I’m guessing the label actually says “Ye Betty Alden Shoppe,” as one can see the name of the shop in this vintage 1930 shot I found on the web:



Recently, a set for a 25" doll became available in an online auction without the fur trim. The price was very cheap and I said to Melissa (aka “The Colonel”) in one of our almost daily chats that it would be cool to attempt to dye it to match the screen-worn costume. A few days later, it arrived at my house! What a nice suprirse! Melissa LOVES projects (and so do I!), and this was one she wanted to see what I could do with it.




My first step was to attempt to even out the color of the garment by soaking it in Staintique. I would like to do that for the one I already have, but then I would need to remove the mink fur pieces, and I am not about to muck up the original stitching. Here was the result; much brighter!



Step 2 was dyeing the fabric. I picked Rit’s pink dye. Oops! I love pink, but this was definitely too deep.



A few weeks went by and I decided to try again, this time with Rit’s Rose Quartz color. SUCCESS!! I used RIT’s color remover powder; the deep pink coat barely touched the boiling bath with color remover and it was INSTANTLY white again! Cautiously, I dipped the garment into the Rose Quartz and voila! SUCCESS!



Dimitha on ebay sells doll-sized fur pieces, and I bought a set of ivory and brown mink for the trim. They worked PERFECTLY! I decided to go with the ivory set to more closely resemble Shirley’s screen-worn costume.





What do you think? Ready to give this a shot yourself?

See more Shirley Temple doll photos at my main website.