Do you see the obvious similarities? No doubt the background artwork in this Sally Schrank girls' lingerie ad is the same artwork that eventually found its way onto Crissy's earliest boxes!
This advertisement came from a 1967 "Seventeen" magazine, a full two years before Crissy was released. Remember though, that pre-production and prototyping for Crissy occurred in 1968 (thus her head marks). So the date is right! Whoever drew this profile not only sold it to Allied Chemical for this Caprolan Nylon ad, they sold it again, perhaps touched up with color and actual strands of hair for Crissy's profile!
You can definitely see the similarities:
1. The nose turns up.
2. The eyeliner is drawn exactly the same way.
3. The bangs have that chopped look and space between the hair and the forehead.
4. A strand of hair separates by the cheekbone.
5. The nostril line is exactly the same.
The ad predates Crissy for sure, not only in date, but the artist added hair color, eye color, and lip color before selling it to Ideal.
Or did he or she sell it to Ideal too?
Here's another Caprolan ad featuring a crew-neck shift designed for Claire Tiffany, Inc. The fabric was designed "by Joyce" and is made of Caprolan Nylon. The background drawing is definitely drawn by the same artist, though the profile is more mature and sophisticated looking than the more girlish profile shown at the top of this page. Perhaps it is another version of the original drawing that perhaps eventually became the famous Crissy profile? (Once again, many thanks to Phil Notaro for continuing to provide information to this site and it's numerous fans!)
Theories? Of course we have some!
I invited the Yahoo Crissy Doll Club to offer their thoughts and theories.
Susan noticed immediately that the tallest girl is wearing underthings that resemble Crissy's "Funderwear" outfit! That would imply that the prototype department already had a couple year's worth of outfits planned since "Funderwear" was not released for sale until 1971. That is likely, but we just don't know for sure. Were they already looking through Seventeen magazines for fashion ideas for young girls? Actually, that is very likely so perhaps they found the concept for "Funderwear" and noticed the background art and wanted to use it too.
The Allied Chemical Company was formed in December, 1920. Eventually, it became part of The Honeywell Corporation. Their "Fabricated Products Division" manufactured and marketed products strongly oriented to end-users, namely, the consumer.
Some interesting information can be found here.
The Fibers Division was established in 1963, where their Caprolan Nylon was produced and marketed. Caprolan, the best known of Allied's Chemical consumer oriented products is a nylon-6 polyamide fiber made from "caprolactam monomer." Unless you are a chemist, you, like most others, have no idea what this is. However, they were the first to produce captolactam and nylon-6 in America.
In Hopewell, Virginia, USA, is where their spinning facility was located. This caprolactam plant supplied the Fibers Division with raw materials for its heavy and medium denier yarn. "Denier" is a unit of measurement for the fineness of silk or nylon or rayon. The heavy deniers were utilized in tire cord, carpeting, upholstery, seat belts, cordage, conveyor belts and similar hard-wearing industrial products where unusual strengths were required. This tells us that Caprolan was strong and could endure play by a child, especially in a doll where hair-play was the theme.
The Honeywell History website goes on to say: "Fine-denier yarns went into hosiery, lingerie, colorful gowns, and many types of apparel including outer wear. In 1968 a new fiber combining the desirable qualities of polyamide and polyester polymers was introduced under the trademark "Source". Its principle use was carpeting."
Do you know someone that worked at Allied Chemical back then? If so, do you have more information to share?
Or do you have a theory?
If so please be sure to send an email and share it! We love it when site readers share!
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