While the toy world all over goes hankering after adding a splash of colors to toys and dolls, Mattel has actually dared to do something different. It has come out with a new concept for Barbie that will have the little girlies across the globe develop a liking for the otherwise grown up color black!

From what we hear, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has joined hands with Mattel on this occasion to bring out the Barbie Basics™ Collection. So you get to see your favorite doll in different skin tones but with two things in common – beauty and the black dresses. Again, each of these dolls also comes with an accessory kit.

Mattel is busy auctioning off these dolls. And if we hear correctly, just between January 28th and January 31st the bid reached $3,500 for Lorriane Schwartz’s Barbie with Diamonds closely followed by the Kate Spade Barbie at $800. The auction is going to continue till February 7th. We also hear plans of giving away one of the new Barbie Basic dolls and accessory packs on Twitter from February 1st to 16th.

Via bornrich

Atlanta based designer Mimi Tin sure loves her sushi and that too just the way she likes it. And now, she is all set to make the world fall in love with her version of it too. Well, the idea of the Sushi Style line of furniture items first came to her mind when she was still in grad school. Apparently, one of her assignments required her to create a piece of furniture that belonged to a specific design period. And she chose Japan.

Mimi’s original furniture idea was that of the Carrot Ottoman which later evolved into a sushi roll that is made up of six individual wedges of cushion. All of these sit on top of a wooden base and are held together with a seaweed wrap (that the Japanese love to eat so much for its health benefits) to seal the sushi look.
But this is not where Mimi’s talents take leave. In fact, she has also offered to create mini sushi furniture as accessories for the two dolls belonging to her Sushiami plush doll collection. Wow, so much talk of sushi just got me in the mood of popping one in my mouth!

Via nytimes

As we were telling your before, Michael Jackson fans the world over are looking for ways to immortalise the singer. The latest tribute comes from a company called Hot Toys as it launches a 1/6th scale collectoble figure of the star. This MJ doll is reminiscent of his look in the famous record-breaking Thriller music video of 1983.

Not just that, the toymaker has ensured that the horror theme from the video is maintained in the toy as well. Each collectible figure comes with 2 interchangeable heads, one of MJs and the othet of a zombie, plus there are the 2 different costumes (including the one in red that we see Jackson wearing in the video) that you can dress up the doll in. The doll is brown like MJ’s orginal skin color, which is a good thing because kids today think that the singer was always that horrfying shade of white.

Five sets of interchangeable hands along with a posing right hand have been included in the package. Expected to rake in a lot of moolah from Jacko die-hards, the doll is limited for sale in Japan and Hong Kong only unless they open a shipping option too. By the way, do you have any friends in Japan who owe you a favour!?

Via hottoys

How real the need for blinged toys is even as you grow older this exhibit might try to clarify but it can assuredly find a place in a museum for everyone to admire. Start devising an explanation for your darling daughter if she sights this doll here and wishes to have for herself!

Via news.3yen

You must have heard of numerous Kitty dolls in the market but I am sure this Hello Kitty Selection, event happening at the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo is news for you.

Ready to add-on to the list of expensive toys of your kids, this expensive Hello Kitty doll, made of 62,000 Swarovski crystal glasses, is modeled after Japanese traditional “Fortune-Inviting-Cat” figure. Around 800 unique Hello Kitty products are on sale.

To give you the feel of the dolls and other exciting products, just jump down:

The doll on left is retailed at 8 million yen ($66,115) and on right will cost you1, 575,000 yen ($13,016).

At bottom are cosmetics boxes sold at 367,500 yen (US$3,037) each.