#Fao schwarz plush horse and stable movie#

There were mounted riders and tiny stablemen to tidy up the ponies. FAO also sold a miniature riding academy, and an elaborate horse farm accessorized with hay crib, feed trough, steeplechase and shrubs. It came with brooms and buckets, and the horse had legs that moved, real hair, blankets and tack. I didn’t live anywhere near any horses, yet knew I wanted one and always had, after getting this wooden stable. That s my litle brother in the horrifying Scarecrow and a friend in the “Poor Cinderella” get up. My sister is next to me in the “Red Riding Hood dainty, cream colored silk rayon peasant dress with crimson piping over a red tulle petticoat and a red duvetyne hood and napkin-lined basket”. That’s me in the “Hungarian Peasant Dress with a multicolored, satin striped skirt over a bouffant petticoat and a headdress with flowers and ribbon streamers”. You went to Woolworth’s for those! Until we were old enough to assert our poorly hand-honed, cardboard and tinfoil craptraps, our Halloween costumes were “Well made, imaginative costumes for every fantasy” from the FAO Schwarz catalog…. Then there was the feline family of kitties all cozy on a soft pillow in a wicker basket. One of my absolute favorite toys was a traveling bear in a round case with a Tyrolean outfit, clown suit, overalls, car coat, striped pajamas and a ballet tutu. The frisson of receiving that blue box and unwrapping your doll from the carnation pink tissue was unparalleled. Her petticoats had a secret, hidden pocket with pearls.

Madame Doll had azure eyes, gold ringlets and wore a gown of pale pink silk brocade trimmed with pink organdy and lace ruffles, lacy duster cap with a black velvet bow. Her cornsilk yellow hair was held back with a simple blue band. My sister had the “Pamela and Party Kit”, a big pink case of costumes and party dresses, yellow silk lingerie and wigs.Īlice’s dress was of crisp blue cotton topped with a starched white pinafore. Each doll was impeccably appointed with underskirts, lace edged pantaloons, slips, cotton tights and black velvet slippers or patent leather epilets. The delirium of coma-inducing, button pushing “toys’ have shoved the magical, childish world of special, gracious, high-end toys into complete oblivion.ĭolls were a big part of the FAO Schwarz universe and they had the finest. Founded on an idea that dolls should “engage the imagination and contribute to a child’s happiness and understanding of the world”, Madame Alexander dolls all sported the same supine face, but were unique in hairdo and costume. Or yuppie oriented electronic “storybooks”, interactive videos, stepping stones to children’s inevitable passion switch from playing, listening and interacting, to almost exclusively staring, stoned, at electronic boxes.

#Fao schwarz plush horse and stable movie#

There were luxurious, skin-covered rocking horses, one that even pulleda chrome sulky that was described like something out of a fairytale: “perched in a comfortable bucket seat, the driver of this fine rig guides his prancing pony by the reins.Ĭontemporary toy counterparts – movie tie-in, shrieking and yakking hunks of plastic made in sweatshops and coated in PVCs – just don’t cut it. Like the child-sized replica of a 1950s soda fountain, impeccably rendered, with little, spinning red stools, where children could experience “the thrill of working behindas ice cream fountain server serving sundaes and sodas and other delicious concoctions”. But those were special toys.And expensive! There were the big-ticket toys, that the stores didn’t carry and that we would never get. Unlike the massive phonebookian Sears Wishbook, the FAO Schwarz catalogs were slim and understated, with tiny images of a very limited selection of toys. Founded by a German Immigrant in New York in 1862, these stores offered exclusive toys you never saw anywhere else. There was the menagerie of scratchy, glassy-eyed animals from Steiff: itty-bitty mice called “pieps” in aprons, bears in lederhosen, giant schnauzers handmade from felt, mohair, and alpaca. The store’s enchanting doll department had pyramids of 8″ Madame Alexander dolls from exotic lands, and behind glass were the 14″ storyland lasses. Altmans – it was a place that invoked an almost unconveyable magic. Ours was in a suburban Philadelphia shopping mall that also housed Lord & Taylor and B.

The 5th avenue store was harrowing and a far cry from the satellite stores that existed in the 1960’s and 70’s.

FAO Schwarz is closing its flagship Manhattan store because the toy giant can not keep up with the rent increases.