TLSM is collaborating with Paul Jackson who has the “1986 Pedigree Sindy” page on Facebook.
He says: “Pedigree released the new look Sindy in 1986. Also in late 1986 was a set of Sindy dolls called Disco Magic. The Disco Magic dolls where released in 3 different hair colours, Blonde, Auburn and Black. They all had pink bangs and where issued in funky fashions.
Since investigating these dolls I have come to some conclusions about the Disco Magic range. Pedigree was bought by Hasbro sometime in 1986/87, the date I am not sure of. Hasbro had a highly popular pop star doll out in late 1986 called Jem. Jem had pink hair, her own band & boyfriend as well as a rival band. Hasbro’s ‘Jem’ dolls also had a full set of reversible fashions to create different looks for its duel character Jem / Jerrica. Jem was a big doll for me in 1986 & 87, while I still collected Sindy I don’t really remember a lot about the range due to the Jem line.
It does seem a little odd that Pedigree had a set of ‘pop star’ dolls with pink in their hair that year too, and even a set of reversible fashions. I do wonder if Pedigree knew about a pending takeover from Hasbro so had been asked to rush out a set of dolls to get kids into the idea of a pop star doll? The dolls are not of the best quality so I find them a little rushed. Either that or they had found out about Jem prior to their late ’86 release. Mattel had found out about Jem prior to the release and had rushed out a set of dolls by the name of Barbie & The Rockers (or Rock Stars as they are known in Europe) which where also similar to Jem.
Here’s the promo artwork for the Disco Magic dolls. They had their hair changed after these promo pictures. I’d loved to have had those two brunettes.”
And here you see how they looked like when released. These lovely dolls, on the photos below, belongs to Paul Jackson.
If you have any of the outfits to sell, please contact TLSM!