Play set | premium:Cabbage Patch Playset #3

Created by a 21-year old art student, Cabbage Patch Kids had a comparatively quiet beginning as handcrafted cloth dolls available in Southern gift shops and at craft fairs. Xavier Roberts gathered some friends and began producing the dolls using a rediscovered technique of fabric sculpture. Roberts supplied his cute but homely dolls with names, birth certificates, and adoption papers. Roberts' dolls caught the attention of Coleco Industries, which began mass-producing CPKs economically with vinyl heads and cloth bodies in the early 1980s. The popularity of the doll in 1983 led to a number of ugly scenes at toys stores and department stores. Coleco could hardly supply the millions of Cabbage Patch Kids wanted by eager customers who had often waited in lines for hours to purchase the dolls and stormed the stores to make their purchases. CPKs remain popular--in the first decade, more than 71 million dolls were sold. The dolls have changed manufacturers several times (Coleco, Hasbro, Mattel, currently Play Along). This doll celebrates the 25th anniversary of the mass produced dolls.