I confess that this is where I become a bit of a collecting hypocrite...in that I don't actually hate Jem's fashions as much as I dislike the character herself. I have a good number of Flipsides, although I parted with some like City Lights and I don't really regret it. I haven't individually photographed every single Flipside wearing doll in my collection, not least because some of them have an odd mix of bits and pieces of flipsides that would make Regine and Shana throw up their hands in dismay. However, I am very fond of several of these fashions, and it would be wrong for me to ignore them.

On the left, Roxy is wearing Lightnin' Strikes. She's a very pretty Roxy, and I knew from the moment I got this fashion that she was going to wear it. It suits her far better than it would ever suit Jem for the simple reason that Roxy's neutral hair tone works so well with the colours of the outfit. Rather garish with pink, in my opinion. Also, lightning bolts seem to fit Roxy and the Misfits far more than they do the Holograms. Roxy didn't get a fair deal with Smashin' Fashions, so this is my way of evening the score. This Roxy is a Second Edition, and she has mastered the very exceptional feat of wearing the WHOLE of Lightnin' Strikes (minus shades) in one go - Jem and Jerrica parts. This is one of the few flipsides that works very well all together.

To the right, another Second Year flip. This is Broadway Magic - however, there is quite a big story around this doll and the reason she is wearing this most prized and rare of Kimber fashions. I sat watching an auction for an entire afternoon - an auction in France, written in French, I hasten to add - in order to add this to my collection. It was far cheaper than the going rate, and I was far broker than the average Jem collector...but I really wanted to get it. The reason? I wanted this doll to wear it.

 

This Kimber is very special to me. I'm a Misfit fan, but she was my first doll. I picked her up at a toy fair with the intention of trading her, but for some reason, I couldn't. Then I saw Truly Outrageous, and she stayed for good. She's a Second Edition Kimber (see the earrings), but one without the pink streaks in the hair. People at first thought she was a First Year with the earring holes put in after, but she still has the hairtie plugs buried in all that very crimson hair, so it was possible to disprove the doubters and establish her identity as Second Edition Kimber (generally known as Red Kimber in collector circles). I got her with no accessories of her own (those earrings are not hers originally), and her head is prone to popping off when she's cross or overbrushed...but she is my most special Kimber doll, and as such, deserves the best. I have all of this fashion, but the ugly hoodie is elsewhere...

So this is my absolute favourite Flipside Fashion of all of them, and it always has been, right from the first moment I saw it. The dazzling "She Makes An Impression" which Aja wears when she and Craig play and flirt with each other during the Talent Search episode when they play "I Got My Eye On You" as Craig's audition piece. It looks awesome in the cartoon, and it's ten times prettier in reality. For obvious reasons, I've always displayed it the Aja way round, although Aja does have the hat as well, which is not part of the Jerrica apparel.

Unfortunately, it's also a very difficult fashion to lay paws on, and pretty expensive into the bargain. I confess that my loose fashion is incomplete, as I don't have the proper tights - but I do have enough of it to make it a displayable piece and I really value the fact it's in my collection.

 

Behind Aja, who is one of my Second Edition Aja dolls, you can just see something cardboardy poking out. On the right is a better picture. I know I'm focusing a little bit obsessively on She Makes An Impression (would you believe as I type this the song just came on my Itunes mixed list, must be fate), but it is such a gorgeous fashion. I was given the opportunity to buy this fashion MIP at a very reasonable price considering the prices of 2nd year flips at the time from a very generous collector who knew I loved it and made me a deal I could afford so that I could get it. I won't name him, but if he's reading, I haven't forgotten and I'm still grateful to you now for letting me add it to my collection. It's one of my most prized Jem items, even now.

 

In the foreground, you can see Video wearing Up And Rockin'. I confess, I have no idea why I still own that fashion, except that when I look at it, I have a kind of lurid fascination for how Hasbro made something so garish and ugly and managed to sell it so well. It does work with Video, but I think, like Lightnin' Strikes, it's not a fashion that's really designed to suit Jem...

 

So now we come to two special dolls in my collection which are featured in my Flipside display case section. Both are Raya dolls, and before anyone brings me to task for hoarding Raya dolls, I actually only have one loose Raya doll who is in tip top condition. What do I mean by this? Well, one who has all the correct appendages to begin with! I do have Raya MIB on my top shelf, so I've never fussed about the condition of my loose ones, but I made a conscious effort because she's more hard to find (at least, when I was actively buying my collection, she was in demand) not to hoard tons of her in my collection.

I kept these two because, quite frankly, I feared for them if I tried to sell them on. I don't generally find Raya the prettiest of dolls, but these two are actually very pretty. On the right, you can see We Can Change It Raya, with her hair in as close a representation as I can get to the original Raya hairdo. It should be mentioned this is an American bought Raya- my sister's loose Raya from Holland and my own MIP one have very tight wild curls, not big loose waves like this one, making the Raya "do" much harder to achieve. It actually works best on this one though.

I don't have all of this fashion, but enough to display the best bits. That seems to suit Raya, who, if you look closely at the picture, is not quite up to par with the other dolls in the collection. See it? Look at her hands. Yep, she has two of the same hand. Probably this was a manufacturing flaw, since it's unlikely given Raya's body tone that someone switched her hands around when she was in a kid's home, and she's significantly hard to find that you'd think someone would replace her hand with the wrong colour if they were going to get the wrong hand! Either way, she's got two right hands and no left. I guess that makes her quite unique? But in some circles, that would make this very pretty and quite displayable doll custom bait, and so she's staying with me where she's safe and valued how she is.

On the left is the other Raya of the duo. You can see quite clearly that even if We Can Change It Raya is in a sorry position, Gettin' Down To Business Raya is in an even more compromising one. I don't know what happened to her hands. She came to me like this, and I realised she was a way too pretty doll to discard just because she had a minor flaw. I also didn't want to butcher a decent mint Raya doll to give her hands, so I figured, she'd do like this. She's been wearing the Jerrica version of this fashion ever since, and it suits her.

A note of irritation. Integrity calls this fashion "Who Is He Kissing?" because it's used in that music video, and now there's a general trend associating it with that name. However, I hope that doesn't mean the renaming of the original, because Hasbro called it Gettin' Down To Business and that's the name I'm gonna stick with, no matter what.

I said before that I didn't have all the loose Flips. I do have Music In The Air, Like A Dream and Sophisticated Lady MIB, and from the main page you can see that I also have Rock Country and Let's Rock This Town loose. But, as mentioned before, no City Lights...and obviously, no stupidly rare and expensive Puttin' It All Together or Runnin' Like The Wind. I did once have the dress to Runnin' Like The Wind, but there didn't seem a point in keeping it without the rest of the outfit...