Fleur Booklets
Fleur books will be added soon :)
Fleur Booklet 1982
This is the first printed Fleur booklet published in 1982. It was included with Fleur dolls sold that year, and also in 1983 (it was included with my 1983 Secretary Fleur doll). It shows a mix of dolls, outfits and furniture. If you didn't know dolls had catalogue numbers starting with 10 and outfits with 12, you might not know which picture is a doll and which is an outfit. The only doll described with her real name is My Fair Lady.
The pictures are all official promo photos - there is no original photography in this booklet. They are cute, colourful and even humorous - see Fleur cleaning the toilet. It's hard to imagine Barbie doing the same, right?
The second picture in this booklet is a graphic of a Fleur ballerina body (the caption says 'Fleur, fully movable'). All dolls shown in this booklet have the ballerina body (Popstar, Florida, Sunny Day and My Fair Lady).
Fleur Mini Knippie Booklet 1984
This is the second Fleur booklet, published in 1984. It was included with
Famous Fashion Fleur
doll, alongside a pair of knitting needles and two skeins of yarn. Knippie was a popular Dutch knitting magazine (it still exists as a website today), so Fleur jumped on the 1980s knitting trend with this 'mini' version. Below are all the pages of the booklet, and the contents are simply delightful - hair styling tips for your Fleur, a simple knitting pattern for a hat, bag and skirt, exercise tips, crafts projects and ads for other toys. The cover text under the title says 'Free from Fleur'. This booklet is all in Dutch.
Fleur Booklet 1986 Small
The third Fleur booklet - published in 1986 - is probably best known of the four. It was included with all dolls shown in it. If the previous two booklets didn't make you fall in love with Fleur, this one did the job. It has 20 beautiful full-colour photos in categories: dolls, outfits (called 'dresses') and accessories. The paper and print are of very high quality. The text is entirely in English.
1986 was the year Fleur box design changed from dark green to light green. Clearly, this booklet was part of the new marketing strategy - note the clever inclusion of B.T. Toys International address on the last page (they were Otto Simon's parent company). 1986 was also the year the most dolls and outfits were produced - and thanks to this booklet, it is the best documented year in Fleur history.
Please note - to avoid cutting the Pretty Baby picture in half, I put the shower photo between the baby photos. Its actual place is before the bedroom photo.
Fleur Booklet 1986 Big
The fourth Fleur booklet - also published in 1986, and possibly still available in 1987 - is big (size of a small notebook) and beautiful. At this size, it wouldn't fit inside a doll box, so it was probably a gift-with-purchase at toy stores (but I don't know this for sure).
It is obvious a lot of creativity went into this booklet - none of the photos are existing promo photos (like in the small 1986 booklet above), but completely new photography of every item. The pictures are gorgeous (and almost all taken near the same white window frame). There are some lovely outfit flatlays on the sleeping girl background - she's dreaming of all the Fleur things she wants (I know that feeling!). All doll and Pretty Baby photos are accompanied by short stories. This was clearly meant to be read and enjoyed - not just flipped through. All the text is in Dutch.
A closer look at the photos reveals some hilarious details. On the page with the horses and the shoe bag, there is a pair of Fleur legs sticking up in the air. In the photo of Fleur and brown kitchen, there is something big and dark growing in her fridge. In the same photo, Fleur is wearing white socks with black high heels - now you know for sure it's the middle of the 1980s, as that was a trendy look. There are many more funny things - take a closer look.
