My daughter is all about Barbie and Princesses. If it's not one of those two, she's not interested in wearing or playing with it. It came as no surprise that she wanted to be a Barbie princess for Halloween.....AGAIN. Yes, every year which is more of a challenge to find something in the Halloween section. The decent Halloween costumes are really fairly expensive, poor quality, and the choices are slim so we strolled over to the toy isle....just in case.

Target had a selection of beautiful Barbie dress up costumes but Erika's dress caught our eye the most. I liked how this was blue, a little different for a change. We had not seen the movie or collected the dolls yet so we loved the dress just on appearance alone.

Packaging
We found our dress hanging on a hanger in the toy isle. It was packaged with a matching ribbon necklace with a silver heart as the locket. When you open the locket you see a photo of Erika on one side of the locket and Annelise on the other side. It has a Velcro closure and is a choker-style necklace. The dress and necklace is identical in design and appearance to the Erika doll.

Size and Material
The size is one size fits most. This barely hangs on my daughter that wears size 3T and it is a little big around the neckline for my other daughter who wears a 6. My daughter is constantly raising her arms in the air to push it up on her shoulders. Something adjustable in the back would have been helpful, but there’s plenty of time to grow into it. My girls are super skinny but there is plenty of width and is stretchable material so should fit fine for husky girls as well.

The skirt is netting with polyester over it. The arms are long sleeve for my toddler and about three quarters for my older girl. The sleeves have some stiff pink polyester ruffle around it. The front of the dress is absolutely beautiful. It has a soft blue stretchy front, and a smooth polyester skirt. The middle is decorated with detail all the way down with pink ribbon, lace, and netting for accents.

The back is all blue and the stretchy material on the back has two Velcro squares for closure. It may be difficult for a child to reach these on their own. I always help my kids into the dress to prevent tearing.

Price
We purchased this for $19.99 at Target. This is actually a very reasonable price for a high quality dress up costume especially if you can use it for dual purposes like a costume party. I personally wouldn't have paid more for it, but I do feel like the girls have gotten a lot of value out of it. I like it so much that I plan on purchasing the matching Annelise costume.

Some may want shoes, crowns, gloves, or other accessories for the dress. I wanted to try the dress on to make sure it fit before buying the accessories. I went back the very next day and they were already gone. I tried finding other items but nothing else matched the dress. My daughter wears plastic pretend Barbie shoes with the dress for indoor play.

Cleaning
Hand wipe with a wet cloth. Do not wash. Do not Dry Clean. My daughter wore this to a party and within the first 10 minutes of wearing dribbled chocolate down the front of the skirt. I was horrified. I ran a little water over the area and it came right out. Later there were marks from being outside and they came right off with a damp wash cloth.

Play
My daughters love to play in the dress, and they often fight over who gets to wear it first. My 2 year old monster turns into a princess when wearing this. She floats around and tries to walk dainty. My older daughter pretends that she is a princess and plays with her tea set.

Surprisingly after seeing the corresponding DVD and receiving both Barbie dolls they never use them together which I found a little odd.

Storage
Storage is a little more difficult with this dress because it’s so full and fancy. We have a bag full of dress up clothes but I don’t dare put this in there. Since it is wide around the neck it doesn’t hang on a hanger very well and if I hang it in my daughter’s room the toddler instantly pulls it down. I usually store this in my closet but you know what they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Other Princess and the Pauper Items
Erika Barbie Doll
Princess Anneliese Doll
Princess and the Pauper Movie


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 19.99
Type of Toy: Playscene
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years