New ABBA The Museum Kimonos

 I was just browsing the ABBA the Museum website and happened to see that they've just remade the kimonos.  And I was pretty excited because, as stated in my lengthy post from August about the problems with ABBA the Museum's costumes, ABBA the Museum did not make an accurate kimono.  Now, I'm not trying to diss ABBA the Museum for attempting to sell ABBA costume replicas, because so few of those exist, but when the product is described as being a replica of the ABBA members' stage costumes, I expect to see a replica, not just something inspired by the kimonos.  And sadly, these kimonos are just as flawed as the first one.

The first issue is not with the costumes themselves, but with the item description, which is as follows:

This kimono is a replica of the stage costume worn by Frida during the Japan leg of the tour. Designed by Owe Sandström, the piece reflects a creative fusion of Japanese and Swedish aesthetics. Sandström chose the traditional Japanese kimono silhouette and adorned it with motifs from Swedish flora—specifically, the Columbine, a classic garden flower. 

(Obviously it says a different ABBA members' name per product description, I just copied the one for Frida's.  Everything else is the same.) 

Now, if you're familiar with ABBA's story, which I would assume ABBA the Museum would have to be because they are the official ABBA museum after all, you know that the Kimonos first debuted in 1976.  Not 100% certain on this, like I can't find a source for this other than my own brain, but I do believe the kimonos were created for the purpose of taking them to Japan, but ABBA didn't end up going to Japan until 1978.  Bjorn and Benny did end up wearing the now-two year old costumes during the short promotional trip, specifically for three of the performances (Knowing Me, Knowing You, The Name Of The Game, and If It Wasn't For The Nights), although Benny was oddly wearing Agnetha's kimono rather than his own.  

 The first official appearance of the Kimonos was in one of the commercials for Japanese Electronics Company, National, in August 1976.  And roughly a month later, the kimonos were worn during the performance of Why Did It Have To Be for the TV special, ABBA-Dabba-Doo.  The final time the ABBA members wore all four kimonos together was in November 1976, when they appeared on the French TV show Les Rendez-vous du Dimanche.  

The kimonos were not worn during the Japanese leg of the 1979/80 World Tour.  So I don't understand why they would say that in the product description,

Now onto the actual costumes themselves.

In the previous iterations of the Kimonos that ABBA the museum sold, they simply scanned in one design out of the 3-4 that appear on each ABBA members' costumes and repeated it in a couple spots on the kimonos.  The kimonos were also full-length, more accurate to traditional Japanese kimonos, but not accurate to how ABBA's costumes were designed.

This time, they have made shorter kimonos, more in line but not quite as short as ABBA's original Kimonos.  They've also scanned in more of the original designs, not just the one, and have made the costumes more accurate in color.  

They almost had me fooled that they'd made an accurate replica this time, however, yet again, the placement of the designs is wrong, again.

To compare, here is an updated chart featuring my drawings of the designs in the correct placement, and the new ABBA the Museum costumes.  (For some bonus fun, can you tell from where on the original kimonos they took the designs from???)  ((ALSO just a reminder - these drawings I did of the floral designs are not 1000% accurate because I had to piece them together myself using images of ABBA's kimonos))

Agnetha: 

  Frida:

 

Benny:

 

 

 

 

Bjorn:

 

 

 I'm just so baffled as to why they've done this, why they can't just put everything in the correct placement.  If they just looked at my charts, they would see how inaccurate they are, but they don't even have to use my charts because they have the actual original costumes right there on display in the museum to consult with.  I just don't understand.

 

 

 Now we know that I have beef with a lot of ABBA tribute bands, but why is it that some of their costumes are more accurate in terms of design placement than the ones sold at the ABBA museum???

 

  

PLEASE do better ABBA the museum, or at least don't list your costumes as replicas.  Please and thank you. <3

 

Somewhat related - I saw this shirt at the Polar Music store, and I think it's such a cute, but subtle way to wear an ABBA themed garment, featuring the design on collar of Frida's Waterloo Costume.  It may be ridiculously expensive, but it's super cute regardless.  If ABBA the Museum wanted to sell more ABBA-inspired clothes like this, I wouldn't have any complaints with that.

 

 Alright, rant over.  Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

 

Also, one nice thing about these new kimonos is the nice high quality scan of the design that's on the back left of Agnetha's sleeve that I unfortunately had to make up half the details for on my doll kimono because there were no high quality reference photos.  Unfortunately this means, oh the horrors, my doll costume is slightly inaccurate, but at least I can saw it's placed in the correct location lol)

 

Official ABBA Costume Replicas - A Study on Accuracy

As you all know, I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to ABBA costumes.  Since I started my sewing journey in 2011, my goal was to recreate for my dolls as many ABBA costumes as possible, as accurately as possible.  As someone who is not a professional and is limited by my skill set and abilities, that task has not been an easy one and try as I might, I don't think I'll ever be able to achieve 100% accuracy, but I do the best and I can and I accept where I am unable to achieve a better result. 

Examples of so-called "ABBA costumes" 

I can't remember exactly when, but I remember when ABBA the Museum started selling ABBA costumes.  It had me super excited, because it meant people didn't have to rely on those weird so-called ABBA costumes that look nothing like what ABBA wore.  If this was made by ABBA's official museum, surely they would be as accurate (and hopefully high quality) as can be.  

 I guess one thing to consider when selling replicas of ABBA's costumes is how practical do you want them to be.  Maybe not everyone wants to go around wearing cat dresses and kimonos that are rather short and not overly practical.  So it didn't bother me too much when ABBA the Museum released official Cat Dresses where they sit a bit longer, and can be worn more as an actual dress rather than a very, very short dress.  The most important thing was that the cat on the front was accurate, which it is.  Unfortunately the cats have been scaled up to fit the larger size, so if you wanted to cut the cat dresses and add slits to the sides for the purpose of accuracy, it would look a bit off, assuming that would bother you liked it would bother me haha.  But all in all, it looks nice.  

A comparison of the ABBA the Museum cat dresses vs. Agnetha and Frida's cat dresses.

But how then am I supposed to feel about official replicas as sold at ABBA the Museum, that are seemingly intentionally made to be not accurate?

In 2015, ABBA the Museum also began selling replicas of ABBA's kimonos.  Unlike ABBA's original kimonos, they chose to make them more in the style of a traditional Japanese kimono in terms of length, and does it bother me slightly?  Yeah, but overall it was quite exciting to me as I had been attempting yet again to recreate ABBA's kimonos, and figured I could use the nice, clear images of the costumes for my recreations!  Boy was I surprised when I was compiling all my reference photos and noticed that the designs did not match up with the designs on ABBA's kimonos.  It simply didn't match up.  

For reference, this is what the placement of Agnetha's original kimono is

And this is my rendering of what I believe to be an accurate rendition of Agnetha's kimono designs. (I drew these designs up back in 2020 when i was working on my doll kimonos.  As far as I can tell, they are as accurate as possible based on all my reference images, but I can't guarantee 100% accuracy. Feel free to use them as reference for your own kimono remakes if you want!)

And when you compare it to the museum's kimono, you can see that they simply used the design on the front of Agnetha's left sleeve and used just that rather than use all of them for some reason.

They did the same with Frida's kimono, taking the design from her front right sleeve and using that instead of all the other designs.

 

 

 

And when Bjorn and Benny's costumes were added to the collection, same issues happened.

Instead of utilizing all of the designs, they used the design from the Front Left of Benny's kimono, albeit they did put it in the correct place at least.

And for Bjorn's costume, they used the design from the front right of his kimono, but it on the bottom right, and then made a new design of 4 flowers where the bottom right of his kimono clearly has only 3.

Another costume remake that they sell at ABBA the Museum is a replica of the cape Agnetha and Frida wore in the beginning of the 1979/80 tour during Voulez-Vous. They title it the polar cape and state that it is a replica.  Because of that claim that it is a replica, I was enticed to buy it, but after looking at the preview picture, I was again surprised to find that it in fact was not 100% accurate. For some reason they shifted the design over so it's off center.  interestingly, they had an earlier version of the costume that wasn't shifted, but when they released it with a better fabric, they shifted it. I have no idea why.  I thought that was the only issue, and ultimately decided I could live with the simple off-centered-ness, and I will say it feels so nice and drapes really nicely.  Although, considering I am quite short and Agnetha and Frida are a lot taller than I am, it is rather big on me haha.

 It even helped me to then look for a good satin to use for my remake of the capes for my dolls.  However, what would you know, when I was working on my doll costumes, I discovered yet another inaccuracy.

A rendering of the ABBA the Museum cape,

And a rendering of the actual cape.  Hopefully you can see the difference.  (Also I have a permanent warp in my eye due to eye-issues, and OMG drawing this with the grid lines on my art program was so difficult haha)

Now don't get me wrong, everything that I have ever bought from ABBA the Museum has been exceptional quality. Expensive, as well, but the quality makes it feel worth it.  And I really do appreciate the effort to make replicas of ABBA's costumes, but my question is, why are they choosing to make the costumes inaccurate?  Especially considering at the ABBA Voyage webstore, they're also selling replicas of Agnetha and Frida's capes from the opening of the Voyage show, and as far as I can tell, while certainly not as extravagant as the designs are printed on rather than embroidered and embellished like the actual things, they are seemingly almost identical to the ABBA-tars costumes.  (Granted I still haven't been to the show, so I can't necessarily verify that at this time.)

I also have these capes and they are so fun and swooshy, and because I enjoyed wearing them so much, that's what convinced me to buy the Polar Cape replica despite its flaws haha.

I guess, all this to say, perhaps it's just me being a perfectionist, and others aren't bothered by this, but I just hope that maybe ABBA the Museum will consider updating their costume replicas further, and producing an even more accurate result.  I really really enjoy their products, (and I just saw that they made a bucket hat and other accessories using the pattern from Benny's fur jacket as seen in the Mamma Mia! music video - that is absolutely adorable!), I just want to see more accuracy, especially where they have the means to compare to the actual costumes as they have most of them on display at the museum. 

And they clearly don't mind making updates, as they already released a new version Agnetha Waterloo beanie that is I think more accurate in terms of pattern.  It doesn't have sequins glued on, like you can do with the original crochet kit, instead having tiny clear sequins that don't resemble Agnetha's original beanie, but it seems to fit my head better than the crochet kit one (but that the crochet kit fitting weird could be due to user error as I crocheted it myself.)

On a semi-related note - I came across a dress on Thred-Up that looked quite similar to Agnetha's Fernando dress.  It's quite a bit shorter than Agnetha's actual dress sitting just above my knees, and obviously it's not meant to be a replica at all, but I decided to get it and have been calling it my Fernando Dupe dress.  The brand is Misslook, and I had to add a lining into it because it was way too sheer originally.  But I have been enjoying it a lot. :3

Cat Plushies

 So many years ago, over a decade by now, I had the idea to make for myself custom ABBA cat plushies based off of the cats that Owe Sandstrom designed for Agnetha and Frida's cat dresses!  But as we know, I am a girl with procrastination tendencies and hyperfixations, likely ADHD but I am currently undiagnosed, so the project was left unfinished with just the base of Agnetha's blue cat sewn.  I actually never posted about it, and even though I see this unfinished cat plush around my sewing area every once in a blue moon, I could not for the life of my find it so you'll just have to believe me that it exists.  

Recently, ABBA the Museum came out with the same independent idea of selling plush versions of Agnetha and Frida's cats, and let me tell you I was soooo happy when I found this out because a. obviously as they're official they are going to be so much better than any sloppy cat plush I was trying to make, and b. it means I don't have to finish my plush concept anymore!  I fell in love with these cats as soon as they came out, determined to get my hands on them ASAP, and that time finally arrived!

With Black Friday deals (which aren't really much a deal but certainly work to entice impulsive and kinda financially irresponsible buyers like myself), the cat plushies were on sale at a reduced price, so I couldn't help myself!  

And here they are!

I honestly think these are absolutely brilliant.  They are extremely well made, and each cat has printed on details.  I will say, they are not 1000% accurate, like there are designs and sequins that are not in the exact same place as the original cat, and some creative liberties were certainly made as it's really difficult to translate a 2d drawing into a 3d cat plush.  (Also Agnetha's cat is missing the greenish tinge on the ears but that's me being nitpicky.) For what it is, it's really really good and I couldn't be more impressed.  As a collector of many stuffed animals, these two are going to fit perfectly in with the monstrous amounts of plushies, webkinz, and famous social media stuffed animals that is my room.

Frida's cat:

Agnetha's cat:

Overall, I am quite happy to add these two cats to my ABBA collection, and I also got this fun ABBA t-shirt as well because who can say no to more ABBA t-shirts?