Pre-Mattel

Pre-Mattel is a fandom term to describe accessories, clothing, and dolls made before the transition of Pleasant Company to ownership of Mattel.

Dolls

 * See Pre-Mattel Dolls

Dolls are overall slimmer, with brighter features and more distinct facial paints.

Clothing
With the slimming of the dolls, clothing also became slimmer overall to fit the new body structure. This results in many Pre-Mattel dolls being unable to fit into newer clothes or shoes, and newer dolls being "swamped" when wearing older clothing.

Accessories and Furniture
With the rising costs of raw materials, several items have either been modified into plastic where other, more fragile articles were once used (such as wood, metals, or glass/porcelain). Others have been discontinued altogether and replaced with modified sets.

Lately, Mattel has been taking food items and "clumping" them, making items that originally came in smaller pieces into one or two big chunks of "food". This is true with both Mattel and Pre-Mattel articles.

Fandom Views
Several collectors prefer pre-Mattel over Mattel, citing quality standards and more realistic features (such as being made of more high-quality materials such as wood, glass, copper, etc).

However, some pre-Mattel items were made too fragile or of a poor quality to stand up to play. For example, the windmill that comes with Felicity's Town Fair Outfit was put together fragily and frequently breaks.