Move over Bar­bie! Tri­ni-born pageant and ball­room gown gu­rus, Bob­by and Sal­ly Ack­bar­ali have cre­at­ed their own line of col­lectible fash­ion dolls. And with each hav­ing a unique style and look, there's some­thing for every­one; even those still feel­ing a lit­tle Car­ni­val 2021 ta­ban­ca de­spite the fact that we are in Lent.

Un­doubt­ed­ly a show­piece, “Lo­la” is spec­tac­u­lar in her sil­ver crys­tals and cas­cad­ing fringes ac­cent­ed with large, light ma­gen­ta feath­ered fans. At least that is the au­ra she gives off in a video clip as she stands, arms out­stretched, in the Ack­bar­alis' liv­ing room in Toron­to, Cana­da. She's a mix­ture of a Trinidad Car­ni­val in­di­vid­ual and a Ve­gas show­girl Bob­by Ack­bar­ali re­vealed, singing the up­beat open­ing lines of Bar­ry Manilow's 1978 “Co­paca­bana” to ref­er­ence her in­spi­ra­tion as he spoke with Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

There's al­so “Seli­na” who fea­tures an eye-catch­ing fab­ric from Dubai made with rib­bons stitched to­geth­er, and “Denise” whose daz­zling mata­dor-in­spired jump­suit has an over­skirt which can ac­cent the woman as a cape in danc­ing the Pa­so Doble, dance of the mata­dor.

“Marigold”, made on De­cem­ber 4 and the first in his col­lec­tion, stuns in an elab­o­rate ivory yel­low skirt with gold flo­ral ap­pliques en­crust­ed with crys­tals and se­quins, while Ack­bar­ali's “An­gel of Hope” in her sil­ver net­ting and crys­tals, splashed with green and blue se­quins at the back, shows that de­spite the dark times, if we keep hope alive, bet­ter things will come.

Bobby and Sally Ackbarali's bride dolls.

When you're Bob­by Ack­bar­ali with 43 years of cre­ative en­er­gy in your veins, you find a way to ad­just, even in a pan­dem­ic. Ex­plor­ing themes from ball­room and Latin to beau­ty queen, evening and bridal, Car­ni­val and Valen­tines, his de­signs de­liv­er the wow fac­tor.

Hav­ing en­dured two full lock­downs start­ing in mid-March last year and again from late No­vem­ber, Ack­bar­ali said his “beau­ties” came out of “the dark­ness of COVID”. His Christ­mas tree gowns were high­light­ed in this pa­per last No­vem­ber and brought so much cheer that he was in­spired to pour his tal­ent in­to a new project. At the same time, he soothed his own men­tal dis­com­fort brought on by un­cer­tain­ties un­der COVID, like his and his wife's stalled liveli­hood as ball­room and ice skat­ing cos­tume de­sign­ers, a field they got in­to 15 years ago.

“Trinida­di­an peo­ple are hap­py-go-lucky. We like to en­joy life. This has been ba­si­cal­ly like ther­a­py for me. The re­sponse from the Christ­mas tree gowns made me feel alive again and hap­py, and made many peo­ple hap­py. It brought out some­thing in me.

“This COVID does play with your men­tal health and my word to any­body who does feel it's af­fect­ing them is talk to peo­ple or get help be­cause I think I was go­ing through some­thing, but thank God I found re­lief through this to see bet­ter days,” said Ack­bar­ali who has de­signed 83 doll looks which he grad­u­al­ly de­cid­ed to of­fer for sale.

Bobby and Sally Ackbarali's spring and summer inspirations, including “Selina”, (right), in a Dubai fabric.

The Ack­bar­alis name each doll which comes with a num­ber, the date it was de­signed and an Ack­bar­ali sig­na­ture. Make-up and hair are a must in their field of ball­room and ice skat­ing, so the dolls get their own in­tri­cate hair­style and face to suit their out­fit which is hand­craft­ed with qual­i­ty fab­ric, Swarovs­ki crys­tals and some­times se­quins. The fit and drap­ing are ex­quis­ite on the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 inch-tall pieces whose chests/busts mea­sure five inch­es, waists three and 3/4 inch­es and hips five inch­es. Ack­bar­ali said mov­ing from hu­man-sized de­signs was a cinch. All it takes is pa­tience and a true love for the craft.

“For me, it's that when you have a pas­sion for some­thing, noth­ing is im­pos­si­ble. The same ded­i­ca­tion you put in­to do­ing what you do every day, you just utilise it in the same way. Whether or not it's for some­body who has a 34-24-36 body, the same meth­ods are ap­plied.

“Peo­ple may say: he's over­do­ing every­thing, but it's my fan­ta­sy. It's how I like to do stuff; which is over the top, unique.”

Col­lect­ing dolls are a pop­u­lar hob­by or in­vest­ment even among Amer­i­can celebri­ties like De­mi Moore and Leonar­do Di­Caprio. While some col­lectibles show­case the doll it­self, Ack­bar­ali's de­signs are his fo­cal point. Some fans of his work have en­cour­aged him to do repli­cas of no­table de­signs like the un­for­get­table Michelle Oba­ma plum over­coat en­sem­ble that went vi­ral for the Biden in­au­gu­ra­tion in Jan­u­ary, but Ack­bar­ali says he is hap­py to do his own de­signs.

“I have to do what I want to do, if I pick up a piece of flo­ral fab­ric from our store and feel to do a dress, I'm do­ing it. I pre­fer to move for­ward and be in­no­v­a­tive with what I am do­ing. To be com­pared puts a pres­sure.”

How­ev­er, if a bride, for in­stance, is re­al­ly keen on cre­at­ing a minia­ture ver­sion of her wed­ding look, he said he would try to ac­com­mo­date her, though fab­ric and the way they be­have af­fect the ap­pear­ance of small­er cre­ations.

“Some­times you have to re-draft the whole thing. Some­times, Sal­ly would look at it and say I don't like it...change that. Then she would say that looks bet­ter now. That's how it's been with us for all the years we've been mar­ried and been suc­cess­ful. She's very hard in crit­i­cis­ing–even these dolls–be­cause she wants it to be some­thing we can look at and be proud of.”

Valentine's dolls.

It is this work part­ner­ship and un­der­stand­ing that has en­riched their 40 years of mar­riage, Ack­bar­ali in­formed.

He pours pas­sion­ate­ly and lov­ing­ly in­to his dolls, ap­proach­ing each no dif­fer­ent from an im­por­tant client or Miss Uni­verse or Miss World pageant de­sign. Back in the day, mod­els like cul­tur­al icon, Alyson Brown, talked about how spe­cial he made the girls feel. There's al­so some­thing about how he brings the nos­tal­gia of 1980s and 90s pageants in­to the con­ver­sa­tion; back when the dy­nam­ic duo of Bob­by and Sal­ly reigned lo­cal­ly as “queen­mak­ers”.

Ack­bar­ali has de­signed from 1978 when Kim Sabeeney gave him his first job in the Miss TT pageant. His gown, worn by Anne Marie Mar­tin, won first place. Mar­ry­ing Sal­ly in 1980, the de­sign­ing mas­ters built a reper­toire of gowns and na­tion­al cos­tumes for at least eight con­sec­u­tive win­ners of Miss T&T Uni­verse and Miss T&T World. Among these are Miss World 1986, Giselle Laronde-West and Miss T&T World rep­re­sen­ta­tives plac­ing in the top six their re­spec­tive year, Althea Rocke, Gabrielle Wal­cott and Va­lene Ma­haraj.

Bob­by and Sal­ly orig­i­nals were al­so a sta­ple of Jaycees Car­ni­val Queen com­pe­ti­tions, Mas­tana Ba­har and Best Vil­lage.

He and Sal­ly mi­grat­ed to Cana­da with their son in 1988, open­ing a bridal de­sign shop. They en­joyed this im­mense­ly be­fore delv­ing in­to de­sign­ing for ball­room, Latin dance and ice skat­ing com­pe­ti­tions.

Al­though the win­try weath­er al­so in­spires him, hav­ing gone through some heavy snow­fall be­tween Feb­ru­ary 16-22, Ack­bar­ali is look­ing for­ward to spring and sum­mer whose fresh flo­ra and warm colours are re­flect­ed in his lat­est pieces.

Aware of the ex­tra fi­nan­cial strain the pan­dem­ic has placed on every­one, he said he was heart­ened by the sales he has seen so far and urges oth­ers to seek out their pas­sions and use them to live life to the fullest even in these un­set­tling times.

Bob­by and Sal­ly can be found on Face­book and In­sta­gram.