Kelly can get a little confusing for some people, possibly because she has about a trillion little friends. Those playdates must be a massive headache for all of the mommy Barbies out there.
The first Kelly came out in 1995. Barbie has had different sisters over the years but none as young as Kelly until the 90's. It is interesting to note that briefly Barbie had a sister named Kelly who was the size of Stacie and she came packaged with Todd in a wedding set. But I'll talk about that set in another post I believe.
The Kelly's page will be organized by year (which I hope to do with all of the pages as I go along.) I am starting off with Kelly's Lil' Friends only because I find them so interesting. I had several as a kid so it pulls particularly at the heartstrings for me I suppose.
Kelly's Lil' Friends differ slightly from the Kelly Dolls of the World and other Kelly's in general. In fact there is not a "Kelly" that comes is the same type of packaging as Kelly's Lil' Friends. You would simply use a Kelly from another set, or at least that was what Mattel was probably supposing would occur.
There were also different names for many of Kelly's Lil Friends depending on what type of the world they were from. I've noted this in the additional information where it was necessary. I'm having some trouble finding pictures of what the foreign dolls looked like and I'm unsure whether they are the same doll, outfit, etc with a different name or whether they are a completely different doll with a different name that is simply wearing the same outfit. I will try and make this clear later and I plan to upload pictures once I have found them.
