Caboodle Court, as part of The Orange Ball, curated by JoshAKAJames (2025) Made using Krea and Midjourney

Caboodle Cases were brought to market in the late 1980s as an alternative to expensive train and vanity cases, creating an affordable and fun, toy-like tool for girls and young women to store their skincare and beauty essentials. The Caboodle was brilliantly crafted, borrowing the structure of a tackle box but made playful: candy-coated, plastic, and stackable. More importantly, it offered a place to house Lip Smackers, hair clips, friendship bracelets, and more. Over time, the Caboodle remained the home while its contents matured into eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick.

For me, Caboodles belong in the same language as toys and gadgets of the 1990s: bright plastics, bold shapes, compartments that folded open and shut, like the Talkgirl, Polly Pocket, Yak Bak, Dear Diary, or even the Giga Pet (which I always preferred over the Tamagotchi… sorry, team).

The Orange Ball is more than just basketball, and the Caboodle is more than just a makeup case. Both show how certain treasures of childhood never really leave us. They can shape our lifelong identities while also sparking nostalgia and memory. Caboodle Court and Caboodle Sport, placed within The Orange Ball, reflect on this: they are about how objects, whether cards, toys, or candy-colored plastic cases, have the power to evolve with us, while the memories they carry become chapters in our lives.

Caboodle Sport lifts directly from the spirit of the Caboodle: clunky, colorful plastic candy, while the objects inside evolve across a lifetime of use. Caboodle Court sets the utility of the Caboodle against the geometry of a basketball court, where lines define movement and ritual. Together, they explore how containers and courts both rely on grids, compartments, and shapes to hold meaning, whether it is makeup, nostalgia, or the choreography of a game.