Design Museum, London
Deep dive into the pink plastic universe charts society’s cultural, design, fashion and body-image changes – reflected in the life of the world’s most popular doll
She has had more than 250 careers, lived in over 50 different houses and has a shoe collection that would make Imelda Marcos envious. Now, at the age of an eternally youthful 65, Barbie has taken over the Design Museum, filling its galleries with a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of her pink plastic universe.
If you’re still reeling from the tidal wave of Barbiemania unleashed by last summer’s hit film, don’t turn away just yet. This exhibition delves deeper than Greta Gerwig’s movie managed, exploring the fashion, architecture, design and body-image stories behind the world’s most popular doll, revealing her role as a mass-produced mirror of contemporary culture over the last six decades. It is a 29cm-tall tale of shifting attitudes to women’s career choices, domestic tastes, vehicle design, waist-to-hip ratios, furniture fads, hairstyles and more, as viewed through the savvy eyes of America’s most cunning marketeers. It shows how preteen aspiration has been cleverly honed, manufactured, packaged and monetised. And it reveals the unlikely influence that Barbara Millicent Roberts – profession: teenage fashion model – has had on the world around us.
