The Doll Podcast
All the latest news and views from the world of dolls.
The Doll Podcast
Fashion Dolls, Timeless Elegance
The story of fashion and dolls has been linked throughout time as dolls have
long been associated with social aspiration and style. Host Louisa Maxwell is joined by Barbie expert Bradley Justice Yarbrough and Sara Woodbury curator of art at the Barry Art Museum to discuss the current shows exploring the relationship of dolls and fashion through the centuries.
Two stunning exhibitions at the BarryArt Museum run in tandem :“Carved Couture “ offer's an intimate look at the world of the 18th century fashion doll - while the second exhibition “ Out of the Box: A Barbie Doll Retrospective considers the evolution of this iconic fashion doll and the role of the innovative teams that created the fashion doll that has endured for over 66 years.
The Barry Art Museum brings this rich history alive through not just displaying historical dolls but creating immersive experiences, including life-sized recreations of Barbie's iconic Dream Houses that visitors can explore. Join us for a lively discussion on dolls and fashion and the enduring historic legacy of the fashion doll.
Welcome to the Doll Podcast. I'm your host, louisa Maxwell. The story of fashion and dolls has been linked throughout time, as dolls have long been associated with social aspiration and style. The Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, virginia, usa, has two exhibitions exploring the relationship of dolls and fashion through the centuries. To find out more, I am joined by author and Barbie expert, bradley Justice Yarborough and Sarah Woodbury, curator of Art at the Barry Art Museum. Sarah and Bradley. Welcome to the Doll Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me again, Louisa.
Speaker 3:As always, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, it's delightful to see both of you again. I always really enjoy our podcast together. So I'm really looking forward to hearing more about these two shows, because we're looking at two very we would think, two very diverse dolls Wooden fashion dolls of the 17th and 18th century and Barbie and yet they all have a lot in common. So the first exhibition Carved Couture will offer an intimate look at the world of the 18th century fashion doll, while the second exhibition is called Out of the Box, a Barbie doll retrospective, and this considers the evolution of this iconic fashion doll and the role of the innovative teams that created her, and she's a doll that has endured for over 65 years. Sarah and Bradley, when will these two shows start and how long will they run for?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, louisa, and Carve Couture is actually on view now. It opened in late January and it will run through July 31st of this year. And then Barbie, the Barbie doll retrospective opens on March 7th and it will also be open through July 31st of 2025.
Speaker 1:Bradley, when is Barbie's birthday? It's in March, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It's March 9th, and so the exhibit will open in time for a fabulous birthday celebration for our favorite fashion doll.
Speaker 1:So she's now 66 years old?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that is probably longer than any fashion doll has ever lasted.
Speaker 1:It's an amazing track record and today we're going to examine just why she has endured for such a long time. So let's start with Carve Couture, which is on view now. This exhibition offers an intimate look at the world of the 18th century fashion doll and, if we go back as early as the 16th century, wooden fashion dolls called Pandoras traveled between the courts of Europe sharing the latest fashions, accessories and even hairstyles. The dolls also taught little girls about the role they would play in society. Sarah, tell us about these wooden dolls that showcased fashion trends for royalty and the fashion elite.
Speaker 3:Sure thing, louisa. So the fashion elite Sure thing, louisa. So you have to think back a few centuries and how arduous shipping could be. Imagine trying to pack up a full-size mannequin and an outfit and sending it around, because modern printing techniques that we're familiar with lithography, etching, beyond anything with copper plates that technology won't come into being until the later 18th and 19th centuries. So what you're dealing with instead are tangible three-dimensional objects. Now, it's not that full-size mannequins and costumes didn't travel they did but it was often more efficient to send these smaller sizes little maquettes basically and those would travel around the continent and showcase the latest fashions. They're essentially 3D precursors to fashion magazines.
Speaker 1:So how did these fashion dolls for, I imagine, very affluent people, because we often see them in beautiful portraits of young girls and they're holding a doll how did they transfer into being fashion dolls? Or did people take the Pandoras and give them to children?
Speaker 3:Well, again, that's another great question, and there are a couple of things we need to keep in mind whenever we're looking at the material record for dolls, particularly in portraiture. When you're looking at portraiture, you're generally looking at the upper classes who can afford to pay somebody to paint their likeness. The idea of portraiture for the masses is really. That's something that comes about more in the 19th century via people. That's part of what makes Barbie stand out from her earlier peers is that she's really targeted more toward middle-class consumers.
Speaker 1:Yes, in many ways Barbie is a little bit more democratic because she was a mass-produced doll available to everyone and still is. What role did the carved wooden dolls play in instructing young girls?
Speaker 3:So they're fulfilling a couple of different roles. On the one hand, they are a model for learning how to make clothing. It makes me think of a knitting project that I did a couple of years ago. So I took up knitting during the pandemic because we all had to do something during the hours we were at home, and for me it was knitting. And when I got down to making my first sweater, the pattern guide said you should consider knitting a baby sweater first. That's a smaller scale, means it's less material, it's not as much of a disaster if you screw up, and so forth. I immediately proceeded to ignore those instructions and made a full-size sweater. But the basic concept was there in terms of you're working on a smaller scale, it's less material, it gives you a chance to see in miniature how these designs are going to work, and then from there it's a process of enlargement.
Speaker 3:So the doll, on the one hand, is a model for learning to make clothes. But the doll is also in a lot of ways modeling different types of social roles and behaviors. The type of gown it's wearing, for example, can tell you what kind of social occasion that's appropriate for. Susan Dossiter has done a lot of research on wooden dolls, and one thing that's particularly fascinating about extant dolls and their wardrobes is they start to reflect the interests and tastes of their respective owners. I know of at least one example that she mentioned, for instance, where it has a writing habit on, and we know that that family was really into writing. So it's also a chance to see how you fit within your own family as well as your more general social class.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting, then, because each of these dolls as opposed to, maybe, barbie, who will have a lot of manufactured clothing, but when you make clothes for a doll, when you make clothes for Barbie, you are making a personal expression and often, as collectors, we are looking for the original costume, the pristine mint-in-the-box costume. I mean, you must be familiar with this, bradley. When you're collecting for Barbie, you're looking for the best costume ever. But do you think we should value more sometimes when we make a handmade thing for a doll, because perhaps that reveals more about how the doll has been part of our social history.
Speaker 2:Well, I personally feel that collectors often dismiss the handmade things, but to me, as you just said, there is such a personal sort of injection into creating that with the textile, the pattern, the fit, that sometimes to me it's just as exciting and just as important to find that in a collection. It's not documented but it reflects the moment in history that it was created, Much like these antique wooden dolls. It was existing fabrics, it was existing trims and techniques, so it tells a story. There is a bit of that moment worked into that tiny garment for Barbie or any doll that was created. That really reflects our history. Any garment for Barbie or any doll that was created that really reflects our history.
Speaker 3:And, if I may jump in, it also traces the object, the doll's movement through time. With a lot of the wooden dolls that we have on view, they're loans from colonial Williamsburg, and the doll itself may date from the early 18th century, for example, but its gown will reflect a much later style, from, say, the 1770s or 1780s, and it reminds us that these are not static objects. Tastes change, you get new fabrics or whatnot, or you're reusing fabrics, repurposing them to reflect current styles. So again, it's just that's one of the things I like about this exhibition is it shows how the dolls not only reflect the moment of when they were made, but how they move through time.
Speaker 1:I think that's the whole reason behind collecting antique dolls at all. Is this amazing time capsule.
Speaker 3:What I see in the costumes that we have is again this idea of upcycling and the repurposing of fabrics into new fashions, because you might have a doll again dating from the early 18th century but reflecting a much later fashion, and I think there are a couple of interesting ideas going on behind that.
Speaker 3:One is again the idea of repurposing fashions, but it also emphasizes to us how much research there is still left to do on these dolls. You know we so often rely on the written record and when it comes to women's history especially, a lot of the conversations that we're mentioning here were not written down. So you do move into this realm of speculative history a little bit. And there are definitely dolls within the show where I don't know why it's dressed that way, I don't know why it has a certain gown and a certain hat to go with it, and it just again reminds us that the historical record, no matter how deeply we dig into it, will always be incomplete on some level. But we still need to. It's our duty to go into that more deeply and to get into those stories as much as we can, because if we don't, who will?
Speaker 1:As I was reading through the exhibition catalog, and there's an interesting moment in the exhibition that intrigued me, and I'm referring to the wooden doll in the bicorn hat, and that's a style of hat that we long associate with Napoleon Bonaparte's military uniform, so it's a very dashing look for an 18th century miss. How do you think she ended up with this bold fashion statement?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm glad you brought that doll up, because that is a perfect example of the I don't know instance of the show.
Speaker 3:So I was reading about bicorns and the more I was going into it I was like this is military fashion, this doesn't come into. First of all, it doesn't come into style until the 1790s, but based on her gown it's looking 1760s. So there's a disparity there. And then, as you pointed out, it's almost exclusively associated with the military, and particularly Napoleon. So I don't have an exact answer for why we have the bicorn, and this is one of the reasons why doll history is so intriguing, because there are these little mysteries that tease us. So, whether or not it was made intentionally for that doll, or perhaps it appeared at a later time, it's one theory that I've been playing around with is maybe as the bicorn fell out of fashion and people forgot the historical associations with it, they paired it with the doll, not knowing it was a piece of military clothing initially. But again, that's all hypothetical. So that is to be continued, but that's honestly true of all history.
Speaker 1:So do you think someday we'll puzzle over why Barbie is wearing one of Ken's hats and just not know why? Or Action man? You know, these things are things just that happen. Bradley, what do you think? Do you think we'll ever puzzle over Barbie? Or is she so well documented we can't sort of adult grownups looking at.
Speaker 2:This is the fact of child's play. And the little girl may have discovered this hat in some way, shape or form and thought you know what my doll needs? A lovely little chapeau, and this fits the bill, and she just added it to her doll's wardrobe. So those little things happen and 66 years later with Barbie and 166 years later with a different doll, we're still asking some of those questions. But they're always going to be those little mysteries and I'm sure one day someone's going to unpack a Barbie and have lots of questions as to why she's squeezed into a skipper dress or other little strange things. But those are just little to me, little Easter eggs, little fun things to discover that leave us scratching our head and asking questions.
Speaker 1:And sometimes with mass-produced dolls, we find these things of a fabric. I've seen this with Cindy, where there's a fabric it's not in the catalog in that blouse, but I have found the same fabric being incorporated into another outfit. People use up the ends of fabrics in workrooms and factories and you know it's a mass-produced thing and that's how kind of a fashion history mystery starts.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I will tell you that you know a lot of these 17th and 18th century dolls used up existing fabrics or leftover fabrics from dresses. And the one thing I will tell you with Barbie, with Cindy, those factories wasted nothing. One thing I will tell you with Barbie with Cindy, those factories wasted nothing. And there's a little joke that a friend of mine and I have with working with some factories in China and in Japan. We always joke and say there's no such thing as black fabric and they never manufacture black fabric. Because what happens if they make? They use orange fabric for a dress and nobody buys it and they have lots of orange fabric left over. Well, they just dunk it in the black dye and voila, black fabric.
Speaker 2:And I found this perfect example of that happening with a Ken outfit, and it was a 1970s Ken outfit. That was a tuxedo and the pants were black. However, if you held them up to the light, this outfit was from 1978. If you held them up to the light, you could see the Pepsi-Cola logo on it, indicating that they had reused this 1973-74 Best Buy fabric that was red, with the Pepsi-Cola label on it. And I thought, oh my God, that is so funny, because they wasted nothing. They utilized every single thing. It was, you know, they utilized every single thing.
Speaker 1:It really is amazing that there are so many little mysteries out there that we have to unravel and then they tell a story of people making decisions that it's not some big mass produced thing all the time in a boardroom, that it's somebody in a workroom saying make use of this, let's get it out there.
Speaker 3:Oh, exactly, there's definitely this element of choice that I think is part of Barbie's appeal, more generally, of fashion dolls where, even if it is a doll that's mass produced, you know the makers have choices that they execute in terms of the types of fabric being used, but also the impromptu choices that you know children use when playing with the dolls, Like well, I don't know, I like this color better on the doll, so I don't care if it actually went with Skipper it's going on Barbie, and of course that's also how we end up with Weird Barbie, one of the most iconic Barbie dolls.
Speaker 1:We've all got one where we face the disappointment that no, barbie's hair isn't going to grow back. And of course, there's those times when you experiment with her makeup and decide she looks nice with a lot of blue pen eyeshadow. Well, they're very rare dolls, those. And you know we have to agree that dolls are such an important source of costume history for us today and that perhaps these beautiful antique dolls and their beautiful costumes, maybe they are amalgamations of different looks. But one of the dolls that really intrigued me when I was reading and looking at the exhibition was an 18th century English doll. It's 17 inches tall and its costume has a pair of what were called then leading strings, which are two long strips of cloth attached to a child's gown to help them learn to walk. And then I believe that older girls later wore a shorter variation of this style as a reminder of her status as an unmarried woman, sarah, what does this reveal about the status of girls in the 17th century? That they have this fashion statement going throughout their lives?
Speaker 3:Well, again, this is a great example of the social history of dolls and how they tell us not only the types of social values that they're conveying to their respective owners within their own respective time, they're telling girls about their respective place within society. And the leading strings are a great example From a practical function. You see them in 17th century paintings of toddlers and they're basically a walking tool. You put them on and then it keeps children from falling over or toddling off. It's not unlike the harnesses that you sometimes see today. But then there's this social dimension that gets attached to them too, and it's this metaphorical idea of you being, as a woman, attached to your family prior to marriage, but then, when you are married, the strings are cut as you presumably joined your husband's family. So there's very much this objectification, patriarchal lens attached to this Again, another great insight that I got from Susan Dossiter during my research. But again it emphasizes how it's not just dolls in pretty dresses. Those dresses carry meaning.
Speaker 1:They carry great social meaning and explain a lot about that society to us today. Exactly meaning, and explain a lot about that society to us today. Bradley, what do you think of the dress with the little leading strings? Do you think Barbie also had these kind of? No, she didn't really, did she?
Speaker 2:Well, she didn't really have anything such as that, but the doll with the leading strings. You kind of pretend to teach that little doll to walk and you know there was walking Barbie. That was kind of a you helped her walk. It was a different concept.
Speaker 2:However, just with speaking of society and norms, it's no mistake that when children were getting Barbie and playing with Barbie, that there was a level of expectation of our society at that moment, which is why we saw a wedding gown.
Speaker 2:There was a wedding gown for Barbie. It was very much expected that you would grow up and get married and that was going to be the most amazing moment in your life, but that was very aspirational at that moment. But I also loved that there were other choices for Barbie. There were career choices for Barbie. So, although the wardrobe did reflect some of that, the one thing that Barbie gave us was more of a choice and more of the child making that decision when they're role-playing and playing out that moment with the dolls. So I do see there being societal expectations because, let's also face it, in the 1959 wardrobe the little lingerie set comes with a girdle and we all know that Barbie really never needed a girdle. However, a girdle was a very important moment in fashion at that moment that you had to wear to make the dresses of the day look the most amazing.
Speaker 1:And this was part of playing at being adult and a variation on a style. Bradley, as you mentioned, barbie had a girdle and historically fashion dolls wore corsets, crinolines and bustles all garments that restricted movement. Do you think when children through history were told to put these garments on dolls, were they also being told to grow up and perhaps reject the things we associated with childhood, or did they just want to play at being grown up? I'm going to. Or did they just want to play at being grown up?
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with. They probably wanted to play at being grown up. But the one thing with fashion as the silhouettes changed, as the hems changed, as fit changed, there was always some form of an undergarment that aided with portraying that silhouette, be it the bustle with giving the emphasis to the back, the corset or the stays, you know, holding you in and giving you good posture. And this is what the kids were seeing that their mothers and sisters were wearing and doing. And so there is an aspect of once you start doing those things, you are a grown up and maybe you start rejecting some of that freedom and movement to run and play. But also it's the fitting into the society, the fitting into fashion, becoming the woman or the person that you're expected to become. In all of these eras there is that sort of moment of conformity.
Speaker 1:The title of your Barbie exhibition is called Out of the Box a Barbie doll retrospective, and one of the things I believe very firmly is that when the doll comes out of the box, that's when the magic really happens, because she comes to life as children or as collectors, we play with it, dress it and give it a whole new personality. Our own particular twist on the story of the doll Barbie has millions of fashions that allow her to transform from cheerleader to pop star to doctor, encouraging children to create their own story for the doll. Bradley, do you think her career aspirations allowed Barbie doll to transcend just being a fashion figure?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think even in the beginning, when Ruth Handler conceived the idea of Barbie, I think she wanted the child to see that they had choices and you chose the way you would play with the doll, the role of the doll, what the doll would be.
Speaker 2:And I think as they added in sort of these career elements and even like the cheerleader I mean you can aspire to be a cheerleader but I think they became more and more aspirational. By adding in the stewardess costume or the flight attendant uniform to the doctor, the nurse, it gave the indication to little girls, little boys, whoever was playing with Barbie, that you could aspire to be something that maybe seemed out of the realm of possibility, but you could always aspire to that and make it become a reality. It is really sort of a moment of reflecting the evolution of the society at that moment to where, when Barbie started, the traditional professions that were available to women were teacher or secretary or stewardess or nurse. And by the 70s you're seeing doctor, you're seeing surgeon, you're seeing many other opportunities, you know, from businesswoman to superchar, to paleontologist. I mean there were so many things that we never would have imagined a woman or Barbie doing and suddenly we had those choices.
Speaker 1:Sarah, do you think the voices of parents, who sometimes some mothers, and I'm afraid my own mother was one of these people? I was allowed to play with Cindy, but when it came to Barbie she was judged as too mature. So I saved up my allowance and bought Barbie myself. Thank you, malibu. Barbie, she was a very reasonable price and I, small child that I was, could afford her. But sometimes I wonder, sometimes you know, growing up with Barbie, did this kind of disapproval of parents did it make us want Barbie more? But did it also say to Mattel well, you have to help her depart away from just being a fashion figure, just being a girl at the beach or a girl in a pretty dress.
Speaker 3:That's a really interesting question. And well, first of all, the idea of Barbie being too mature. She's not the first fashion doll to come under controversy. For that I'm thinking of Madame Alexander Sissy. When she debuted in 1955 as a full-figured debutante, she also faced some criticism from other doll makers in terms of why are you debuting this busty doll for children? But, as madame alexander explained, like she's an aspirational figure. This is what the could be for children in terms of what you could be in a few years. You could be this sophisticated young person going out and enjoying the opera or taking in an elegant luncheon somewhere.
Speaker 3:So, on the one hand, barbie reflects those ongoing controversies, but it's even more concentrated because she's so widely available. But Barbie is also she's always been in some ways a reflection of the aspirations of the time and, as Bradley pointed out, as she has moved through these past six decades, her career has diversified and I think that reflects a variety of influences. I mean, certainly probably part of it is a response to parents in terms of oh well, you know, we don't want her to be overly sexualized, so let's provide some other options. But it's also reflecting the interest of youth culture at the time. I mean think of what's happening with women's lib in the 70s and then with the yuppies of the 80s and their power moves and the mansions of the 90s. Barbie is very much a reflection of the aspirations of society at large, so she's responding to not just criticisms from parents but also the interests of children.
Speaker 3:One of the things that always intrigued me about when I was researching for this show was reading about the studies done that Mattel conducted on Barbie when they were getting ready to market the doll. And they were conducting studies with parents and children to see how they reacted to the dolls. And they found that while parents were all saying oh, no, no, no, she's too sexualized, what are you doing with this full figure doll or whatnot, children were fascinated because they could play out these grown-up scenarios that intrigued them. You've got the mysterious world of adulthood that is in the future, but you're not there yet. But you're intrigued and Barbie is your guide. She's your Virgil, essentially taking you through this passage as you imagine what these scenarios could be like. One of the ways that I've come to think about Barbie is that, whereas some of these older fashion dolls we've been looking at from the 18th and 19th centuries are the what will be. Barbie is very much a what could be and presenting a variety of futures to their young owners.
Speaker 1:I think this is a very interesting way of looking at Barbie what could be. And actually, if I go back to my little self with Malibu Barbie, that's what I was playing out, what I could be. So it is about what you could be. It's not just about what parents think you should be. So maybe this is something that these dolls offer every generation and every century. When you go and play with them on your own, you make your own little personal world. What do you think, bradley?
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that because I know as a kid playing with Barbie and you know, gi Joe with my brothers and action figures and stuff, it was creating that little world out of your head, being inspired by television and movies that we saw. But you know it was role-playing, it was imagination. It was, as I've said repeatedly, aspirational, like playing out those adult situations that I was trying to understand and work my way through. So I definitely see it as what Sarah said, what could be. So maybe Mattel should work with that idea, sarah, I think they should pay for that. That's a great way of looking at it. So it's very, very, very much the aspirational sort of tool to play with.
Speaker 1:It certainly is, and when we look at these dolls, one of the most interesting things about them is their posability. I mean, they're small enough to be in our hand, so they're quite an intimate thing. But one of the things I love about Barbie and you see this also even with the larger wooden dolls the wooden dolls had mortise and tendon joints to allow them to pose. Barbie really intrigued kids because she had the bendable legs. Later she had bendable arms. She had little wrist joints. She even had little tiny ankle joints and of course these are innovations that we see also in 19th century French fashion dolls. Dolls and bébés could actually be posed as ballerinas, which is quite an extraordinary level of movement when you think it was in a composition or a wooden body, and it had to have all these little ball joints. Barbie had a team of makeup artists, engineers and designers to give her a more lifelike look and even to talk. Bradley, tell us about the designers and innovators who worked with Mattel to make Barbie such a dynamic fashion doll.
Speaker 2:Well, Mattel was very determined that they would have the best innovators, creators and sort of geniuses creating for them. They actually were part of the great brain drain of Europe, like in the 1950s and 60s, where they brought over so many talented and brilliant people to work on making toys. One of the people that they acquired in the mid-1950s was Jack Ryan, and Jack Ryan had been a Yale-educated gentleman who had worked for Raytheon developing the Sparrow and Hawk low-altitude missiles in the 1950s, but he ends up at Mattel and he was an absolute sort of genius that he designed and created so many toys in his name appears on so many of the patents, including the patent for the Barbie. But he also developed the twist and turn waist, the bendable leg, the articulated living Barbie body, and he had developed the talking mechanism for the Chatty Cathy doll and was finally able to shrink that down to fit into a Barbie torso. So then we had Talking Barbie. So many of the innovations that made the doll more lifelike and more poseable he had a very large hand in. And then the other fun things like Color Magic Barbie with the hair that could change color, and the quick curl Barbie hair that had little tiny metal filaments in that would allow it to be curled with no heat or water. He had a hand in that as well. So he held so many patents for Mattel and he worked with a team of creative minded people that they were just churning out so many ideas that it really really evolved the doll over time more gimmicky, where I always tend to think of Barbie as a fashion doll.
Speaker 2:So Mattel also employed amazing women's wear designers that had worked in the fashion industry and for Hollywood to create some of these classic looks for Barbie. Charlotte Johnson was the first designer hired for Barbie and she sort of paved the way and created the method and style that they would use to design for Barbie. You know, Barbie is not like us where we can move our hand to fit through the sleeve of a jacket. Her hand is very fixed and she has separate fingers. So the sleeves had to be designed in such a way that those hands would slide through and the fit always had to be perfect. And Charlotte Johnson herself faced the criticisms of Barbie's unrealistic figure. But, as she reminded you, add a layer of clothing to this and it becomes very much normal that the layers of clothing that went onto the doll it had to be slightly too small, Otherwise she would look too bulky. It had to be slightly too small, Otherwise she would look too bulky. So there were so many creative people over those first years that really kind of created the roadmap that I think all the Mattel people today sort of follow. It's really kind of a pathway of geniuses.
Speaker 2:The men innovated those Barbie bodies. It's very similar to the 19th century with all of the French fashion bodies. There are so many patents in the 19th century for the French fashion dolls, for articulation and movement to create that realism. And it's reflected in the out-of-the-box exhibit as well.
Speaker 2:One of the focal points that Sarah had pointed out when I was there is the Radicke Cordonier doll. That's sort of the centerpiece of the antique portion of the exhibit and it's kind of ironic that that doll is there. From the perspective of, it's the same thing that the original Barbie doll had. This doll has openings in the bottom of her feet that allow her to stand on a posing stand that has these two prongs that stick up, which is exactly the same concept that the number one Barbie did. So I always like to remind everybody that, as innovative as Barbie is, there was so much innovation and inspiration that took place more than 100 years ago. That kind of paved the way for the way we look at the dolls. Kind of paved the way for the way we look at the dolls.
Speaker 1:Sarah. As Bradley mentioned, the 19th century fashion dolls and Barbie share many characteristics and innovations. What other fashion dolls will the exhibitions discuss and what will we see on view when we visit?
Speaker 3:So we've got quite a few of our historical dolls out on view. The exhibition is really divided in two parts. So we have the Barbie and Friends, as I've been calling it, on one side of the show, but then the other half of the exhibition is focusing on pre-Barbie. So we go back as far as the early 19th century and then we move up in through the 1950s with Madame Alexander's Sissy, and the whole point of that exhibition is it's twofold. On the one hand, we wanted to bring out some great examples from our collection to have on view to go with the Barbie show.
Speaker 3:But we also wanted to iterate the idea that Barbie did not emerge from a vacuum. Barbie did not emerge out of nowhere as this fully formed fashion doll with an extensive wardrobe and whatnot and these patents that enabled her to move. You find these precedents with other companies such as Maison Hiret or Steiner or Jumeau. In terms of making the doll more lifelike, We've been focusing on movement, but Jumeau was also interested in talking dolls and briefly explored that option after Thomas Edison developed a doll a few years prior.
Speaker 3:So this idea of, on the one hand, creating dolls that foster imagination, but also creating dolls that cultivate the imagination of the people making them. That's an idea that you see at play across the decades. But what makes Barbie stand out is the scale and the depth of that innovation. I mean, Barbie is just on a scale that's unlike any of these other dolls that we see in terms of the size of the production and the global reach. I mean, yes, 19th century fashion dolls did travel the world, but how many people around the world can recognize a Jumeau as opposed to a Barbie? So her main influence is her ubiquity, I would say.
Speaker 1:Barbie is a pop culture icon and that's quite an extraordinary statement to be able to make about what is a fashion doll. Barbie is one of the most recognized dolls across the world and, of course, her team of designers never tire of innovating, and one of the most innovative things that Barbie has is her style and wardrobe. Bradley, who are some of the great Mattel designers, who around three or four Barbie designers and that team continued to grow.
Speaker 2:It grew in many ways from originally just being what they considered a soft goods designer, where they did anything that was in fabric for anything, to just being what they would recur to as a principal designer for the Barbie doll would recur to as a principal designer for the Barbie doll. In 1977, they added Kitty Black Parkins, and she was from South Carolina and was one of the first African-American designers hired by Mattel. She brought a whole new style and approach to designing for Barbie. Kitty was amazing in that she did what we call transformational Barbie dolls. The one example I'll give you is like Golden Dream Barbie, which has this metallic swimsuit and metallic gold pants and like a sheer sort of like little capelet that could also be a hat. The doll, the single doll, could go from being on the beach and laying out in the sun to a glittery night at the disco. Kitty told me when I interviewed her one time that she felt that if a child only received that one doll, it was going to have everything kind of built into that doll that the child would get hours of play value out of it. Katie had like a 25-year career at Mattel, but one of the things that she was very focused on being an African-American woman was to create a doll that reflected her.
Speaker 2:So many times throughout history we've just said that the analogy we've used is many African-American dolls, or Black dolls, were just white dolls dipped in brown paint. They did not reflect the way other cultures and other people looked. But Mattel started approaching it in 1980 with creating dolls that were very reflective of the world we lived in and that not everybody was, you know, blonde and blue-eyed. And so Kitty designed in 1980 the first black Barbie. It was not the first black doll in the Barbie line we had had Christy and Francine Cara, but this was the first doll that was black, that was called Barbie.
Speaker 2:She had this fabulous little afro and this like glittery red outfit and all of this jewelry and these like strappy disco sandals and the skirt snapped off. So it was like this little like swimsuit, playsuit kind of thing. It was just really, really fabulous, one of my favorite dolls. It was just a moment in history. Kitty continued to do really fabulous dolls and really kind of bringing it to Metallus, to wanting to instill diversity in this line and creating a whole world of amazing black and brown dolls and so much play value always worked into every single one of her designs.
Speaker 1:It's amazing that they were thinking that way of adding the different parts of the costume, because that's just the thing you love as a child, and yet they were also making doll history with this beautiful doll. So, sarah, following in the footsteps, perhaps, of the Pandoras that were dressed by couturiers, barbie has inspired fashion designers to design for her. Tell me, have you got any of these fantastic designer Barbies in the exhibition?
Speaker 3:We sure do, thanks to Bradley. So a couple of examples off the top of my head is we have a fabulous dark turquoise gown designed by Oscar de la Renta from the 1980s, and we've also got a fabulous Bob Mackie ensemble. I mean, I think what appeals to these designers about Barbie is the fact that, on the one hand, she is so readily recognizable and that, too, she can be anything. So it's this invitation, this challenge to make your mark with this doll and to stand out from all these other incarnations.
Speaker 1:I think also Bob Mackie has really been such a iconic Hollywood designer for Cher, for Carol Burnett, for so many stars of the stage and screen, and he also chooses to design for Barbie.
Speaker 2:Bob Mackie did a pair of dolls one year. That was the Goddess of the Sun and the Goddess of the Moon, and she's this sort of like golden, orangey, radiant doll in a beaded costume with this elaborate headdress. That is a true Bob Mackie style. That was just, you know, evocative of Cher or some sort of stage costume. Bob Mackie really made some amazing costumes for Barbie and continues to work with Mattel doing some things for Barbie. So it's to me it's really cool that one of Hollywood's greatest designers is actually designing for the Barbie doll.
Speaker 1:I know one of the things I love about these designer Barbies is that it allows you to own a little bit of haute couture magic without paying the incredible price for the full-size version.
Speaker 2:Well, we all would like to have like a designer costume hanging in the closet. You can once again live vicariously through Barbie.
Speaker 1:I think that's what's great about Barbie and fashion dolls. The historic fashion dolls allow us to look at the past and allow us to hold the past in our hands, and Barbie does the same thing. Whether it's vintage Barbie from 1959, mod Barbie, she's charting 66 years of fashion. One of the things in this exhibition that I think is going to be really something different is the fact that you've been inspired by Barbie the movie and you have built some of Barbie's dream houses, because in Barbie the movie, of course, her whole community is populated by various dream houses that reflect the various guises of Barbie, bradley and Sarah. How did you get the idea of recreating the Dreamhouse?
Speaker 3:You're right, louisa. That is going to be such a fun part of the show and it actually ties into the Berry Art Museum's commitment to working with different university departments. So the Dreamhouses in this instance are a collaboration between the museum and our theater program, whom we've actually worked with before Elwood Woody Robinson and Jim Lydon back in 2021, designed some theater sets for a show that we did on Karen Lamont back in 2021, which was aptly titled Théâtre de la Mode and was exploring those fashion dolls from post-World War II France, and we had theater sets designed for these full-size maquettes. So when we came up with the Barbie show idea and we were thinking about ways to activate it for visitors, it felt like a natural fit to go back to the theater department and work on some of these life-size dream houses, especially after the Barbie movie came out and that whole opening sequence where you see the neighborhood and all of these different dream houses and the accessories that go with them, and you know that people who collected those dream houses know exactly what types of toast is being referenced in the opening scene and so forth. So we wanted to inject a sense of that fun into the show.
Speaker 3:So what you will find in the exhibition are two human-scaled recreations of different dream houses. In the center of the gallery you have a recreation of the 1979 Barbie dream house, the A-frame, the very 70s earth tone one. This is actually the gateway between the two parts of the show. So when you enter the exhibition, you start out in the pre-Barbie section and what you see is a silhouette of the 79 Dreamhouse that will be covered in a custom wallpaper depicting paper dolls. Because we wanted to tie in the influence of paper dolls on the development of Barbie. Because that's what initially sparked Ruth Handler's idea was she saw her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls and was imagining how a 3D version of that could enhance her make-believe. But then when you walk through the gateway of this silhouette, you cross into Barbie land and on the other side you have a three-dimensional rendering of the dream house and then everything is Technicolor.
Speaker 3:So that's the first dream house, and then the second one is in the corner over by the exit of the show and that is based on the 2021 dream house, and our theater folks picked that one for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3:One they thought it would be fun to reconstruct it because it had a couple of different levels and it just provided more visual interest than a single level dream house, for example. But they also picked that design because it was a wonderful synthesis of vintage architectural taste with modern sensibilities. So, on the one hand, you're channeling this 1960s, california, mid-century modernism style, but the 2021 dream house was built specifically to cater to 21st century interests. It's modular in design, it's thinking of influencer culture and that you can convert your pool into a shop for selfies or filming videos or whatnot. It also features a wheelchair accessible lift that can take visitors up to the second floor, so keeping in mind accessibility. So we thought that those two dream houses would be great because, on the one hand, the 79 is such an iconic silhouette and then the 2021 dream house really reflects how Barbie, the brand today, is a combination of vintage tastes and 21st century interests.
Speaker 1:But that sounds so exciting and like such a wonderful installation, and what I love about this is it's bringing innovation to a Barbie exhibition. Bradley, what is your favorite dream house in the exhibition?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, I love the 1979 dream house because, as nine-year-old, bradley would have loved to have gotten that under the Christmas tree and did not. So seeing it in such an amazing scale is pretty incredible, and just walking through those doors into the exhibit it really sort of transports you to Barbie land. It's really kind of amazing. Now the 2021 house that's in the corner of the exhibit to me is amazing because as you're standing there, you can look out the window onto the beach, because you know we have to have a location for Ken to be because you know his job is beach and so we have a complete view of the beach and it's really incredible.
Speaker 2:And also in that corner they are doing an exhibit of costumes that were created in-house at Mattel in the early 1980s, that live models actually wore at events and special events, like at department stores and stuff. So they actually have like life-size versions of Barbie, best Buys and Dream Date Barbie that are historical, which I kind of got very excited when I saw. So I love the whole idea of Barbie fashion inspiring real fashion. And when we were speaking of the fashion designers, this is what popped in my head because I love to see sort of the historical thing of like how women's fashion inspired Barbie in the beginning, and then in the 80s, we have Barbie fashions being created for grownups, and then I think it was 2015 that Jeremy Scott did a whole collection of fashions inspired by Barbie. So Barbie's just everywhere and I love it. Being in this exhibit, seeing it in my scale, really kind of transforms me and it's just, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:This sounds so original, so epic, and it brings together so many elements of the things that make Barbie interesting and keep her relevant and perhaps this is the secret of her 66 years of innovation that she just never stops surprising us with wonderful elements. She never stops inspiring us us with wonderful elements. She never stops inspiring us.
Speaker 3:I think that is so true, Louisa, and it really plays out in the contents of the show itself, because those life-size costumes that Bradley was describing, those came from a local lender and a lot of the dolls that you will find in the exhibition are from lenders based in the Hampton Roads area.
Speaker 3:That was a deliberate call on our part. We have found that with every doll exhibition we have done, there has always been a robust local response and we find out about these fabulous collections after the show opens. So when we did Madame Alexander a couple years ago, several locals came forward with these wonderful dolls. And when we did Martha Chase, we had a similar response and we were just thinking all right, if we got that response to these dolls that are upwards of 80, 90 years old at this point, how are they going to respond to Barbie? Let's see what happens. So we did a community call and quite a few of the dolls that you will see in the show are from this very area and it just goes to emphasize how important Barbie is around the world and to different local communities.
Speaker 1:Oh, she is, and she brings communities together and she brings people together to discuss her, to discuss her fashion influences, to discuss how designers interpret for her. And then, of course, Barbie. The movie brought out so many different discourses about being Ken, what Ken meant to Barbie and maybe why Barbie never married Ken, which is always very interesting for a girl who had Bradley. How many wedding gowns do you think Barbie had?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, there's always been one every single year, and in some cases there were multiples each year, so over 100 at least. So it's pretty incredible that that is one of the most popular fashions for the Barbie doll.
Speaker 1:And it's a doll that all of us love to have because it's a magical moment. Like at the end of a fashion show they always show a bride, because it's about rebirth, transformation, you know, a new life, new things happening, and Barbie just keeps transforming and keeps inspiring, and I think this show is going to inspire collectors and non-collectors and people who just enjoy pop culture, phenomenons and interiors, and there's just so many elements on, of course, fashion. But what I love also is they're going to be able to see this relationship between history, fashion history and dolls and discover dolls throughout the centuries and what influencers fashion dolls the original influencers. Can you give us some details, sarah, of the Carve Couture, the first exhibition we talked about? Remind us of how long it'll be on for.
Speaker 3:Yes, certainly so. Carve Couture will be open through July 31st of 2025, and it's located on the second floor of the museum. It's in the doll gallery inside the smaller feature gallery. And Bradley what are the dates of Out of the museum? It's in the doll gallery inside the smaller feature gallery.
Speaker 1:And Bradley. What are the dates of Out of the Box, a Barbie doll retrospective?
Speaker 2:It will run through July 31st through the summer.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, and is there going to be any online content? Because perhaps for those of us in Europe or around the world, maybe we can't get to the exhibition, because I just can't wait to see the dream houses.
Speaker 3:Oh, certainly so. There is a webpage up for it now, and typically for our exhibitions we'll do a 3D tour so that you can visit it virtually. And then I know we're planning some special programming alongside the show, and those are often broadcast virtually as well.
Speaker 1:That's going to be wonderful. Bradley, have you anything you want to add to that?
Speaker 2:With the museum's permission, I probably will do like a little video tour of myself or something like that that I might share with my friend Louisa.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. I would love that. I really would love that, because it's going to be an incredible exhibition. So I hope you share a lot with us online, because the Barry Art Museum has so much and has given so much to doll collectors since it opened, and I believe you're going to have a refit. There's some news from the Barry, isn't there, sarah?
Speaker 3:There certainly is, and I'm glad you brought that up, because it has to do with the closing dates of the shows.
Speaker 3:So if you are able to come to the Berry Art Museum this summer, please do, because these are the last two exhibitions before we temporarily close for a major expansion.
Speaker 3:We've been open a little over six years, but in that time we have doubled the size of our collections. So this summer we're going to embark on an expansion that will double the size of our galleries and our collection storage spaces and our administrative spaces. We're going to be adding several new galleries onto the museum, including a brand new, larger permanent gallery for the dolls and a new temporary doll gallery for the rotating shows. So instead of being nested inside one larger gallery, it will get a space of its own. And additionally, we're going to be adding a new education suite. We're going to convert the administrative offices we have now and turn it into studio space, and then we're going to add a brand new third floor where we will move our collection storage as well as our offices. So in 2027, we're scheduled to reopen and it's going to be a new museum that will be able to do what we're doing now even better.
Speaker 1:That sounds so amazing, bradley. Isn't it wonderful for us, as longtime doll collectors, to think that a museum as important as the Barry Art Museum has been so successful with its doll exhibitions that now it's actually going to expand and this is an enduring legacy of Carolyn and Dick Barry that is going to continue and be sustained? What do you think, bradley? Isn't it wonderful?
Speaker 2:I find it just sublime to finally finally see the doll presented as art, the doll presented as such a cultural thing and it presented in such an amazing and I I'll just say, serious, important kind of way that it's not just relegated to a nostalgia sort of thing, that it's presented in such a, you know, serious manner that it requires study, it requires you to pay attention and to acknowledge just how important the doll as a tool, as a plaything, is important to our culture.
Speaker 1:It is important and it's such a step forward. Sarah and Bradley, thank you so much for joining me on the Doll Podcast, for sharing the story of fashion dolls throughout the century and for telling us all about the exhibitions and also for sharing this news. I want to congratulate you on what you've done for dolls, for doll collecting, for the doll as art. Thank you so much for joining me on the Doll Podcast and for sharing these great moments in doll collecting with me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having us. It is always a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Louisa.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for joining us on the Doll Podcast. Thank you for joining us on the Doll Podcast. To find out more about this episode, just go to our website, wwwdollpodcastcom, where you'll find lots of photos and links and more information. You can also find the Doll Podcast on Facebook and Instagram. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast to keep up to date with all the latest news. The Doll Podcast is created by Niche Podcast Productions. Our music is by Celtic Conspiracy. Copyright Louisa Maxwell 2025. All rights reserved.