Fifty years old but forever young

by Aidan O'Donnell

Article published on the 2009-08-07 Latest update 2009-08-08 09:36 TU

(Photo : Musée de la poupée)

A lot goes on at Paris’s Musée de la Poupée. It does what’s expected of any self-respecting doll museum with a collection of dollies that runs from 1800 to the First World War period. But it also houses a specialist bookstore and a clinic for mangled, wigless, amputated and generally under-the-weather dolls. 

(Photo : Musée de la poupée)

Currently it’s running a temporary exhibition dedicated to this year’s big dolly birthday – Barbie’s 50^th. The plastic princess / popstar / politician / etc. is half a century old this year.

"What is extraordinary with Barbie is that it has been a reflection of our society over 50 years," says Museum Director Samy Odin, pointing out that the Barbie doll charts all the changes in fashion and taste over the last five decades, no matter how slight.

 

Barbie as a socio-historical research experiment might seem a little over the top until you come face to face with the exhibition’s 300 incarnations of Barbie and see her hairstyles moving through the decades, with plenty of scary hairstyle moments.

Pedants will point out that, because she only arrived in France in 1963, French Barbie is actually 46 but that’s no reason not to bring France ’s Barbie fans out, some of whom have actually contributed to the exhibition.

Student Barbie
(Photo: Musée de la poupée)

"We were privileged to ask the three best Barbie collectors in France to bring their best dolls," says Odin, "so we were able to cover the entire period, including some dolls that were also brought to the exhibit by Mattel." He points out one 1960s display that contains "some rare dolls which were actually made only for the French market".

You can understand collectors getting attached to their Barbie figurines when you realise they were originally built to be thrown away.

"You just can’t do any repairs at all on Barbie dolls," says Véronique Derez, the Museum’s doll surgeon, who repairs broken dolls in the museum workshop every week. "We have customers from all over the world," says Odin, about the people who bring in Barbie’s ancestors, "of course sometimes an antique doll doesn’t need deep restoration, only to have the wig replaced or the elastic restrung."

Barbie, circa 1959
(Photo: Musée de la poupée)

Derez says her patients date from "about 1800 to 1950 more or less." Today, however, Barbie comes is a higher-quality version for collectors who don’t plan on letting the dog chew her foot off. These figures says Odin, "are made out of a different kind of plastic material, what we call ‘silkstone’", and this results in Barbies that are "heavier and  more refined."

Long-suffering boyfriend Ken pops up in the exhibition as well and is himself getting on in years, since he made  his appearance as a Barbie accessory in 1961. The Museum Director explains why Ken has not yet been made an honest man of, all these years on.

"She’s an icon," says Odin, "she never got married and she’s always ready to start a new career."