Barbie Dreamhouse Experience

sarah-jane

sarah-jane

VFG Member
One for Karin! HERE it is, newly opened and provoking some extraordinary reactions.

This just looks like fun to me. I think it would look like fun to my 6 year old daughter too. Maybe that means we're both brainwashed, despite our long bedtime conversations about suffrage. Is it possible to just like pink, for pink's sake?

Are you planning on a visit Karin?
 
I've read all about it in the newspaper here! Just haven't had time to go online for the last few days. They had to close it after just a few hours because some activists threatened them. The demonstrations against it have been going on for some time already before it opened. I wouldnot travel anywhere just because of this ( a real vintage Barbie exhibition is something else - done that :)), but if it ever comes somewhere near here, I might go have a look!

I have to say though that I do not follow the current Barbie lines closely anymore. The playline is geared towards much younger kids now since a few years, and everything is more childish than it ever was, all princesses, fantasy etc., few realistic accessories and fewer dolls with "careers". It used to be that girls played with Barbie up to 12 years old at least (I certainly did), but now I think the axe falls somewhere when they're 7 years old or so, but they get them younger as well. I grew up in the time of Day to Night Barbie, the doll with an office, an career suit (albeit pink!) and a computer :hysterical:- and many more dolls that despite the fantasy, the pink furniture and the surreal body measurements (not that I ever though a minute about that - I just somehow knew that this wasn't reality) offered a slice of real life. And then of course came the Fashion Avenue clothes line just when I started to collect, which offered stylish, but often quite realistic fashions that at some point even had a name each - like in the 60s. After that, it started to go down, and for the last 5 years at least it has gotten fairly uninteresting. So much for the current play line dolls. The only interesting line are the African-American So in Style dolls that are only available in the US and come in purple boxes and dressed in up-to-date fashions. The dolls are utterly beautiful - each of them a different shade of skin and hair color - but looking natural and without the bigger heads the normal play line dolls now have. I bought two of them again this winter. It just shows that Mattel can still "do it" if they want to... As for the collector dolls, since they introduced the even thinner, very unposeable model-body to these dolls, and keep repeating things, and quality has gone down there as well, I do not care too much for that anymore either, if I'm honest. I want poseable dolls who can swap clothes - I take my dolls out of the box, re-dress a lot of them and put up small dioramas. Still a kid after all :hysterical:. So I'm more on the look-out for vintage stuff, or stuff from my childhood.

And to be honest - as much as anyone may have their own opinion and like Barbie or not - I have no time for those crazy protesters against the Dreamhouse either. Besides, I think nowadays there are so many influences as well that message that you have to look perfect etc. ... Don't blame it all on Barbie, that's too easy! And in the end it depends on what values your parents bring you up with if you take Barbie's world at face value or know that it's not reality and that nobody expects you to look like her. The way I played with Barbie and the amount of stuff I had all the same would probably make some people think that it should have damaged me for life. Well - it didn't. Yes, I love clothes, always did in a way I guess but I think that would have happened without Barbie too.

Karin
 
I am brainwashed. What a hoot. I also have seen this on the news here.
At some point it became harder and harder to put Barbies clothing on.
Vintage clothing seems to be much easier or possibly the body changed.
Anyone know?

How people have extra time to spend protesting things like this is my ?
 
My thoughts too - hadn't they better protest for a really worthy cause?

I just forgot to say - yes, I'm definitely brainwashed too, and a little pink certainly never hurt anybody!

It depends on the material and the doll how hard anything is to put on... some of the vintage stuff isn't easy to put on either... Barbie doll's body did change - but that took a long time, the basic shape didn't really change until the belly button body came on - looks more realistic but is still completely unrealistic in proportion: http://thevinylidol.com/2012/07/01/analyzing-barbie-body-types/

So not everything will fit every doll the same... but you just have to try, pin things in the back if needed... I have a lot of non-Mattel dolls too (vintage Sindy, Tiny Kitty, Fashion Royalty etc. etc), and it's just a matter of trying things out :). I love variety in looks, skin- and haircolors, sizes and so on - it keeps things more interesting and it means having more stuff that fits different dolls. Like vintage Sindys by Pedigree and Tonner's Tiny Kitty - their bodies are surprisingly similar and they can share almost anything. Who would have thought... (ok, this is the doll-geek speaking...).

Karin
 
And here's the brainwashed kid :), geeky as always, ca. 1990! Afternoon tea at my grandparents', and completely happy with some new dolls (yes, that's a brunette there - at the time still a bit of a sensation, non-blondes were a rarity here, so I had to have her!). That was my purple phase - that shade of lilac of my t-shirt was my fave then, not even pink!

Karin
1990.jpg
 
How fun. You look so adorable. I made my own Barbie house with carpet and wallpaper and all.
It was a dream. My mom made me quit playing with them at 12 years but I have made up for lost time.
Probably have 50 MIB Barbies now.
I sell some things but many I keep for myself. Just picked up a vintage Troll doll Barbie. Now that is a hoot.
 
Oh yes, Troll Barbie is fun! I had a pink-haired Troll on my nightstand for a few years. Your Barbie house sounds amazing. I had a doll's house made out of a small piece of Ikea furniture, decorated with scraps of carpet etc. to look real - mom made it for me and I had it forever. When I realised that I wasn't going to give my Barbies away but didn't quite play with them anymore at 13, I declared that I would collect them from then on. From then on until I earned my first salary, my pocket money was saved up and went into dolls on a big scale. Dad had to drive me to Toys 'r Us on Saturday morning and I'd come back with 5 or 6 new dolls. Thankfully, we got the collector dolls here too then, and that was something that even my dad could relate to, so nobody ever said anything and I just went on and on.

Karin
 
I thought of you Midge recently. The Barbie Convention for 2013 is soon. Wondering if you would be attending. Looks like such fun. I sure wish I could attend.
The New Orleans, Louisiana, at the Hyatt Regency New Orleans, from August 7, 2013, through August 10, 2013.
 
Thanks - I've actually never attended a Barbie Convention in the US. It's quite a lot of money for just a few days, and sometimes they are held in hotels that are a bit out of the way of other things to do if one doesn't drive. I did go to the fashion doll convention in Paris some years back twice, and in the US in the end I splurged on the Gene farewell convention in Philadelphia - partly because Gene always had a special place in my collection, and partly because of Philadelphia, which I hadn't been to before, and it was in downtown, so if I'd had enough of the sales rooms, I could just walk out and do something a little bit different :). Not that I don't like the other collectors, but sometimes you just have spent enough money, or you have an evening with no "event", or want to do something after the event... I enjoyed all of these conventions a great deal.

Karin
 
If this were an old school Barbie exhibit I would go in a heart beat! My Barbie days were the 1960s. We did not have extra money for the store bought clothes but that did not matter. My Mom would make outfits for her out of old clothes and scrap material and I would help. One time she made a triple layer chiffon evening dress out of an old peignoir, it was three shades of aqua to blue. It had a sleeveless fitted bodice and full skirt and Mom used the cord trim bows as embellishment and as a waist sash, it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. We made coats, dresses and hats and even a bathing suit. I wish I still had my Barbie and her "bespoke" wardrobe. Oh and my Barbie was a college girl who liked to read.

Melody
 
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