The English capital is getting ready to see life through rose-tinted glasses: The Design Museum in London is dedicating a major exhibition to Barbie starting Friday, July 5, 2024, which will feature more than 180 dolls… one of which spent six months aboard the International Space Station in 2022!
A year after the phenomenal success of Greta Gerwig’s film, starring actress Margot Robbie, Barbie is coming to this museum in West London for an exhibition tracing the evolution of the “world’s most famous doll” since its creation sixty-five years ago.
Legendary models
It opens with the “Barbie number 1”, the first model, created in 1959 by the company Mattel, which is a partner of the exhibition.
It also includes the surfer “Sunset Malibu Barbie”, very popular in the 1970s, as well as the “Totally Hair Barbie” from 1992, with her long hair, the best-selling in the world with more than 10 million copies.
Also on display are the first black, Hispanic and Asian Barbies, the first Barbie with Down syndrome, the first to use a wheelchair, and more.
« Space Barbie »
But the organizers are particularly proud to exhibit “the only Barbie to have gone into space”, which was designed to look like Italian Samantha Cristoforetti, the first European to take command of the ISS. The Italian astronaut took it with her into space for six months in 2022.
The exhibition also features videos of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti floating weightlessly alongside the doll and answering questions from space. “Samantha’s doll is being shown for the first time since her return from the ISS,” said Danielle Thom, the exhibition’s curator.
Our “Barbie” file
For Tim Marlow, the museum’s director, “design has been at the heart of Barbie’s story since its creation.” Visitors will be able to see “the influence of designers and architects, from Florence Knoll to Frank Gehry, on the world of Barbie,” according to the institution.
The exhibition also devotes a section to Ken, Barbie’s eternal male companion, as well as to his younger sister, Skipper.
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