Happy Birthday Barbie!

A friend took me to a party at the soon to be my good friend, Kari’s house for a “Barbie Birthday Party” many years ago.  Kari’s house was incredible! She had tons of various toys and dolls on display, glittery pink floors and the entire house were all decorated in Barbie art. Tacky pink Barbie banners stretched across the ceiling, pink lights and gold spray painted dolls hung on the branches of the ficus tree that grew from outside through the crack in the living room window! 

So many colorful people in wild costumes and hats from every decade of the Barbie doll! Spiked pink punch with fruit slices, bowls of pink gumdrops and plates of pink cookies with sprinkles. Kari was dressed as the Twiggy doll in a human-sized version of the Mattel Twiggy doll’s original outfit. She had various performance artists doing erotic performances featuring Barbie as their perverse theme. Plus, the best part was that Kari had set up assorted Barbie craft projects to do in every room. In one room there was piles of doll clothes, shoes, heads, bodies, arms, scraps of fabric, X-acto knives, hot glue, colored foil, glitter, paint, scissors and markers on a circular table so guest could create their own expression featuring the iconic doll. I sat down beside a guy named Bichon who looked like a kooky beatnik. We started to chat, hit it off and became collaborators on a Barbie project. I stripped off the paint from a doll’s face with acetone. I taped off her head, exposing her hair then spray-painted her hair black. Bichon started to make a wedding dress from a few paper doilies.  When the paint on the hair dried, I pulled the tape off and repainted the make-up on her face. I found a tiny bridal bouquet, added a black veil, a ribbon and colored the flowers to look weathered.  Bichon had finished the elaborate wedding dress and it was spectacular! The dress had a long train in the back, scraps of old lace with plastic spiders on the peplum, bows and puffed sleeves with tiny Tic Tac breath mints glued to them. Kari gave prizes for the favorite art creation so after the voting by the crowd; Bichon and I won the contest!

 

The Bride of Frankenstein Barbie was our lovely creation that night.

Bichon and I became great friends after that. Hope you making some fantastic Barbie art in heaven, Bichon.

Christmas in the Valley of the Dolls

Before we get too far along into 2015, I want to post a few photos of my vintage Barbie dolls dressed in their winter fashions and the party in the Christmas display. 

I've been collecting Barbie seriously as an adult since 1982 when my dear (and now departed) friend, Kurt Krause, took me to my first vintage doll collector show in September of that year. I had never been  'into' Barbie or any dolls really until I saw the vintage Mattel’s "Twiggy" doll in someone's booth. I flipped out because I distinctly remembered the MOD doll from my childhood and I just had to have one. I didn't have any dolls as a kid although my mom for Christmas bought me, the Ken Gift Set featuring handsome Malibu Ken dressed in his groovy flower print windbreaker, swim trunks, swim fins, face mask and boogie board. He was awesome and I considered him more of an 'action figure' and not a doll! 

Anyway, the Twiggy doll was about $100 and I didn't have the money for her so sadly, I walked away without the Twig. Kurt bought a few “bubble cut” Barbie dolls, a couple of pairs of spiked high heels and a red one-piece bathing suit for Barbie. I learned a lot about the collector’s mind and the world of collecting in general and I was hooked! I started to go to dolls shows with Kurt, which was in those days, every weekend. 

A few months passed until it was December then suddenly, it was Christmas. Kurt loved Christmas so he would make sugar cookies, decorate his apartment with little model houses, hang his Granny’s vintage decorations on the silver Mylar tree and play Christmas songs on the piano.  Kurt called me and asked me to come over to see his Christmas display. He lived up the hill from my apartment so I told him I'd be over in a few minutes. Of course his apartment was all decked out with boughs of holly, candles in the window, fake snowflakes in the corners, etc. and under the Christmas tree was a single present. Kurt ran over, grabbed the present and handed it to me. “Open it, open it!” he squealed.  I tore off the wrapping paper and slid open the box. There inside was the Twiggy doll! My first Barbie doll. Merry Christmas Kurt, I miss you.