BARBIE:THE EXHIBITION

The Design Museum, London, 15 July 2024 – 23 February 2025

Over the past 65 years, Barbie has had more than 260 careers, at least 50 different houses, and hundreds of outfit changes. As one of the best-selling toys of all time, Barbie has become a design phenomenon. In partnership with Mattel, Barbie’s parent company, the recent exhibition at the Design Museum explores her story through a design lens, spanning manufacturing, fashion, architecture, furniture, and even vehicles.

Passing through a pink arch, visitors are greeted by the first-ever Barbie doll. She stands at 11.5 inches tall in a black-and-white chevron bathing suit, her sleek blonde hair pulled into a ponytail with a hand-painted face of glamorous makeup. This example, known as “Number 1,” is part of the Design Museum’s permanent collection, a rare and coveted object among collectors and Barbie fans today. It was created in March 1959 by Ruth Handler, who, after observing her daughter play with paper dolls, saw a gap in the market for a fashion doll that was more mature than the typical baby doll for sale in stores. The “Number 1,” a “TeenAge Fashion Model,” came with an accompanying wardrobe of 22 interchangeable outfits, offering a new, more flexible way for children to play. The exhibition presents some of these earliest garments from the “Suburban Shopper” set: a blue and white day dress, a straw hat with matching basket, a pearl necklace and summer mules. Nearby, we see archival footage of the earliest Barbie factory in Japan, including garment sewing, hair styling, packaging, and new rotational moulding techniques. The outfits were expertly engineered to fit the doll’s proportions correctly, some even costing more than the doll herself. Later in the exhibition, we see an exquisite imitation of Yves Saint Laurent’s 1965 Mondrian collection with meticulous lining and functional fastenings. Barbie was an instant hit and took the toy market by surprise, with over 300,000 dolls sold in 1959 alone. Branded products soon followed with novels, comic books, thermos flasks, and record players on the Mattel shelves.

Images above: Installation view of Barbie®: The Exhibtion, Design Museum, London, UK, 2024.