Christian Dior Barbie

Last night whilst conducting one of my regular Ebay searches for Dior books I came across something I’d never seen before, a Christian Dior Barbie. The moment I saw her I knew I had to have her and spent most of the evening, researching everything about her. I discovered she was a special edition, released in 1997, designed to celebrate 50 years of Dior and her Bar Suit was based not on the original, but on the iconic photo from the 1950's. Beautifully packaged, Dior Barbie came complete with silk underwear, stockings and suspenders and all for a snip at just under £300 including import tax from America.

Christian Dior Barbie 1997.

By the time I went to bed I had convinced myself to dip into my 50th birthday fund reasoning that owning Dior Barbie right now was more important than a possible future trip to New York and besides there’s a few more years to save for that anyway. This was even further justified by two powerful signs sent by the universe, within hours of my discovery, giving me the green light to purchase Dior Barbie immediately which were as follows:

1. My husband has recently taken to following the routes of aeroplanes on an app he discovered. Every time he hears a plane, he looks it up on his app to find out where it’s going. I’d like to say this activity was brought on by the boredom of lockdown but it is in fact standard behaviour for him. I’m digressing but last night he heard a plane and found out it had just taken off from East Midlands and was on it’s way to Cincinnati, Ohio. Dior Barbie was in Cincinnati, Ohio.

2. Google Photos sent me an ‘on this day in 2019’ reminder and lo and behold, a photo I had taken of the actual Bar Suit at the Dior exhibition which I was at exactly two years ago popped up on my phone. And of course it was not just any old Bar Suite at the V & A but the one believed to have been used in that aforementioned photograph from the mid fifties.

The Bar suit, modelled by Renee, mid fifties. Photograph: Willy Maywald.

I think anyone would agree, that’s a pretty compelling case for spending £300 on a doll that you can’t really afford.

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was Dior Barbie but trying to exercise a modicum of restraint, I thought perhaps I should do a little more research just to be sure. On doing so I came across a Dior Barbie unboxing video on You Tube. At first I was mesmerised, Dior Barbie was beautiful, every little detail of the Bar Suit from the outside was exquisite, but as the collector began to undress her to show off the details of her outfit, my interest began to wane. The elasticated waistband of her wool crepe skirt, her unlined jacket and the obvious factory mould lines visible on her tiny stilettos just didn’t scream Dior.

Without her clothes Dior Barbie was just plain Barbie, her elegant pose, emulating the model from Willy Maywald’s famous photo was actually just a stupid Barbie karate chop arm. And the thing is I never liked Barbie and her stupid karate chop arms; I was a pure Sindy girl through and through. It was Sindy that I coveted, the dolls, the clothes, the furniture. But last night I was prepared to give up over 40 years’ worth of doll brand loyalty and create a serious dint in my savings because she was wearing Dior?

So what does this say about me, other than that I’m perhaps a tad fickle? Or at least I feel like I was on this occasion. Generally speaking as I have gotten older, I consider myself quite the opposite. I know what I like and my tastes and sense of aesthetics rarely change. And perhaps it is that as opposed to fickleness that was the cause of my rapid loss of interest in Dior Barbie. She was all show and no substance. She looked like a little slice of a Dior dream but she lacked the things I love most, craftsmanship and authenticity. And with no childhood attachment to Barbie herself, there was literally nothing left to sustain my interest.

In contrast for Christmas I got a new Sindy doll, having found out about a new limited edition collection that had been reproduced for the first time in over thirty years. It was the doll not her clothes that was the draw, and after the excitement of receiving her on Christmas day, another two of the six available followed in quick succession. This was of course a moment of pure nostalgia and that’s what made receiving those dolls as an adult so special. It tapped into that childhood longing, wanting something so much you could barely stand it and the joy of receiving the object of your desire. In a sense that was a greater gift than the doll herself as much as I loved her and I did genuinely love her.

Weekender Sindy, limited edition collectors doll, 2020.

And as odd as it may sound I didn’t think I’d feel that way, I knew I was getting a Sindy for Christmas, there was no element of surprise this time, I worried perhaps that I’d somehow be disappointed, what if that sense of wonder and thrill could only be experienced as a child? What if I’d lost that? And perhaps there are elements of truth to that but when I opened my Sindy on Christmas day I actually screamed with excitement. She didn’t need to be wearing Dior, she came clothed in childhood memories which no £300 designer clad doll could ever replicate. Although of course if it had been the hands of the Dior Ateliers that had dressed Barbie, and not a factory in China, I might be telling a different story right now. Maybe I could have grown to love Barbie. Maybe I am fickle after all.