Tuesday, March 09, 1999
It's a Barbie world
For doll's big 4-0, three Tristate collectors show off their passion for the plastic icon
BY REON CARTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When you're blonde, beautiful and America's favorite diva doll, there's only one way to move into midlife. In high style.
Today, Barbie Millicent Roberts of Willows, Wis., celebrates her 40th birthday. Her dizzying schedule includes hosting a power breakfast and ringing the bell to announce the start of trading at the New York Stock exchange; racing in the celebrity Grand Prix in Australia and modeling expensive baubles by the world's most famous jewelers in Paris.
Not bad for a doll who bombed at her coming-out party in 1959 at the annual New York Toy Fair. Deemed too sexy, curvaceous and scantily clad, Barbie — in a strapless striped bathing suit and high heels — initially was overlooked by toy buyers.
It was only after Barbie creator Ruth Handler introduced the doll to the public in television commercials that aired during the Mickey Mouse Club that her popularity soared.
Four decades later, about 1 billion Barbies, Kens, Midges, Skippers and other friends and relatives have been sold, making her the best-selling doll brand in almost every major global market. Barbie is a $1.9 billion-a-year business. She has been rhapsodized, analyzed and criticized, but through it all, her pert smile and passion for pink remains.
To commemorate her big day, the Enquirer asked readers to share their favorite Barbie memories and collections. Among them were a 33-year-old mom and her 5-year-old daughter from Taylor Mill, who bond while playing with Barbie; a 30-year-old Lebanon woman who has converted a room of her apartment into Barbie-ville, and a 45-year-old Clifton costume designer whose collection proves Barbie mania crosses gender lines.
Kim Eisenschmidt enjoys play time with Barbie as much as her daughter, Miranda.
“Barbie is something we can do together,” Mrs. Eisenschmidt says. “It's our time, and I hope when Miranda is grown she'll do the same with her daughter and it'll become a family tradition.”
Mrs. Eisenschmidt, 33, recalls her first memory of Barbie. “I was 8. Our family room was nothing but Barbies, her doll house, shopping center and beauty shop. My mother made a lot of my Barbie clothes. Barbie made my dreams feel real. I wasn't popular, but I could be in Barbie's world.”
At age 2 in 1997, Miranda's interest in Barbie prompted her mom to start their collection. Now, they have 153 dolls — 123 are still stored in boxes, 30 were unwrapped for play.
“I hope the collection will be passed down in the family,” Mrs. Eisenschmidt says. “I didn't get into collecting for the money. I just love Barbie and I only buy what we like.”
They are particularly fond of the dolls dressed in nursery rhyme or fairy tale themes such as Little Bo Peep and Cinderella because they are more fun for kids.
Mrs. Eisenschmidt has decided not to join the typical all-adult Barbie fan clubs and no longer takes Miranda along to Barbie shows or conventions. She would like to find a mother-daughter club that puts an emphasis on play with the dolls.
“At the shows, the adults are so serious,” she says. “It's no touching (the dolls) and jumping away if you stand too close (to them). I understand that it's because the dolls are worth a lot of money, but it takes the fun out of it for children. And that's really what Barbie is supposed to be about, isn't she?'
Tina Mouser had outgrown her childhood fascination with Barbie until an electrical fire destroyed most of her belongings in 1991. “Everything had burn damage and about six inches of soot on it,” Mrs. Mouser says. “I opened this antique trunk containing the Barbies expecting the worst, but the dolls and all the accessories were fine. I've been back in love with Barbie ever since.”
Now, one room in her apartment has been converted to a Barbie shrine, where shelves of 400 dolls line the walls. There are only two Kens and a few Skippers and Midges among them.
Thanks to that trunk, she has her first Barbie received at age 5.
“I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen,” recalls Mrs. Mouser, 30.. “I was never interested in baby dolls, so Barbie was different. I had to have one.”
Her devotion to Barbie tapered off as she approached 16.
“I gave Barbie a break and packed my stuff away around the time I got my driver's license and became more interested in boys,” she says.
After rediscovereding her collection, she researched its value.
“My old dolls weren't victims of haircuts, Magic Markers or the family dog,” she says.
She estimates that her oldest Barbies from the late '60s and early '70 are worth about $200-$300 apiece. These days, however, she never purchases a doll with resale in mind.
“I'm not in this for the investment potential,” she says.“I just enjoy having a collection. And I'm drawn to Barbies with big hair and big beautiful gowns, especially the ones dressed in historical themes.”
She still looks forward to Christmas with the enthusiasm of a child because she can count on a Barbie windfall every year.
“Family and friends never have any problems deciding what to get me for gifts,” she says.
More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making fashions for Barbie and her friends. At least 40 top designers - from Bob Mackie to Missoni — have created dazzling frocks for her lean and leggy form.
Barbie easily is the world's most famous clothes horse, which is why she captured the eye of theatrical costume designer George Sarofeen.
Mr. Sarofeen, 45, has 200 contemporary and 70 vintage Barbies in his collection.
“I've always had a fascination with Barbie and her amazing wardrobe,” Mr. Sarofeen says. “It's an accurate reflection of late 20th-century fashion. Through her you can track the history of fashion from the mod '60s looks with minis, the excesses of '80s Dynasty-era with the puff sleeves and shoulder-pad styles to the minimalist approach in the '90s.”
Mr. Sarofeen started collecting five years ago. His first purchase: A Bob Mackie Queen of Hearts for $250 he found at FAO Schwartz in New York.
“It's ironic because I'd seen the first Bob Mackie Barbie there years earlier,” he says.“It was going for $120, and I thought why would anyone spend that much for a Barbie doll? I just didn't get it at time.”
Now he wishes he had. That same Mackie Barbie he passed up fetches $600 on today's secondary collector's market.
People who tease him about collecting Barbies are silenced when he tells them about the No. 2 brunette ponytail Barbie he bought for $1,000 on a Saturday then sold for $3,500 by Monday.
But his affection for Barbie is not just about the money. “I appreciate what the doll represents as a pop culture icon,” he says. “I particularly enjoy the vintage dolls and the emotion and nostalgia that surrounds them. They take me back to the days when I used to go out with my mother, when women still wore gloves and people still dressed up when they went out in public.”
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