Barbie And Bulgari

Barbie is joining celebrities Julianne Moore, Benicio Del Toro, Ben Stiller, Sally Field, Sting, Willem Dafoe, Rosario Fiorello, Jason Lewis and Debra Messing (among others) to support Bulgari in its support of Save the Children International's "Rewrite the Future" campaign. 

Barbie models a ring designed by Bulgari for the campaign. 

I'm a fan of the picture, except for Barbie's eye make-up. It's out of control. 

Who Do You Tell?

I make a point not to remove wall posts from my Facebook page. If a friend posts something weird or a little off-color, so be it. But when an old friend from high school posted a question about the status of my Barbie collection, I freaked -- and removed the post.

Why? Because only a select group of my friends and family know about the collection.

It's a defense mechanism. I don't want to be known universally as "that chick with hundreds of dolls" among coworkers and acquaintances. My old friend from Facebook proves this can happen: After all these years, one of the first questions he asks me is about the collection.

There's always a pause and a look of surprise after someone new learns about the collection. Then come the questions. So many questions.  

It's hard for people who don't collect anything to understand the compulsion to collect. And collecting dolls has gotten a bad rep among some. 

My husband's grandmother had a "doll room" in her old house filled with baby dolls and dolls in intricate lace dresses. They lined the room on shelves and perched on every available space -- even the bed. When staying with his grandparents, my husband had to sleep in that room beneath the unblinking stare of all those dolls. 

It caused some trauma and, if my hunch is correct, will require some future psychiatric bills to fix. (Just kidding, honey!)

Seriously, the dolls-staring-with-unblinking-eyes thing creeps a lot of people out. Even Ashton Kutcher. 

Because I know people don't understand collecting and I know it creeps some people out, I remain pretty quiet about the whole thing day-to-day. 

What do you do? Who do you tell?

Time-Management Nightmare

I had wondered previously about the Barbie Fan Club and whether or not it was worth the membership fee. In the 20-some years I've been collecting, I had considered joining many times but did not get around to actually joining until this year. 

And it's pretty neat. 

I haven't yet taken advantage of the collector offers, but I am loving the Bulletin Board. I started reading and posting to it this week and already my productivity at work has taken a nose dive. 

(Seriously. I really should be working right now, but...)

While the site is a little clunky and slow to update at times, I applaud Mattel for creating a community where collectors can congregate (virtually) and communicate!

This Doesn't Help Our Street Cred

Demi Moore collects dolls (Yes!!), and her hubby Ashton Kutcher finds it creepy (Oh no!). 

Ashton referenced Demi's 3,000+ doll collection, which includes Barbies and G.I. Joes, on June 6 using Twitter.

His exact Tweet reads:

"spent the day going through wifey's insane doll collection. 3000 thousand contemporary art dolls all starting at U. I'm gonna have nightmares"

Followed by:

"I'm trying to convince wifey to open a doll museum. She also has thousands of Barbies and original GI JOEs"

He included links to a few photos of the contemporary dolls (no Barbies) as well. 

The good news: Demi Moore is a doll collector! I think it's wonderful to have a high-profile adult who openly collects dolls.

The bad news: Ashton finds it creepy. His reaction is akin to many people's reactions when they learn about adult doll collectors. And his negative, although light-hearted, comments about it do nothing to help our image. Ashton likely unwittingly has turned his legions of fans against doll collections!

Fellow doll collectors, let the letter-writing campaign begin!

What's Your Method?

If you've been keeping up Barbie Collector Obsession, you know that I'm preparing for my first foray into rerooting hair. 

Despite the general confusion and, let's be honest, horror expressed by the non-collectors in my life when I talk about my project (Husband: "Isn't it bad enough we have naked dolls scattered around the house? Now you're going to shave them?"), I think it's something I should experience as a collector. 

I've got some dolls to experiment on, so now I need a plan of attack. 

I like this Web site because it includes really clear pictures along with written instructions. But being a reroot newbie, I'm not sure if this is a good method or if there are better instructional sites out there. 

What method do you use to reroot hair? Can you share some advice before the first Barbie gets clipped?

Vegas, Baby!

Palms Las Vegas has designed a fantasy suite dedicated to Barbie! 

Jonathan Adler designed the 2,350-square-foot space (as well as the Barbie dream house in Malibu). It features a sunburst mirror made from 65 reproduction 1959 striped-swimsuit dolls, custom artwork featuring Barbie and plenty of pink.

The suite is so money -- mostly because it costs a lot of money ($4,000 per night) to stay there.

Check out pictures here.  

Barbie Foosball

Now for something completely different: Barbie Foosball.

Survey Says?

I've posted a survey (to the right) that asks you, dear blog reader, to let me know how many Barbie dolls are in your collection. 

Why? Because I'm curious. 

In reading different articles about Barbie's 50th anniversary, I noticed newspapers, particularly in smaller communities, like to link the news of Barbie's birthday with a local collector. The collectors featured in the articles had a few dozen Barbies to a few hundred, though mostly they had less than 100 in their collections. 

Is that correct? Are most Barbie collectors in the less-than-1oo category? 

I don't know, but I'm hoping my unscientific blog survey will shed some more light on it!

Take the survey! Take it! Please!