I walked through the candy-pink door that has magically appeared between Chimera and the Tulsa Violin Shop, and there she was: Golden Dream Barbie, with her body-skimming gold lamé jumpsuit, her weird translucent cape-slash-skirt, and her volumized blond hair, plumped up with strands of metal that made it actually hold a curl.
How long had it been since I’d thought about her? About being her? Since I was, like, six years old?
It was incredible to see that Farrah Fawcett bitch again. Likewise: Western Winking Barbie, a personal favorite whom I always thought of as a lost Mandrell sister, and whose left blue-eyeshadowed eyelid always got drunkenly stuck halfway down when I pressed the button to make it wink.
At the Vintage Barbie Museum Pop-Up, curated by J. D. Houchens and Karl Jones and open through January, you too can reconnect with your childhood self—and with the many selves represented in the world of Barbie. Like any icon, she contains multitudes, and the collection on display here shows more than a hundred of them, from the very first Barbie (1959) in her iconic black and white swimsuit to Barbies in Yves Saint Laurent-inspired dresses, Diahann Carroll-esque gowns, ’60s mod fashions, ‘80s workout wear, and even lingerie (complete with a tiny working garter belt). Displayed in groups in glass-fronted cases, the dolls—Barbies, Christies, Kens, even a Midge and an Allan—read like a timelapse of American cultural life.