Hundreds of Barbies in Fuengirola

Fuengirola’s museum is about to become overrun with Barbie dolls in a tribute exhibition bound to attract pop collectors and those just curious.

More than 200 collectible Barbie dolls, all of them limited editions, in some cases limited to 25,000 copies and in others as few as 999 worldwide.

The exhibition Barbie: cinema and fashion is a tribute to the iconic Mattel doll that represents a symbol of childhood play and pop culture collectibles. But in this exhibition, the objective is to go one step further, presenting her life as if she were an authentic Hollywood actress with each display case representing all the roles of the films she has supposedly starred in.

The first curvaceous female adult toy doll

Barbie was created in 1959 by Ruth Handler and named after Handler’s daughter Barbara. It was the first doll with a curvaceous woman’s body, rather than the typical baby dolls of the time, with fashionable clothes and accessories to change her models into. It was a huge success in the USA and in a short time it had already crossed borders and spread throughout the world. Several generations of girls have played with them and collected them, although over the years they have become more collector’s items, considered in many cases true works of art, both for their designs and for their models. There are tens of thousands of collectors in the world who pay enormous sums for some models that are sold out on the market. If creator Ruth Handler’s daughter was called Barbara, can you imagine what her son’s name was?

The Barbie: cinema and fashion exhibition is free to the public and open from Friday, September 13 until October 13 at the Fuengirola Museo de la Ciudad Calle María Josefa Larrucea, 3.

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