Polyvinyl Carnage & Impossible Heels
Episode 07:31:2023 - Prompt: Barbie
Where Barbie took me…
My Barbies were hand-me-downs.
I don’t remember begging for Barbie in the store or seeing ads on TV and crying, “Ma, I need one!”
Under my watch…
Barbie got no Ken. No playhouse. No sports car.
What I liked about Barbie was the clothing and furniture I designed for her even if I found her breast/waist/hip proportions challenging.
I never wanted to be Barbie, but I envied her feet.
Barbie’s feet fit into impossibly high heels.
I had a habit of drawing elaborate high heel shoes in profile on pedestals with fluffy adornments and rhinestones.
I didn’t yet know that Warhol had started in shoes, but I felt a kinship once I did.
During this Barbie time, we had two dogs: Kermit & Muffin. Kermit was a large German Shepherd Labrador mix, but it was Muffin - my mini-Poodle with dreadlocks - who cooked up trouble.
Muffin was the instigator. Kermit, the innocent.
One day we came home to find all of my dolls and their accessories strewn across the living room floor.
Muffin must have worked Kermit up into being a killing machine.
Decapitated Barbie. Teeth-marked Barbie. Clump of hair Barbie.
Dresses and attaché cases tossed as if Barbie encountered a land mine buried under our Persian rug. Her polyvinyl chloride legs were riddled with pockmarks.
What befell Barbie was an awful scene.
I never played with dolls again.
Even in yoga, it’s referred to as the Barbie foot.
We do poses that strengthen our alignment, and there might be a moment when we point & flex at the same time.
Point your foot, like a ballet dancer then pull your toes back AS IF you were wearing impossibly high heels.
This is an important detail for me.
I’ve never worn heels without suffering the consequences.
I think when we’re young we believe we will either grow into aesthetic discomfort OR be able to live with it long enough to get used to it.
For most of what I do and have done in my life, high heels were not required.
I even managed to get away with low heels during my couple of years working at a Beverly Hills talent agency.
My grandmother worked in fashion & beauty.
She had 10 pairs of high heels in her Miami closet when we moved her up to Baltimore for the last two years of her life.
Many were the exact same pair of shoes bought “on special”.
I was tasked with buying her appropriate shoes for my grandfather’s funeral (all of hers were beige, white, or dusty rose).
She later stood up during my mother’s eulogy and proclaimed…
“If your father knew how much these shoes you bought me cost, he’d get up right now and return them!”
I’ve had what they call “bandy legs” since I started walking. My mom documented it in drawings in her journal during my first year.
Polaroids of me dancing make clear there was nothing straight about my legs.
I thought - for decades - if only I… did more yoga, running, Alexander Technique, and so on, that my legs would be straight.
And If my legs were straight, I would have the strength in my ankles and arch to wear heels.
I love heels - not all heels - but the ones where design & physics come together in perfect harmony & grace. A dress, pants, shorts, whatever looks better in heels.
It turns out they now make high heels for feet like mine for $300. I’ve communicated with the brand. Measured every part of my foot. I never actually put the shoes in the cart. I guess it’s not as important as I thought.
Barbie’s perceived perfection is a marketing technique.
In advertising we call it “aspirational”, but the narrative shifts with the times. Is Barbie feminist because she has a career and doesn’t settle down?
Sounds like a marketing ploy to me… a narrative shift to sell more Barbies.
YOUR TURN: On Friday, I wrote that Barbie, like all brands, represents manufactured ideals packaged to sell. Barbie is a product, just like Apple, Bud Light, and Oxycodone.
The success of a product relies on marketing the narrative.
Once you crack the narrative, can you accept the product?
Where does BARBIE take you?
(It doesn’t have to be about the doll or marketing.)
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I loved my Barbie. I never gave a second thought to her oddly small waist. Actually the Barbie I speak of isn't my original Barbie. I traded in my red bubble head Barbie for a bendable moded in the late 60's. A marketing "trade in plan " from Mattel. I just Googleed it. It was 1967. Trade in old Barbie plus pay $1.50. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was so excited to go to Atlantic Thrift to get my new bendable Barbie. Plus old Barbie had a deformed foot so her shoe never stayed on that foot anyway. I'm guessing my brother did it, messed up her foot. He broke a lot of my toys back then or maybe I just blamed him....ugh brothers.
When we were youger we'd go to a place called Discount Harry's, mainly to purchase pool supplies I think. They also sold toys and I'd go right to the Barbie cloths. Even back then I was a fashionista. I played Barbies with my neighbors. I made outfits for Barbie that I had sewn by hand. I made her a flying nun outfit. I had a Barbie car. It wasn't the pink corvette of today but a turquoise roadster convertible with a red roll bar. I had that car until I moved in 2014 and sold in at one of my moving yard sales. But not my Barbie. I still have my her. I have her sister Skipper. Im not sure if I still have Ken. They are all in my black Barbie case in my bedroom closet. Which brings me to pink. When did Barbie go pink? That wasn't the case in my day. I'm not a pink girl. In fact my least favorite color. Maybe if I was of Barbie age today I wouldn't love Barbie like I did back then. I guess someday I'll part with my Barbie or maybe I just let her live forever in my bedroom closet and my kids will sell her at my Estate sale along with about 5 or 6 "Collectors" Barbie s that I purchase in my adult years.
My Barbie memories are good. I never thought about the negative effects that we hear of today. Those were simpler times. Yes, she was perfect with a tiny waist perkey boobs and great legs. I never worried about trying to mold myself in her image. She was just a doll I played with. A toy that gave me lots of fun and my love for clothes
Barbie was never a thing in my life; I never owned one. I’m sure plenty of her cousins lived in my small New England town, but my friends and I didn’t have a lot of time for them. We were tomboys in a Venn diagram with jocks and brains. Who had time for fashion?
If I could create my own perfect Barbie, she’d have a buzz cut. She’d sport a bunch of tattoos, have a bunch of kids, and drive a hybrid minivan with feminist bumper stickers. She’d have plenty of hot pink accessories, of course: water bottle, cell phone, Crocs and glasses. She’d have a dozen pairs of glasses, because middle-aged Barbie is always setting them down somewhere and forgetting about them.
This Barbie doesn’t wear heels. This Barbie spends too much time online. This Barbie has a crush on Idris Elba. This Barbie will have the sushi, please. This Barbie misses Nirvana. This Barbie is solidly unbranded. You couldn’t market her if you tried.