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.
I knew of Barbies from other kids’ houses, but they seemed foreign, almost repulsive to me, the hard plastic adult body, the creepy real-not real hair, the jarringly bright colored clothing and the sharp pointy little accessories. My friends and I mostly played outdoors, scouring for treasures in the gulleys, mixing pine needle soups in the driveway puddles, looking for snails in the tide pools on the shore rocks. Then at night I had my lineup of stuffed animals, soft well-loved dogs and bears, fuzzy browns and grays, along the side of my bed, each with their own personality, taking turns sleeping with me. My favorite, whose turn it usually was, was a light brown floppy dog who had lost most of his stuffing, who I named Cozyorsy. Neither Barbie nor I would have felt she belonged either playing outdoors in the wild, or in that cuddly lineup of animals, so far from her own Dream House world.
It's not just Barbie. It's Twiggy. It's Kate Moss. It's photos of models edited to give them longer legs, better skin, bigger eyes, more prominent cheekbones, fuller lips. It's me as a teen looking in the mirror and seeing nothing but flaws - and that was before the internet and social media. It's me now, old enough to have heard the messages about toxic expectations of female perfection, and still seeing nothing but flaws until I remind myself: I'm fine, I'm enough, I accept myself the way I am.
Aug 1, 2023·edited Aug 1, 2023Liked by M Tamara Cutler
A male announcer says, “Now, Remco brings to girls, a new, wonderful, creative world of play, the Little Red Spinning Wheel!” It’s 1961, and I am ten years old, glued to the TV set. This is my Barbie moment. Though I have no patience for dolls, I am obsessed with the Little Red Spinning Wheel: “Just like Great Grandmother’s!” While the narrator extols the benefits of the product over shots of a little girl using the spinning wheel to make hats and handbags, an off-screen female vocalist sings a jingle similar to “Skip to my Lou,” a traditional folk song. “Spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull with the Little Red Spinning Wheel.” I point to the TV screen and tell my parents, “That’s what I want.” And on Christmas morning, there it is beside the tree—and with MY name on it! The Little Red Spinning Wheel comes with wool, knitting and sewing needles, and three spinning heads: small, medium, and large. I place a spool of yarn on the dowel then loop and thread it through one of spinning heads. I rotate the large red wheel clockwise then with a knitting needle, loop the yarn over the spinning head’s prongs, and pull down on the loose end of the yarn, causing a braid to form. “Spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull with the Little Red Spinning Wheel.” I sew the braid together to make a chair pad then start on an afghan. Hours and hours of spinning; yards and yards of braid. But my obsession doesn’t last long enough to finish the project. The Little Red Spinning Wheel ends up in the attic then disappears. Yet even today, I can still sing that jingle, “Spin and loop and then you pull…”
My mother gave my older sister and I Barbie dolls the year they came out. The original blonds with the high ponytails, ruby red lips, winged eyeliner, and white and black striped bandeau one-piece bathing suits. I was five and my sister was seven. Barbie came with an endless stream of clothing and accessories, which my sister was obsessed with. She made me wait for her while she organized the clothes, shoes, hats, purses and other items before we could play with the dolls together. By the time she’d finished, she no longer had any interest in playing with me.
When I was eight, I got a Ken doll. Ken had blond hair made of fibers sprayed onto his head. My cousin Sally figured out that if she licked Ken’s head, his hair would come off. I was convinced naked Ken was what males looked like in the real world. The first real naked male I saw was a baby, and I thought it had some kind of weird growth between its legs that would fall off at some point, like an umbilical cord.
Despite being a bruised tomboy, I loved dolls. They were a catalyst for me to ponder and design DIY projects, architecture, fashion, furniture, and sexual trysts. Barbie took a back seat to Cher who had an extensive, flamboyant wardrobe and an unstoppable animal magnetism. However, my favourite was always frontierswoman extraordinaire, Jane West. We did a lot of camping, making wild carrot and garlic soup, and talking to our horse at night under the stars by a crackling fire. We made bowls from clay mud to collect water from the spring in the meadow. She was resourceful, independent, strong, seldom afraid, and not at all fashion conscious. She wore the same couple of vinyl buckskin outfits all the time, vests and skirts with simulated fringe sculpted along the edges. I don't remember what her figure was like, or even what her plain face looked like, because it just wasn't important. I'm not sure how well she sold but that's the doll I often wish I had kept, or every little girl I've met since.
I got the job because no one else wanted it. I had recently arrived at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, a new employee, direct from the backpacker’s lifestyle abroad in Bruges. They all were put-off by Enrique’s attitude, bracing and confrontational. Everyone said no, so I said yes. He became my boss at Disney On Ice. We spent endless hours together all over the continental USA, parts of Canada, 2 stints in Mexico City (his hometown, where he grew up on the streets as a child orphan before joining the Ringling Bros. Circus as a teenage trapeze artist.). We made a two-man team for three years. The two of us worked in inventory control (“box moving”, as he liked to say) for the DOI concessions department. We were responsible for distributing merchandise, everything Disney related. Temporary fun sold at the shows to parents of little girls and boys. From sugar spun into cotton candy to batteries powering spinning lights, Enrique and I controlled it all from our 52-foot trailers. We issued the toys to the independent operators and vendors who sold it for commission. A motley crew of globe-trotters plucked from all parts of the world. I received a crash course in big-top productions, a higher education in sociology, an unforgettable life on the road.
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.
I knew of Barbies from other kids’ houses, but they seemed foreign, almost repulsive to me, the hard plastic adult body, the creepy real-not real hair, the jarringly bright colored clothing and the sharp pointy little accessories. My friends and I mostly played outdoors, scouring for treasures in the gulleys, mixing pine needle soups in the driveway puddles, looking for snails in the tide pools on the shore rocks. Then at night I had my lineup of stuffed animals, soft well-loved dogs and bears, fuzzy browns and grays, along the side of my bed, each with their own personality, taking turns sleeping with me. My favorite, whose turn it usually was, was a light brown floppy dog who had lost most of his stuffing, who I named Cozyorsy. Neither Barbie nor I would have felt she belonged either playing outdoors in the wild, or in that cuddly lineup of animals, so far from her own Dream House world.
It's not just Barbie. It's Twiggy. It's Kate Moss. It's photos of models edited to give them longer legs, better skin, bigger eyes, more prominent cheekbones, fuller lips. It's me as a teen looking in the mirror and seeing nothing but flaws - and that was before the internet and social media. It's me now, old enough to have heard the messages about toxic expectations of female perfection, and still seeing nothing but flaws until I remind myself: I'm fine, I'm enough, I accept myself the way I am.
A male announcer says, “Now, Remco brings to girls, a new, wonderful, creative world of play, the Little Red Spinning Wheel!” It’s 1961, and I am ten years old, glued to the TV set. This is my Barbie moment. Though I have no patience for dolls, I am obsessed with the Little Red Spinning Wheel: “Just like Great Grandmother’s!” While the narrator extols the benefits of the product over shots of a little girl using the spinning wheel to make hats and handbags, an off-screen female vocalist sings a jingle similar to “Skip to my Lou,” a traditional folk song. “Spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull with the Little Red Spinning Wheel.” I point to the TV screen and tell my parents, “That’s what I want.” And on Christmas morning, there it is beside the tree—and with MY name on it! The Little Red Spinning Wheel comes with wool, knitting and sewing needles, and three spinning heads: small, medium, and large. I place a spool of yarn on the dowel then loop and thread it through one of spinning heads. I rotate the large red wheel clockwise then with a knitting needle, loop the yarn over the spinning head’s prongs, and pull down on the loose end of the yarn, causing a braid to form. “Spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull, spin and loop and then you pull with the Little Red Spinning Wheel.” I sew the braid together to make a chair pad then start on an afghan. Hours and hours of spinning; yards and yards of braid. But my obsession doesn’t last long enough to finish the project. The Little Red Spinning Wheel ends up in the attic then disappears. Yet even today, I can still sing that jingle, “Spin and loop and then you pull…”
My mother gave my older sister and I Barbie dolls the year they came out. The original blonds with the high ponytails, ruby red lips, winged eyeliner, and white and black striped bandeau one-piece bathing suits. I was five and my sister was seven. Barbie came with an endless stream of clothing and accessories, which my sister was obsessed with. She made me wait for her while she organized the clothes, shoes, hats, purses and other items before we could play with the dolls together. By the time she’d finished, she no longer had any interest in playing with me.
When I was eight, I got a Ken doll. Ken had blond hair made of fibers sprayed onto his head. My cousin Sally figured out that if she licked Ken’s head, his hair would come off. I was convinced naked Ken was what males looked like in the real world. The first real naked male I saw was a baby, and I thought it had some kind of weird growth between its legs that would fall off at some point, like an umbilical cord.
Despite being a bruised tomboy, I loved dolls. They were a catalyst for me to ponder and design DIY projects, architecture, fashion, furniture, and sexual trysts. Barbie took a back seat to Cher who had an extensive, flamboyant wardrobe and an unstoppable animal magnetism. However, my favourite was always frontierswoman extraordinaire, Jane West. We did a lot of camping, making wild carrot and garlic soup, and talking to our horse at night under the stars by a crackling fire. We made bowls from clay mud to collect water from the spring in the meadow. She was resourceful, independent, strong, seldom afraid, and not at all fashion conscious. She wore the same couple of vinyl buckskin outfits all the time, vests and skirts with simulated fringe sculpted along the edges. I don't remember what her figure was like, or even what her plain face looked like, because it just wasn't important. I'm not sure how well she sold but that's the doll I often wish I had kept, or every little girl I've met since.
I got the job because no one else wanted it. I had recently arrived at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, a new employee, direct from the backpacker’s lifestyle abroad in Bruges. They all were put-off by Enrique’s attitude, bracing and confrontational. Everyone said no, so I said yes. He became my boss at Disney On Ice. We spent endless hours together all over the continental USA, parts of Canada, 2 stints in Mexico City (his hometown, where he grew up on the streets as a child orphan before joining the Ringling Bros. Circus as a teenage trapeze artist.). We made a two-man team for three years. The two of us worked in inventory control (“box moving”, as he liked to say) for the DOI concessions department. We were responsible for distributing merchandise, everything Disney related. Temporary fun sold at the shows to parents of little girls and boys. From sugar spun into cotton candy to batteries powering spinning lights, Enrique and I controlled it all from our 52-foot trailers. We issued the toys to the independent operators and vendors who sold it for commission. A motley crew of globe-trotters plucked from all parts of the world. I received a crash course in big-top productions, a higher education in sociology, an unforgettable life on the road.