Amid the pricey craft shops and cafes of sophisticated downtown Palo Alto Calif., sits a lovingly maintained shrine to a symbol of American womanhood: the Barbie Hall of Fame. Fashion-savvy teen. Tragically misproportioned fashion victim. Wholesome all-American girl. Tanned temptress. Role model for future-directed eight-year-olds with career aspirations as astronauts, business executives, models. The inspiration for countless little girls' gloomy body images.
A mere 11 inches of sun-bronzed plastic and synthetic blond hair, Barbie packs a cultural wallop. Embrace her as a charming relic of bygone innocence, denounce her as a symbol of crass American consumerism and deep-seated sexism. Pick a political orientation and Barbie yields a multitude of texts, as the cultural theorists would say.
But whether you come to revere or deconstruct, one thing is certain: Barbie is hot. Now in her 35th year (and she still doesn't look a day over 17) that ever-resourceful doll is popping up on Christmas trees -- Hallmark now sells a tiny collector's version of the first Barbie ever to dangle from branches -- and bookstore shelves. Last year's Mondo Barbie gave us an anthology of fairly warped fiction and poetry celebrating the doll; this year, M.G. Lord's Forever Barbie takes a crack at breaking the code that explains Barbie's professionally manicured grip on the American psyche.
But Evelyn Burkhalter, owner of the Barbie Hall of Fame, isn't in this because it's trendy. She founded her museum in 1984 -- Barbie's silver anniversary -- "to preserve her place in history."
Burkhalter -- a 60-ish woman dressed in a T-shirt advertising her museum and sporting sparkly purple glasses with "Barbie" in gold script on the side -- is quick to note that she's a collector, not a dealer. The Barbie market is too cut-throat for her taste. "I don't like the high pressure of working with dealers," she explains. Besides, what she does is more public service than business; selling the dolls would somehow taint the purity of her work. "I don't deal with the dealers. I deal with the public."
Spend a few hours in Burkhalter's Hall of Fame and you buy into the reverent atmosphere. Snide social critique and feminist outrage dissolve before the glass display cases holding 20,000 dolls, along with Barbie thermoses, Barbie comic books, Barbie and Ken Jumbo Trading Cards, and Barbie record carriers. The dolls balance on plastic stands behind neatly hand-lettered cards placing them in historical context: "1972 Kitty Kapers," looking risqueŽ in polka-dot hot pants and an orange crop top. "1963-64 Theatre Date," nattily dressed in a green peplum skirt and pillbox hat. "Magic Earring Ken," sold in France.
Burkhalter lectures on Barbie's history for her museum patrons, mostly indulgent aunts and grandparents escorting excited little girls. Visitors can track American history through Barbie's evolving hairstyles: bouffants and pageboys, Mary Tyler Moore flips and neat little bobs. In the 1960s Barbie and pals drew inspiration from the Mod Squad, with Barbie in peasant blouses and her beau, Ken, in dashikis. In 1978 Barbie, Ken, and little sis Skipper sported a Mork-ish look, decked out in striped shirts and suspenders. In the materialistic 80s we find Shopping Spree Barbie, toting FAO Schwartz shopping bags and delicately wiping her exhausted brow.
Burkhalter even has several versions of the very first Barbie, circa 1959. Dressed in a striped jersey bathing suit and black pumps, Barbie I actually looks quite sinister. With her heavily made-up eyes (she came with your choice of blue or brown eyeliner) slyly glancing to the side under arched eyebrows, she bears less resemblance to her well- scrubbed descendents than to Lilli, the sultry 1950s West German doll that inspired Mattel to make their own teen queen doll. With bee-stung lips, a gauzy white miniskirt, and a black sleeveless top that plunges to the waist, Lilli seems an unlikely toy choice for little girls. (In fact, she was a gag gift men would give each other at stag parties and such -- a seedy chapter from Barbie's past Burkhalter chooses to leave out of her tour).
She does include, however, other key moments in Barbie history. In 1971, for instance, Malibu Barbie hit the scene; from this point on, Burkhalter notes, Barbie would only be blond and tan. In 1965, as the U.S. was swept up in moon mania, Barbie "was not to be denied," making her appearance in a silver space suit as the "first lady astronaut." Two decades later, astronaut Barbie reappeared, looking less formidable in a hot pink suit, thigh-high boots, and a large, clear helmet that left her hairdo intact. This time, however, she made less of a splash, thanks to an unfortunate marketing plan that found her arriving in toy stores the same week as the Challenger explosion. Last year, a planned post-Olympic Nancy Kerrigan Barbie never appeared, due perhaps to Kerrigan's less-than-Barbielike snapping at Mickey Mouse.
Other times, Barbie's timing has been better. In the mid-80s Yuppie Day to Night Barbie headed to work in a pink business suit, a folded business paper under her arm; after five, she hit the town in a frilly dress. Other dubious careerist Barbies included Pediatrician Barbie, with a miniskirt and a pink stethoscope; Police Barbie, dressed in uniform but carting a revealing gold and white dress to wear for her big moment of being "Honored at the Police Awards Ball," as the box explains; Stars and Stripes Barbie, dressed in Desert Storm fatigues for her "Rendezvous with Destiny," according to the package.
Barbie's always been on top of the times, with dolls hitting the market in response to each new social trend. These days, Burkhalter says, dozens of new Barbies are created each year. Add to that international Barbies, African-American and Asian-American Barbies, and it becomes pretty tough for a dedicated collector to keep up. "So many come out so quickly," Burkhalter laments. "It's getting to be a little overwhelming."
Running the world's only Barbie Hall of Fame isn't easy. With her only income coming from T-shirt and postcard sales, Burkhalter's museum operates at a financial loss. Her choice real estate location is made possible only by the fact that she shares space with her husband's hearing aids office (that explains the elderly women napping near the Burkhalters' shared reception desk, oblivious to the doll-stuffed display cases that loom over them). And Mattel has paid little notice to Burkhalter's efforts; the only acknowledgement she's received from the company, which last year sold $1 billion in Barbie paraphernalia, is a letter from the president upon the museum's opening and a custom-made doll on the Hall of Fame's 10th anniversary.
But Burkhalter's not doing this for corporate praise; the Hall of Fame has become her life's work. Burkhalter foresees the day when she no longer will be able to keep up her museum. "If it ever goes, I'd like to see it go to a theme park" where the collection could remain intact, she says. It would kill her to see her dolls split up and the museum's impact diluted. "When you have one or two, you don't see it," she explains. "When you have them all together, it's a trip down memory lane."