The Collectible Barbie Doll: An Illustrated Guide to Her Dreamy World

by Janine Fenwick

Courage Books, 176 pp., $19.98

I officially went Barbie-crazy as an adult and indulged myself in Barbies in the early Nineties. Back then, Mattel was just beginning the onslaught of special series Barbies as well as reissuing the early models that has necessitated books such as The Collectible Barbie Doll. The problem is that a good collectible guide has to be ruthless about the photos and go for the information and statistics. Fenwick’s book is much too in love with its subject for that, but it is a Barbie lover’s dream, its large pages filled with scrumptuous photos of Barbie, Barbie, and more Barbie. Here’s the Classic ponytailed Barbie of the Fifties, the bubble-cut model of the Sixties, and all her Seventies and Eighties mutations right into the designer models. While you’d need a more hard-core guide to collect her seriously, The Collectible Barbie is a delightful and colorful trip through her history, one that’s indelibly stamped as an icon of the 20th century.

This article appears in December 24 • 1999.

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