Barbies, Barbies!

We visited Les Arts Décoratifs today--Paris's main museum of the decorative arts.  It conceives the term broadly, including collecting dolls. Thus the logic of this wonderful, sprawling exhibition, entitled simply "Barbie". There must have been a thousand of the dolls on display, presented with great verve and imagination--installation costs were surely huge (pardon the expression). The overriding theme was clear: Barbie represents every imaginable aspect of adult women's lives.  My extra photo touches on this, showing dolls in a wedding dress factory (the little girl was one of at least 3 or 4 her age with sketch pads--aspiring designers? Don't miss her shirt.) There were numerous displays of this sort, presenting women's activities. At least 95% of the attendees were adult women--very few men, and almost no children.  A real tour de force.


To be honest, we didn't initially plan to visit the Barbie show, doing so only after finishing our initial goal: "De la Caricature à l'Affiche, 1850-1918" (From Caricatures to Posters, 1850-1918). It was at least equally wonderful, in its own way, with a large number of original posters, most quite large and vividly colorful.  Part way down the link there's a slide show with ca. two dozen images.  The catalogue is superb.