Creative Process Journal: My Double

My Double (Work in Progress) by Ingrid Mida 2012

This is the doll that I have decided is my double. I found her in Paris and she is normally dressed in a burgundy knee-length sheath dress with a matching coat and pill box hat. She is smaller than a Barbie, not as tall, not as busty nor as curvy. Her hips are narrow and she is petite, as I am. Her glasses are a match for my own.

My research -- into the uncanny, fashion dolls, wunderkammer, and the museum as a metaphor -- will be translated into designing two outfits for my double that will be placed inside a glass "coffin". The outfits will be constructed from scraps of material from my mother's dresses that I photographed in the series "My Mother/Myself".

My Mother/Myself #3, by Ingrid Mida 2010

My Mother/Myself #1 by Ingrid Mida 2010

These dresses will be fit for my double and then laid inside the glass coffin with archival tissue, like in a museum.  The glass "coffin" is a metaphor for the museum and for my ultimate death. For we shall all die, and my greatest fear is that I will die like my mother, as a prisoner of my body.

Progress on the dresses has been slow. My double is petite and I was careless with the first version of her dress, shown in the top photo above. The fabric is silky and frays easily and I made some errors in handling it. It looks okay but it is not perfect and I am making it over. I will construct a muslin toile for the next attempt because I have very little fabric to play with. My drive for perfection permeates all that I do and my double deserves no less.

Creative Process Journal: Barbie

Barbie

In 1959, when the Barbie doll was first introduced onto the market by Ruth Handler, more than 350,000 units were sold and since then an estimated that over 1 billion dolls have been sold. She has survived a range of assaults, including the firing of Ruth Handler from the company in 1971 and backlash from feminists and women's rights advocates. Robin Swicord, an author and screenwriter, said "In countries where they don’t even sell makeup or have anything like our dating rituals, they play with Barbie. Barbie embodies not a cultural view of femininity, but the essence of woman” (qtd. in Lord 80). 


Barbie was a respectable version of the Lilli doll in Germany. Lilli was "a German doxie - an ice-blond, pixie-nosed specimen of an Aryan ideal" that was popular among German men who often placed her on the dashboards of their car or gave the doll as a gift to their girlfriends (Lord 8). Handler recast Lilli as a wholesome all-American girl and marketed the doll to young girls. The rest is the stuff of marketing legend.


Barbie has been characterized as "a space-age fertility symbol: a narrow-hipped mother goddess for the epoch of casarean sections" (Lord 75) and a scaling up of her hour glass proportions suggest that she would be unnaturally slender. According to Professor Janet Treasure, an expert on body size and image at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, "Barbie's body shape and proportions are among the many things that play up to this 'thin ideal' which is ubiquitous these days. The promotion of dolls with such a body shape, and other things like size zero, have wider public health implications, like an increased risk of eating disorders." (Qtd. in BBC News On-line Magazine 2009)

Barbie by Jocelyn Grivauld

Nevertheless, the "mythic resonance of her form" and her longevity has made Barbie into an icon of popular culture (Lord 6). She has served as inspiration for a wide variety of artists including painters like Andy Warhol and Grace Hartigan, mixed media artists like Maggie Robbins (who hammers hundreds of nails into Barbies) and photographers like Barry Sturgill, Susan Evans Grove, Felicia Rosshandler, Dean Brown,  David Levinthal and Jocelyn Grivauld (who has "appropriated" the style of Dean Brown in depicting Barbie in iconic art references).


There is something about Barbie that I can relate to. Perhaps her embodiment of "perfection" is at the root of it, because those who know me well, know that I am haunted by the unattainable standard of  perfection. I can also relate to her German roots as well as the hostility that her petite frame engenders. In seeking out a doll double for my creative project, I would have to say that Barbie might be the one, although I'd definitely need to dress her in a more geeky, academic type of look.


References:
Lord, M. G. Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll. 1st ed. New York: Avon Books, 1994.

Skariachan, Dhanya. Mattel profit tops estimates, sales miss. Reuters in Globe and Mail. On-line Published Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, Accessed February 29, 2012 Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/mattel-profit-tops-estimates-sales-miss/article2320652/ 

Van der Broek, Anna. Barbie Inspired Art. Forbes Magazine Published March 5, 2009. Accessed February 29, 2012. 

Link: http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/05/barbie-boll-art-business_art.html

Winterman, Denise. What would a real life Barbie look like? BBC News Magazine. Tuesday, March 9, 2009. On-line. Accessed February 29, 2012. Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7920962.stm

Barbie's 50th Birthday!!!

Today is Barbie's 50th birthday! Happy Birthday Barbie!

I'm not ashamed of being a Barbie fan. I have many fond memories of playing with Barbie, and making her clothes. I longed to own a store-bought Barbie outfit, especially a beautiful emerald green gown with a strapless bodice and a poufy skirt made of tulle that my best friend owned. Years later, when I went to the toy museum in Prague, I chuckled when I saw that same emerald green gown on display.

It is astounding how many fashion designers have cited Barbie as their first muse, client, inspiration. During the recent New York fashion week, Barbie was celebrated with a line-up including Anna Sui, Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, Marchesa, Tory Burch and Tommy Hilfinger. Christian Louboutin designed a pair of peep-toe hot pink pumps in honour of her birthday.

Even the revered Karl Lagerfeld has created an exhibition using Barbie as his muse at the Collette stores in Paris (213 Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 75001). This exhibition called "Barbie and Ken by Karl Lagerfeld" will be on display from March 9 to 28th.