hoenix Art Museum just became a dollhouse. The institution opened its latest blockbuster show this week: “Barbie: A Cultural Icon” tracks the doll’s fashion evolution and delivers plenty to do and see, including dolls and outfits from every era; real clothing that inspired Barbie outfits; taped interviews with designers and other video content; and interactive photo ops including a Barbie car and a Barbie Dreamhouse. The show’s curator, Karan Feder, has had a long career in the world of glam fashion. After working as a Hollywood designer, she moved to Las Vegas and got involved with the Liberace Museum, helping to preserve the costumes of the piano legend. After that, she moved to the Nevada State Museum and spent eight years developing their costume collection, including acquiring the entire remaining costume stock from the Folies Bergere, the cabaret show that ran at the Tropicana Las Vegas for 50 years. Then COVID hit, and Feder’s attention was drawn to the iconic doll. We spoke to Feder about the development of “Barbie: A Cultural Icon,” what people can expect from the exhibit and why, after 65 years, Barbie is just as popular as ever. Phoenix New Times: How did you begin to develop this exhibit? Karan Feder: One of my colleagues at the (Nevada) State Museum was — still is — a fantastic collector of vintage fashion, and part of the vintage fashion he collected was Barbie fashion. He wasn’t collecting Barbie dolls; he was collecting Barbie fashion as legitimate fashion. I thought that was just the most inter- esting thing — I had never actually thought of the Barbie doll just from the perspective of fashion before. It always intrigued me, but I never had time to deal with it. And so I took up this project at the beginning of COVID, and I thought, I wonder if there’s a way to tell a story about the Barbie doll just from the perspective of fashion? So this exhibition tells a narrative, explains Barbie’s evolution in fashion, in her closet, from ’59 to today, and along the way, we see life-size examples of pieces that the Barbie team may have been looking at, either extant samples or photo- graphic examples from the culture that the Barbie team was influenced by. That’s what this exhibit is all about. It’s really about talking about the history of our American culture through a perspective of Barbie fashion. Vintage dolls in the “Barbie: A Cultural Icon” exhibition. (Photo by Jason Harper, courtesy of Illusion Projects and Mattel) (Photo by Tara Winstead/Pexels) hoenix Art Museum just became a dollhouse. The institution opened its latest blockbuster show this week: “Barbie: A Cultural Icon” tracks the doll’s fashion evolution and delivers plenty to do and see, including dolls and outfits from every era; real clothing that inspired Barbie outfits; taped interviews with designers and other video content; and interactive photo ops including a Barbie car and a Barbie Dreamhouse. The show’s curator, Karan Feder, has had a long career in the world of glam fashion. After working as a Hollywood designer, she moved to Las Vegas and got involved with the Liberace Museum, helping to preserve the costumes of the piano legend. After that, she moved to the Nevada State Museum and spent eight years developing their costume collection, including acquiring the entire remaining costume stock from the Folies Bergere, the cabaret show that ran at the Tropicana Las Vegas for 50 years. Then COVID hit, and Feder’s attention was drawn to the iconic doll. We spoke to Feder about Vintage dolls in the “Barbie: A Cultural Icon” exhibition. (Photo by Jason Harper, courtesy of Illusion Projects and Mattel) (Photo by Tara Winstead/Pexels) >> p 14 Phoenix Art Museum unveils a blockbuster Barbie exhibition — just in time for her 65th birthday. By Jennifer Goldberg VALLEY OF THE
