Fashion Report from Paris: Still très chic at 50

She’s the sexiest 50-year-old you’ll ever meet, and definitely the most fashionable. The world’s hottest designers clamor to dress her petite frame, and her image has appeared on everything from makeup to sleepwear.

I’m talking about Barbie, of course, that childhood icon that has appealed to three generations of women: my aunts owned vintage versions of her, I was so obsessed about owning one that I used to dream about it, and my daughter now plays with her.

When my coworker Lai learned I was passing by Paris on vacation, she told me that my visit would coincide with a Barbie exhibition at Galeries Lafayette, France’s most prestigious department store. In between sightseeing I found I had time to go to the flagship on Boulevard Haussmann, where the exhibit was held from April 6 to 25, so I went. 

Housed in a 10-story Art Nouveau building, Galeries Lafayette is a retail wonderland where every designer brand you can think of is beautifully presented. Shopping under its stunning glass dome is kind of like being under a circus big top, where you’re constantly diverted by a parade of colorful sights and sounds.

I worked my way past the Vivienne Westwood and Repetto stalls (“I’ll see you later,” I thought to myself) before finding a life-size Barbie mannequin on the first floor, which marked the beginning of her hot-pink domain. It was bedlam in this part of the store, with dozens of shoppers milling around and taking photos of the exhibit. In stacks of lighted doll boxes, Barbies were grouped in twos and threes, each clad in a different haute-couture outfit.

Forty-eight of the world’s top designers, like Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld and Hermès’s Jean-Paul Gaultier, were asked to clothe Barbie following the theme “the travel spirit, the Grand Hotel way,” and they responded with expensive-looking fashions that would look appropriate both alighting from a private jet or lounging around a posh hotel lobby.

Most of the designers took looks wholesale from their fall/winter 2009 collections and replicated them in miniature, like Emanuel Ungaro and Lagerfeld, who put Barbie in an ultra-chic Chanel LBD accessorized with his trademark gloves and Repetto cabaret shoes — a repeat of a recent runway ensemble minus the fur helmet.

Two of my favorite French designers are Jean-Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix, who attired Barbie in that fashion-capital favorite, black, but with Parisian twists, like Gaultier’s tulle ruffle and Lacroix’s elevated hat. I’m sure I wasn’t the only Barbie fan there wanting life-size versions of these outfits.

Designers Martin Margiela and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac found Barbie’s long blond hair so iconic that it inspired their creations, which were less dresses and more long swathes of hair strategically covering Barbie’s anatomically incorrect figure.

Female designers like Catherine Malandrino stayed true to her Gallic-American sensibilities, creating a red, white and blue flag-inspired dress (perhaps to honor the new American president?), while wrap star Diane Von Furstenberg put “nomad” Barbie in a typical DVF wrap dress, cunningly accessorized with passport, oversized sunglasses and a bag that announced “Proud to be woman”!

Only two designers brought Barbie into futuristic territory: Popy Moreni and Junko Shimada, both foreign female designers who were seduced by Paris and opened ateliers in the City of Light. The Italian Moreni and Japanese Shimada clad Barbie in white spacesuits, the first in the form of bandages, while the latter brought the look down to earth with a cropped kimono coat and boots.

The most dramatic looks were presented solo: Stella Cadente’s circus tent of a ball dress and voluminous wedding gowns by Solstiss Dentelle avec Lefranc Ferrant and Elie Saab, displaying the traffic-stopping power that has made him a favorite on the Hollywood red carpet.

With such myriad eye candy, the Barbie exposition fit right in with Galeries Lafayette’s “Couleurs Bonheur (Happy Colors)” theme for spring. To further celebrate the 50th anniversary, Barbies of different makes and vintages were on sale, but at 89 euros per doll it was apparent that these were for serious collectors and not toys for little girls. Wanting a souvenir and yet something my six-year-old daughter could play with, I finally chose Gym Coach Barbie for 29 euros — not exactly a steal but at least it came with a Kelly doll and gym setup.

Whether she’s regarded as a fashion icon, a plaything or a childhood friend, this poupee always has been and always will be an object of desire for women of all ages.