Barbie: She’s had 250 jobs and now her own exhibition

Barbara Millicent Roberts has had more than 250 jobs in the past 67 years.

She’s been an astronaut, a teacher, a nurse and a presidential candidate.

For 29cm of moulded plastic, Barbie, as she’s better known, has had a disproportionately huge impact on culture and design, as the first exhibition in Scotland devoted to her shows.

Danielle Thom, senior curator at The Design Museum in London, which is bringing the exhibition to Glasgow, began talks with the toy company Mattel in 2021.

“I wasn’t a Barbie superfan, but I also wasn’t a sceptic,” she says.

“Regardless of how one feels about the history of Barbie, you cannot dispute that the doll and the brand has had this outsize impact on 20th and 21st century pop culture and that’s what I wanted to explore in the exhibition.”