Barbies in space: doll that orbited the earth, Miss Scientist Barbie and more go on show
- A Barbie spent half a year orbiting the Earth. This doll and others are going on display as London’s Design Museum marks 65 years of Barbie
A Barbie that has been into space will go on display for the first time as part of an exhibition at London’s Design Museum to mark the 65th anniversary of the world-famous doll brand.
“I think it’s a great achievement for the overall team to have this Barbie on display and to have it connect to many more people through this exhibition,” said Cristoforetti, 47, a former Italian air force fighter pilot.
During her time in orbit, she answered questions from young girls, including why she wanted to become an astronaut. Video footage of the conversations will be shown alongside the doll.
Cristoforetti said it was an “opportunity to reach out to girls and boys to share the experience of an astronaut as a potential path in life, as a potential future, as a potential career … or as an adventure that you can be part of”.
Toy company Mattel, which makes Barbie, and the ESA released the Samantha Cristoforetti Barbie doll in 2021 to coincide with World Space Week, and to help encourage girls to become “the next generation of astronauts, engineers and space scientists”, according to the ESA’s website.
The Cristoforetti doll is on loan to the Design Museum, in Britain, from the ESA. Its inclusion as part of “Barbie: The Exhibition” at the museum will also highlight Barbie’s long history with space travel.
A silver “Miss Astronaut” costume, which is described as “Barbie’s first depiction as an astronaut” and which came on the market in 1965, will be part of the exhibition, on loan from the Mattel archives in Los Angeles.
[The exhibition doll] is specifically the doll that Samantha herself took into space.
A Barbie showing off her “scientific prowess” in a pink spacesuit, which was released in 1985, will also be on show. Its release followed astronaut and physicist Sally Ride making history in 1983, when she became the first American woman to go into space.
Danielle Thom, curator of “Barbie: The Exhibition”, explained that the one-of-a-kind Barbie created for Cristoforetti personally is still in the astronaut’s possession. But that is not the one that went into space.
“When the doll was created, although it was a one-off, it was publicised and it was so well received that Mattel decided to actually issue it as a doll you could buy … so the doll that we have in our exhibition, it’s not the first one – that’s in Samantha’s personal possession,” Thom said.
“[The exhibition doll] is one of the ones that was made by Mattel that was available to buy widely. But it is specifically the doll that Samantha herself took into space. So the Barbie we are showing has actually orbited the Earth in the International Space Station.
“We have this area within the wider exhibition where we look at the idea of exploration and adventure in all of its forms, and how playing with Barbie has facilitated that kind of imaginative role-play.”
A first-edition doll that will also be on display, and is known by collectors as the “Number 1 Barbie”, is now highly sought after.
It sees the classic blonde Barbie in a black-and-white bathing suit and features holes in the feet where it would have been fixed to a stand.
Other dolls in the exhibition include “surfer girl” Sunset Malibu Barbie from 1971 and Day-to-Night Barbie from 1985, which saw her pink work suit transform into an evening gown.
Two examples of 1992’s Totally Hair Barbie, which featured the doll with extra-long hair that could be styled, will also form part of the exhibition.
“Barbie: The Exhibition” will open at London’s Design Museum on July 5.
