britains-bigges--1045446 (1)

Britain’s biggest Barbie fan has spent more than £20,000 collecting 800 dolls – which have rocketed in value since the movie release.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, I'm Dawn and I live in Derbyshire.

00:07 When I was a child, my love for Barbie really started with the fashions, the fantasy element

00:20 and that she could be anything that I wanted her to be and obviously she was beautiful.

00:36 It was the 80s Barbies that I first started out collecting, so popular ones like Crystal

00:43 Barbie, Peaches and Cream, I had all of those and they were quite fantastical in their fashions.

00:50 What draws me in about the Barbie fashions is the attention to detail and the craftsmanship.

01:08 I have a great love for the 60s now, through Barbie and the fashions of that era, it's

01:16 a record of a bygone time.

01:28 I've actually got this one right here, this is a really rare Wonder Woman Barbie, she

01:33 was manufactured in Korea and she's a slight oddity because I think in the beginning they

01:38 didn't have the licensing to produce the costume as faithfully, so this is actually made up

01:43 of warehouse scraps, so bits of other items of clothing from the different Barbie dolls

01:49 lying around and they basically hodgepodge the outfit together.

02:06 Part of my collecting habit is to actually take the pictures in forms, I make dioramas

02:12 from them to produce artwork, I am an illustrator by trade, so it's basically fusing my two

02:18 loves together, my love for Barbie and my passion for artwork.

02:23 So I will set them up in, Barbie will be driving a car down the highway or smoking or cooking

02:32 or having a drink with the girls, fun little dioramas.

02:36 Well I have done commissions in the past, people do their own portraits made of them,

02:49 so I've done a few of those and also as well I do have an online website which is dollygoodtime.com

02:58 where I showcase all my imagery.

03:10 With the renewal of the movie there has been added excitement around Barbie, so obviously

03:16 first thing any collector would notice is the prices on eBay have shot up and the actual,

03:23 the want for Barbie to explore that nostalgic side and actually what she represents in my

03:30 artwork, she will be seen in many different guises which is about, I think very much Barbie,

03:38 she's quite different and transformative.

03:51 I'm a member of a lot of different Facebook Barbie groups and we do a kind of like show

03:57 and tell, where it's oh I've got this new Barbie but then I notice some of the other

04:01 people would be taking more care on their pictures, so I was like I've got to step my

04:06 game up and then that's how the love of the dioramas progressed because it would be to

04:11 create these interesting scenes to show off the doll but then it kind of evolved into

04:17 a, it's own life, you know and it just took me down a different avenue so now I will actually

04:23 say that I will buy specific dolls because I want to take their photos, their pictures

04:29 to do explore a particular theme.

04:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]