Barbie Expo

Even though I was not especially a Barbie fan growing up, and I thought the Barbie movie had a lot of potential but ultimately didn’t live up to it (don’t get me started), I knew that if we were in the vicinity of the Barbie Expo in downtown Montreal, Canada, that we would be stopping by for a visit.

There is a lot of mystery about what the Barbie Expo is, though. It is open for long hours every day. It’s free, and there was no staff to be seen, and — most shockingly — nothing for sale.

There was a steady stream of attendees, all come to look at the row upon row upon row of various Barbies under lock and key.

And there was not a sign in sight to explain what exactly is going on here.

After our trip, I did learn online that this is the world’s largest permanent Barbie exhibit, featuring more than 1,000 Barbies. But there just isn’t much information to be found about the attraction, other than that it opened in 2016.

Who did this, and why? Is it someone’s personal collection? Who wants to share Barbie so much that they are willing to rent space in an upscale mall for years without any money coming in in return? Were these Barbies once for sale, or did someone have them made for this exhibit?

There are many one-of-a-kind Barbies, and special outfits replicating fashions of famous designers such as Christian Dior and Vera Wang. Who made the costumes?

There are Barbies of icons like Grace Kelly, Elvis, Cher, and Marie Antoinette.

There are Barbies with brand affiliations, such as Coca-Cola and the NBA.

There are movie character Barbies, such as from The Wizard of Oz and Twilight.

Many of the dolls had replacement heads, especially those made up to represent famous celebrities. Hairstyles were obviously not stock in most cases, as well.

Though I never figured out what was up, I did enjoy the exhibit, especially the many beautiful outfits. The details were incredible.

I did notice, however, that even though I felt like I was being sensitive to time, it didn’t take long before I spied Doug on a bench outside reading his Kindle, so I don’t think he enjoyed it quite as much.

I’ve obviously included a bunch of pictures in this post, but you can see much more on their website (which is conspicuously missing an “About” write-up one would normally expect to find on a website).