Barbie's in the pink at the moment. There's a huge buzz surrounding a new comedy-fantasy film about the iconic and multi-vocational doll hitting screens next week.
Collecting Barbie dolls has been a decades-long passion for retired St John Ambulance paramedic Patsy Carlyle.
Her Helensville home, aka The Pink Palace, houses over 1,600 boxed Barbie dolls, and more than 400 freestanding dolls.
Patsy and hundreds of her dolls are being celebrated in The Barbie Collector at Wellington Museum from 22 July - 10 September.
Patsy has been collecting seriously since the 1990s, she told Kim Hill.
“I had the opportunity to work in upstate New York, and I had access to a lot of Barbie dolls over there and I would bring them back to New Zealand in trunks.”
Her passion for the hobby has waxed and waned she says, but has been reinvigorated in recent years.
“During Covid I just went to work and came home again and the dolls were like a little bit of a happy release with what I was dealing with as a frontline emergency service worker, and some of the sadness that I was dealing with, and to come home and look at the dolls, it was just fun.”
And then the museum team got involved, further renewing her passion, she says.
“The lovely Megan [Dunn] and David and Tom, from the Wellington Museum.
“Having them come and look at my collection and get so excited at taking the dolls off the shelves and seeing what's behind and, looking at the memories and remembering their memories with me.”
Dunn, who has a “wonderful eye” narrowed down the exhibition to 500 dolls, she says.
“We were like a couple of school girls, sitting in my room, looking at these dolls, and I'm going ‘oh my goodness, I bought that doll when I was in LA looking at the Baywatch dolls and I bought that doll in Hawaii'.
“And then Megan found one of my loose dolls that she actually had as a child.”
Space constraints means it’s dolls only and not Barbie merch she collects, she says, and her husband is also a collector.
“He collects model rail sets and John Deere models and emergency services vehicles.
“We've got a two-storey garage and I remember there was a bit of discussion about who would get the space above the garage for the collection. And he won.
“I always thought the Barbies would have looked fabulous up there. But never mind I managed to get some room in the house.”
The upcoming film has created a bit of Barbiemania, she says.
“So many people have loved being part of the Barbiemania, really enjoyed coming around and looking at my collection and reliving the childhood memories.
“So, it's been great, it’s been great fun.”
