I just discovered Margaux Lange‘s whimsical and slightly disturbing jewelry made of Barbie (and Ken) parts via a Cool Hunting post. These darling pendants fashioned from torsos and boobs take me back to the third grade when my best friend Miriam and I spent enormous amounts of time telling each other raunchy stories, always with the main characters of Barbie and Ken. We composed the stories during lunch, then used our dolls to act out the scenes at my apartment after school when I was FINALLY allowed to have a Barbie of my own.
At first, my capital F feminist mom didn’t want me to have a plastic idol to self-loathing and poor body image, but I managed to get around the ban when my dad’s best friend (king of the innapropriate comments and gifts) got me a Western Winkin’ Barbie. She had a white bedazled cowboy hat and I could depress a button in her back that made one blue eylid shut. Unfortunately, after a while, the winking eye ceased to reopen. I think we even took her to the doll hospital, but alas, WWB ended up in the trash. If only I’d known all the postpunkpostfeminist possibilities, I might have saved the doll to reuse the parts.
Images ripped from the artist’s site.
everydaytrash 