Obsessed Interview: Leah Legault's Barbie Collection

On the meaning of Barbie, womanhood and sustainability

Leah Legault with her Barbie collection. Courtesy: Leah Legault

I wasn’t planning on posting another Obsessed Interview this soon, but when I came across my next guest’s Instagram Stories last week, I knew we had to connect ASAP.

Leah Legault is a knitter living in Vaudreuil, Québec. She is the creator of Caulis, a handmade knitwear brand that makes one-of-a-kind and limited edition knits with natural fibres, with a focus on transparency and sustainability. Leah makes every piece in her studio at home. She enjoys knitting, her family and friends, reality TV, art, music, fashion, road trips, beaches and quiet.

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Michelle Béland: The way that this interview came together is a little different. Normally, I'll reach out to a friend and say “Hey, would you like to be interviewed about an obsession of yours? It can be whatever you want!” But we follow each other on Instagram. I noticed that you posted pictures of vintage Barbie dolls one evening. There was one in particular wearing a black sequin gown that stopped me in my tracks. It was the exact same outfit that Margot Robbie wore to the LA premiere of the Barbie movie. I immediately replied to your Instagram Story and asked you if we could have a conversation about your collection. So thank you so much for being here. 

Leah Legault: I'm glad I posted the Barbies. I wrote that whole Substack newsletter about my love-hate relationship with social media, but every once in a while, I'll post something on my Close Friends Stories. So I started posting my Barbies there. But then I thought I should post them on my regular Stories, because they’re kind of awesome. This is the moment to let my collection shine. When else am I going to be able to post these Barbies and it'd be relevant and cool? 

MB: Well I'm so glad that you shared your Barbie doll collection publicly, because I, like you, share that love-hate relationship with social media. Sometimes I'm so over Instagram and I don't want to share anything and sometimes it's such a great tool for connection and community. 

LL: It is. That's the issue. 

MB: It's why we're here today. So tell me about your collection. How long have you had it? How did it all come together?

LL: It goes way back to when I was a little girl. Like many little girls, I was obsessed with Barbie dolls. It's probably what started my interest in fashion to begin with. I liked dressing Barbies and cutting their hair. Both of my aunts on my dad’s side were obsessed with Barbies. They would get all the collector’s editions, leave them in the boxes and have display cases of their Barbies. I don’t know why. I’ve never really asked them. One of my aunts has passed away now, but she just loved Barbies. And she loved all things girly like Disney Princess stuff, Betty Boop, and other collectibles. I inherited a lot of her stuff. She was the cool single aunt and she always had amazing clothes, and her amazing Barbie collection. She lived a full-blown girl dream life. She used to be a ballerina and a cheerleader for Ottawa’s football team. She just had a pretty cool life.

Barbie Queen of the Prom Game. Courtesy: Leah Legault

When I was a little girl, she and I were really tight. I wanted to be just like her. Together we’d play the Barbie board games. We played with her Barbie dolls. She showed me how to comb their hair and take care of them. I had my own Barbie dolls at home that were ruined because I’d actually play with them as a kid would, but hers were pristine. She would always tell me “I’m going to leave this collection to you because you’re the only person who will appreciate them.” I was also only one of two nieces that she had, and I guess I was the one who was the most interested in Barbie. She passed away in 2020 unfortunately of a stroke. She was still relatively young, she had just turned sixty one. It was a little bit sudden. I wound up, as she had promised, with her full collection. It’s not the biggest collection, I haven’t counted them. There are at least twenty-five to thirty dolls.

MB: Twenty-five to thirty dolls is not nothing!

LL: It’s not. It’s still a lot of a grown woman to be having.

MB: I still have my Spice Girls dolls in their boxes! The outfits are all switched up, like Posh Spice is wearing Geri’s Union Jack dress, so obviously, I played with them. There’s just something special about having a collection of things that remind us of childhood, or some piece of childhood. What does this vintage Barbie doll collection mean to you?

LL: They mean a lot to me because they remind me of my beloved aunt who I was really close with. It brings back a lot of the memories I had from when I was young and all the fun that we had. I would spend a couple of weeks of my summer with her–we’d go to a cottage, go shopping, watch a movie… We just did all of this girly stuff together. 

I guess this Barbie collection keeps me in touch with my feminine side. In terms of my business, it’s where it all started. What is fashion if not a form of play and a way of thinking how we present ourselves to the world? It makes me think of how Barbie is. She has a million facets. You have the business Barbie, the sporty Barbie, the casual Barbie, the elegant, high-end gowned Barbie. And I think that aspect of play when we’re young allows us to not think of ourselves as a singular person. It doesn't make our experience so flat. It allows us to play with different identities and maybe not feel so fixed into a singular one. Does that make sense?

MB: Absolutely.

LL: The whole point of playing with Barbie is to explore every type of woman, every type of person you could possibly be. I'm so excited to see the movie because I'm really interested in seeing what Greta Gerwig did with it. On the flip side, I remember my mom telling me how she wasn’t allowed to play with Barbies when she was a little girl. My grandmother, who recently passed away, felt they were inappropriate. She didn’t understand why a doll would be so “womanly.” It’s funny that Barbie was such a hit when she came out in the late fifties, because little girls just want to be grown up anyways. Barbie can be a bit controversial too, it depends on how we think of her.

MB: She can be controversial. I know that Mattel, the company who makes Barbie, has been trying to bring in more diversity in the line. There’s obviously the whole issue around body image, but also the different types of identities and occupations they give their dolls. Instead of just being the “pretty girl,” Barbie can now be a doctor, a scientist or an astronaut. I was reading that your regular Barbie with a cute outfit costs $12.99, whereas the physician Barbie costs $30. 

LL: It goes with the price of her education I guess.

MB: Ha! Exactly. So if you want to show kids a more expanded view of what they can strive for, you have to purchase a $30 Barbie? That isn’t accessible to everybody.  

LL: There's a lot to think about in terms of that with Barbie. Talking about Barbie obviously segues perfectly into a conversation about womanhood and what that means. You have this doll that started in the late fifties and it was exactly that: the pretty doll with the “perfect” body shape. The standards were very Western. As time went on with Barbie, she evolved in the 80s and 90s into having a career and not being just the “pretty” Barbie with the tiny waist, the wide hips and the wide chest. Nowadays there are different Barbies, like Barbie with a wheelchair, that touch different identities or aspects of life for little girls and women, and boys too. I don’t know if they’ve started, but hopefully in the future they come out with a non-binary Barbie and explore gender identity. I’m excited to see where Barbie will go.

But for sure, when you think of the classic, blonde bombshell-type Barbie, and what that means for little girls…. That’s a tricky one. I wonder how much of that in my experience as a little kid informed my idea of what I need to strive for, or is that just something that little girls are drawn to? Barbie was a hit for a reason. Maybe we are just drawn to it. I don’t know… like “classic pretty” Barbie just seems like something that girls want to play with.

MB: I've been asking myself this question. I had Barbies when I was little too, and I wonder whether I was drawn to them naturally or if I played with them because I was gifted Barbies for my birthday and Christmas by family members and friends. Regardless, I have fond memories of playing with them. For me, it was more about dressing them up, giving them a special name and deciding what their stories were. I never got around to actually role playing with them or anything. I don’t know why, but my favourite Barbie name was Hélène. I used to give them that name all the time.

LL: It’s so grown up.

MB: Indeed. Maybe it was about wanting to feel grown up.

LL: I think that was it because I remember as a kid I had the Kelly dolls too. I liked having Kelly, but she wasn’t nearly as interesting as Barbie. As a child, you’d think you’d identify more with the little girl, but I did not. I wanted to be the grown up Barbie. And I wanted the grown up Barbie to be me. That’s the thing, you get to dress them up in different ways depending on how you’re feeling that day. My dad brought me a big box with all my old Barbies recently, and as I sorted through them, I noticed I had dyed their hair or cut their hair short, because I wanted to be “edgy” Barbie. 

MB: I get it! Even today, I still feel the urge to be “edgy” Barbie.

LL: I am edgy Barbie a hundred percent. I feel we need more “edgy” Barbies. But I guess that’s the whole point, you can make your own edgy Barbie.

MB: Totally. So going back to the vintage collection, are there any special ones that you really, really love? Say you're going on a desert island, and you can only bring one Barbie from your collection with you. Which one would it be?

LL: Actually, I’d bring the Barbie game. It’s a great game, where you have to get Barbie ready for prom and pick out a boyfriend. The dresses are all the same, but in different colours. The boyfriends aren’t the same. My aunt would always pick the nerdy one. He’s great.

Leah’s porcelain Solo in the Spotlight Barbie. Scroll down for a sexy surprise! Courtesy: Leah Legault

In terms of a Barbie doll, the best one is Solo in the Spotlight. That’s the gown Margot Robbie wore at the LA premiere. I have this one in double. I have a plastic, regular one, and I have it in porcelain. The porcelain one is my favourite. I used to display her in my bedroom, but since having a baby that could potentially grab and break things, I’ve put her away. There’s just something about this one compared to the plastic version. I mean, look at her. Look at her face. She looks like she’s been a cabaret singer for some years. She’s got some Lana Del Rey vibes.

And that’s not all… She’s got an outfit under her dress. She’s got sexy lingerie on.

MB: Wow. Are those garters?

LL: Yes. She’s got garters, a corset and shoes. 

MB: She’s amazing. She definitely has to go on a desert island with you. She’s priceless.

LL: She is priceless. She’s my favourite, naturally.

MB: Have you ever researched how much they’d go for? I think they're probably worth more than you think. Especially the porcelain one.

Barbie back at home after her cabaret set. Courtesy: Leah Legault

LL: I think the porcelain one is the one that I looked up and I'm probably remembering it wrong, but I think it was a hundred bucks or something.

MB: What?

LL: Yeah. On eBay. I was like, no. I’m not going to sell my vintage porcelain Barbie doll for a hundred bucks.

MB: In my mind it’s worth thousands.

LL: Me too. Well, to me, it is. I wouldn’t even get rid of it for that much. I would have to be in some dire straits for that to happen. Let me look it up right now. Porcelain Barbie Solo in the Spotlight…Let’s see…Yep! Eighty-five bucks.

MB: What? I’m someone who really loves vintage stuff. I love vintage treasure hunting, and I find that a lot of people who sell their old stuff don't realize their value. A couple years ago, I had this obsession with peacock chairs and people would be selling them on Kijiji for ten bucks.

LL: Oh my God.

MB: I would buy them all and resell them because I was like, no, these are worth so much more. But that’s the thing. For some people, certain objects are worthless and other people see so much value in them. It all depends on your perspective and what you value. 

There’s a huge Barbie frenzy going on right now. The Barbie movie is obviously going to be the movie of the summer. As someone who works in the fashion industry and has a knitwear brand, how do you think people will be incorporating the Barbie style trend?

LL: We see a lot of it already with Barbiecore and all the pink, which is great because I love pink. It’s funny you say that because I was thinking about what to wear for this interview. I thought I should wear something Barbie-like. I spent fifteen minutes going through my wardrobe and I was just like, I don’t have time for this! But it made me realize… other than pink, what do I have? I was thinking about all the Barbies that I have and she doesn’t dress in any particular way. There is every type of Barbie, she has so many outfits. Her wardrobe is so vast. So to me, it’s about bringing out the essence of Barbie in yourself. It isn't so much about any particular colour or style. It’s pulling yourself together and having an outfit that brings out your best self. For example, today I’m hanging out at home, so I’m wearing sweats and a t-shirt. I knew I was going to be on camera talking about Barbie, so I put on a little bit of makeup, some jewelry, and my pink fishnets under my sweatpants. And voilà! Now the outfit is complete. It feels more Barbie to me. 

The Barbie craze makes me a bit sad from a sustainability perspective, because when there’s a craze like this, people tend to run to fast fashion stores. I was at Walmart the other day and I was tempted by a Barbie t-shirt, but I knew the conditions that it was probably made in and I didn’t need it. I already have so many “Barbie clothes” at home. We all have them. If people looked at their closets and all the clothes they already have, they could figure out how to put an outfit together that feels very Barbie. That’s all you need. You don’t need to go out and shop for anything special. 

MB: I really like your take on what Barbie dressing truly means. You’re right. Barbie can mean whatever you want and have any identity you want. Chances are you already have everything you need hanging in your closet. I just came back from a trip to LA, and there was this World Of Barbie experience in Santa Monica. It was this thing where you had to pay to immerse yourself in a life-sized Barbie dreamhouse. I didn’t go, but I had a quick look at the boutique section and I was tempted by a Barbie crewneck. I didn’t end up buying it, because when I touched it I could tell how cheap the material was. As you said, the working conditions that went into making those clothes probably weren’t very good.

LL: That’s the thing. It’s kind of like a catch-22 because I’m also trying to sell clothes. People won’t stop buying clothes. The way that I shop in general is that I try to come back to the things I already have, and generally I keep my clothes for a long time. If ever I come across something I really love and it’s something that I’d keep in my wardrobe for years and that I’d wear forever, I might buy it. If I have an event, I won’t go shopping for a new outfit. I have tons of clothes. My aunt gave me all her clothes from when she died and there are so many amazing pieces. Even some of the clothes I have are fast fashion from ten years ago, and they’re still in okay condition. I repair the things that I have. And it’s fun because my style has evolved over the past ten years and in the time that I’ve started to think more about sustainability. It’s unfortunate that we feel the need to buy so much stuff to bring a certain style forward, but to me, it’s about rethinking how we put a new outfit together with the clothes we already have. At the end of the day, I love shopping. I just try to keep it to things that I feel are worth it.

You can find Leah on Instagram

Her knitwear brand, Caulis, can be found here.

Subscribe to her newsletter on Substack called loose threads.