Academic

Jonathan Adler & The Barbie Malibu Dream House! Cooking With Elvis! And A Link To Law!

By Dan Filler

Have you seen Barbie's real-life Malibu Dream House?  It's a 3500 square foot house in Malibu, California - and it's been dolled up as a 50th anniversary Barbie promotion by Mattel. 

No, it will never be inhabited by Barbie.  She is the fictional character who, if she existed in real life as a 5 foot 6 inch woman, would sport a 20 inch waist, a 27 inch bust, and 29 inch hips.  But the house exists, on a normal human scale.  It's the creation of the potter and cutting-edge lifestyle artist extraordinaire Jonathan Adler.  And who might this Jonathan Adler be?  He's the brother of David Adler, famous for a truly cool book: The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley.  But that's not why I get to blog about this Barbie house.  My entitlement comes from the fact that Jonathan is also the brother to a law professor: Amy Adler, at NYU Law.  Amy is famous for writing provocative articles like Girls! Girls! Girls!: The Supreme Court Confronts the G-String (" the nude dancing cases are built on a foundation of sexual panic, driven by dread of the female body.")  (I could also blog about Jonathan because he is a fellow Brown alum - but I will decline that justification for fear that I'd be cornered into blogging about Bobby Jindal as well...)

The house sounds totally awesome (if appallingly and delightfully gaudy)...but then again, I've come to realize that I'm the Newt Gingrich of the Faculty Lounge.  (I'm the guy who mocked a West Virginia legislator who wanted to ban Barbie.)   Here's the story:

Adler lined Barbie's bedroom with wall-to-wall pink carpeting emblazoned with her initial. The closet is filled with 50 pairs of pink peep-toe heels while her kitchen is stocked with cupcake-making ingredients. An in-house museum features 25 vintage Barbie dolls on display. In the garage? A pink Volkswagen New Beetle with a motorized pop-up vanity in the trunk.

"Barbie was a dream client because she doesn't exist as a person," Adler said. "She exists as fantasy and is the perfect client because she's always happy and fun and loves everything. I thought to myself, 'How would Barbie live?' What I thought was Barbie would have a house that is glamorous, kittenish, chic, colorful and happy - as well as functional."

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on March 07, 2009 (boomark / email).