Barbie dreamhouse adventures – Do You Remember Your First Barbie?
Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures
I remember mine and the Barbie dreamhouse adventures that came with it. My uncle gifted her to me for my 8th birthday and I was beyond excited. Every girl was!
So Barbie came home in 2004 when I was in the 4th grade. She was tall with long legs but wore a smart outfit.
Her’s was a navy blue skirt with a red and white striped top paired with white sneakers (Working for Macdonalds was a thing back then).
She was my first inanimate friend that just sat there with all her grace, poise and just listened.
Its true when aqua sings ‘I’m a barbie girl, in my barbie world’ because all I ever wanted to do and be was a barbie (Also what an era that was!).
Mum dressed me up as a barbie girl when I was 4 for not one but 2 fancy dress competitions. I always enjoyed twirling in my pink barbie gown.
She did a brilliant job with dressing me up like her little princess, because well, I was her barbie girl.
Now that The ‘Barbie Movie’ is finally releasing after years of waiting, I just had to get chatting with Tania from 2004 and boy what a ride that was.
I got it all in my interview with her. Interviewing her was like talking to creative director of fantasy world that was about to create her own Barbie dreamhouse adventures with only 8 year old Tania and her new best friend Barbie in It, They seemed to get along just fine and knew two things for sure about themselves:
- Creativity solved all the problems in the world
- Any girl could do anything when she was in her safe space
2004 me would come back home from school and head straight to her playstation. She’d take Barbie everywhere.
Her parents kept telling her that she’d grow up to be just like Barbie some day – Pretty, successful & popular. Tania was all set to create her own Barbie dreamhouse adventures with her first bestfriend.
At this point, you already know I’m bonkers but 2004 Tania was even more! I am soo jealous of her. I confirmed with my sources that I had indeed purchased a new outfit (Thanks Dad!) for Barbie because I decided she needed a new one for Easter along with me.
So dad took me to the shops and helped me pick one out for her. It was a black spaghetti with rainbow coloured polka dots on it and a bright pink skirt.
Barbie wore that one on Easter and we loved the outfit but the joy lasted for a few days because one day, it got stolen :(. Mum remembers how sad I was because those little outfits were soo trendy!
So, 8 year old Tania cried about it for a day and then she was struck with a genius Idea when she saw a leopard print cloth covering the keyboard (I was taking keyboard lessons at that time).
So, she grabbed a piece of it with full support from mum, cut the cloth in two pieces that formed a bandeau and skirt. Mum helped sow it together for me and viola! She had an even trendier outfit that cost practically nothing. It was then that I decided to give Barbie her own clothes and she had her own personal designer + stylist.
I turned 9 and then got one of mum’s old Bangle set that was really fancy. It looked like a mini extended fridge and even though I knew Barbie couldn’t fit into it, I made that her home.
So in year 2005 she bought her first little home! She sat on top of it, looked pretty and just read all day. 9 year old Tania had her first mall experience at Big Bazaar so now she wanted Barbie to go shopping. Guess what she did? Obviously turned an old shoe rack into a 3 floored mall.
Now all Barbie did was read and shop everyday. I remember having those 3 floors to myself so everyday those 3 floors became whatever I turned it into, making it one part of the Barbie dreamhouse adventures.
We were in a barbie world at this point and loved every bit of it. One day we just had a skateboard section, another day there was an indoor water park and then there was a diamonds-only place.
I got together with my neighbours and decided that our barbies needed a water park to complete the Barbie dreamhouse adventures series.
So we set out and got them all out – hotwheels racing tracks for waterslides, a thermacol box for the pool and created our own miniature Barbie themed park (We’d make a great marketing team for the movie). It was a day without phones ya’ll and just pure fun, creativity, teamwork and imagination.
We invited people from around the vicinity to come and watch our ‘miniature themed park’ because we were so proud of it. So soo proud.
Oh so, I missed the part where Barbie met Batman (Thankyou brother) at the mall and then they started living together at Barbie’s apartment because Batman was a freelance superhero at that time and Barbie was an editor/stylist at a magazine obviously.
My brother and me thought it would be a good idea to get the two of them married. So we planned it all. We had something to look forward to! First things first, I had to get Barbie’s gown sorted so, I sliced a piece of satin fabric that was lying around in the house and started piecing it together.
Mum helped stitch it into layers and layers of I don’t remember what but it was a white-something-gown. I got gifted a stage toy that had automated music with lights so we decided there was going to be a live concert too (I told you we were born geniuses).
The lights were set, we invited mum’s tuition students to come for Barbie and Batman’s wedding because why not. They all came to be a part of it.
There were snacks like wafers, samosas, cake (Millennials from 2004, if you know about birthday party snacks, you know). To top it off, mum gave us black grapes and told us to pretend they were gulab jamuns for dessert.
Barbie and Batman had their beautiful love story which was quite the modern one for that time in India (Live-in relationships were not even a concept in India).
Time flew by and we grew up. The passage of time with Barbie was a memorable one until one day I just grew up for real and stopped playing with her.
Barbie’s season was officially over because real friends walked into my life and we’d do the exact things together in the real world like dressing up, going to the mall, coffee shops after school or tuition.
Barbie was my first friend and she set good standards for loyal female friendships that I cherish today. What was your Barbie story like?
