Anthropologist and doll collector Dr. Erick DuPree explores a lifelong love of dolls, from Barbie and Bob Mackie to Gene Marshall and vintage Cissy. A personal essay on collecting, beauty, shame, memory, masculinity, and reclaiming the things that helped us survive.

At five years old, I wanted Crystal Barbie more than anything. I never received her. Instead, I watched my cousin unwrap Peaches ’n Cream Barbie while I quietly learned that beauty, glamour, and softness were not things a little boy was supposed to want.

Blending personal narrative with cultural analysis, this essay reflects on the lasting impact of the Bob Mackie Gold Barbie on a childhood shaped by rigid gender expectations. Erick DuPree explores the tension between desire and shame, and how a forbidden object became a quiet symbol of identity, creativity, and resistance. As an adult, returning to dolls becomes an act of reclamation, reconnecting with parts of the self that were once suppressed.