Why study dolls? This personal reflection explores the deeper meaning of doll collecting and research, examining dolls as cultural artifacts, emotional companions, and mirrors of identity. Discover how dolls reveal stories about art, memory, history, and the human need to create meaning through objects.

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.