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Centuries Ago, Royals Dressed Up Their Dolls to Share the Latest Fashions. See How Barbies, Baby Dolls and Other Tiny Trendsetters Have Inspired Designers Ever Since
A new exhibition at the Museum at FIT in New York City showcases more than 170 objects that trace the often-unexpected relationship between dolls and fashion
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Since Barbie’s debut in 1959, the iconic doll has donned more than one billion outfits, including a hot pink blazer-and-skirt set that transforms into a cocktail dress, a black-and-white swimsuit, and a red-and-gold Elizabethan gown. “Barbie’s status as the world’s most fashionable doll is unmatched,” the Museum at FIT argues in a new exhibition titled “Doll Dressing.”
But Mattel’s flagship figurine isn’t the only doll who has left her mark on the world of haute couture: The New York City show features more than 170 objects that shed light on the evolving relationship between dolls and fashion, from miniature outfits crafted by designers such as Anna Sui and Jason Wu to full-size runway ensembles inspired by doll clothing. As the museum notes in a statement, “Dolls aren’t just toys—they’re muses, canvases and even prototypes for designers … not only reflecting fashion but actively shaping it.”
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The show focuses on “fashion dolls,” curator Colleen Hill writes in an exhibition brochure. “There is an important distinction between the fashion doll and a doll who is merely dressed: A fashion doll’s clothing is meant to be removed and changed.” An ancient Egyptian paddle doll whose attire was painted onto her wooden body didn’t make the cut, for instance, but a 1970s Daisy doll outfitted by miniskirt pioneer Mary Quant qualified. (Elle’s Véronique Hyland flags one notable omission in the “Doll Dressing” lineup: American Girl dolls, which Hill deemed “more history- than fashion-oriented—though anyone whose sense of style was deeply shaped by [Edwardian orphan] Samantha Parkington might beg to differ.”)
Historians often trace the origins of fashion dolls to the 16th century, when European royals like Mary, Queen of Scots, and Isabella d’Este of Ferrara exchanged the tiny models as a way of showcasing the latest trends. The figurines “provided a tactile manual for dressmakers to convert the clothes into full-size ensembles,” according to the exhibition wall text. In the show, a 1770s fashion doll on loan from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation wears a blue silk gown whose skirt can be gathered at the sides in the robe à la polonaise style inspired by Polish fashion.
Fun fact: Royal dolls
Dolls inspired by royalty abound, from a Marie Antoinette figurine created by Madame Alexander in 1946 to Barbie’s 2005 Empress Josephine doll./https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/ab/f8/abf8bba6-8ff1-4433-be15-932cac4c1719/fashion-doll1.jpg)
By the 18th century, paper dolls with swappable outfits had emerged as an accessible alternative. Fashion dolls still proliferated, but they were largely seen as luxury children’s toys. Nineteenth-century French dollmakers such as Jumeau and Gaultier created porcelain figurines that taught wealthy girls the importance of fashion and encouraged them to practice their embroidery skills. “The dolls themselves were a miniature model of the cycle of fashion consumerism: new outfits, new hairdos, new accessories and furnishings for these bisque beauties,” author Maria Teresa Hart wrote in her 2022 book, Doll. “It was all a dress rehearsal for the consumer cycle of womanhood.”
In the early 20th century, baby dolls surpassed fashion dolls as the toy of choice for young girls, offering them a chance to develop their parenting skills. The babies’ youthful appearance didn’t stop them from sporting designer clothing: The exhibition spotlights a 1939 baby doll that came with its own Louis Vuitton-branded leather trunk and matching wardrobe.
Fashion dolls aimed at adults experienced a resurgence during the Roaring Twenties, when celebrities started carrying around figurines dubbed boudoir dolls. “They were like little accessories or mascots,” Hill tells Fashionista’s Hannah Malach. “It was a real trend during the 1920s to just go out for the evening with your doll by your side. For the most part, they’re not functional. There are a few bags—I have one in the show that’s shaped like a doll, and its skirt conceals a little purse—but usually, you just carried a doll.”
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Clad in ensembles typical of the decade, including knee-length dresses and Mary Jane shoes, boudoir dolls reflected the rebellious mood of the Roaring Twenties. Women started “relegating the qualities of doll-like docility to the toys themselves,” the exhibition notes. As Vogue reported in 1929, “It was a very foolish point of view to imagine, with everything else changing, booming and zipping, that women were going to remain dolls whom dressmakers could dress and undress at will.”
Decades later, some woman did the opposite, deliberately dressing up like dolls. In 1960s Great Britain, dolly birds channeled youthful doll aesthetics by donning simple, colorful and playful dresses. “Doll Dressing” pays tribute to these so-called living dolls through a Twiggy mannequin, which wears a synthetic jersey dress from the English model’s fashion label. “I never really wanted to do an exhibition that was solely on fashion dolls, partly because that’s been done and done very well,” Hill says to Fashionista. “I started thinking about this idea of the living doll, and how that could transcend something vapid to become something agentic.”
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In addition to examining the history of fashion dolls, the rise of living dolls and the creation of dollhouse worlds, “Doll Dressing” offers an overview of “designers’ fascination with small-scale creation,” from Sui’s Cissy figurine—widely considered the first modern fashion doll—to Emily Adams Bode Aujla’s recently released artisan cloth dolls.
The show also highlights supposedly “creepy” dolls, including Living Dead Dolls modeled on horror characters and Alexander McQueen’s 1997 spring collection, which was inspired by the unsettling figurines created by Surrealist artist Hans Bellmer in the mid-1930s. “The fascination that many of us hold for miniatures is awakened by clothing that evokes dollhouses, whereas styles inspired by broken dolls can arouse both fear and fondness,” Hill writes in the brochure.
Overall, Hill tells Elle, “I’ve found that the idea of doll dressing is really positive. I think it fosters playfulness and self-acceptance and imagination. And it also offers a bit of a reprieve from all of the pressures of adulthood.”
“Doll Dressing” is on view at the Museum at FIT in New York City through January 3, 2027.
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