I’m A Barbie Girl

Last week at work, some of the younger staff decided to dress up for Hallowe’en, and I, never passing by an opportunity to wear a costume, agreed to participate. The theme was Star Trek, but since I didn’t have anything remotely Spock-y, I scoured the closets until I discovered the blonde wig that I had worn in the past to impersonate Taylor Swift. I didn’t actually want to dress AS Taylor Swift, since I’m not that angsty and don’t wear my heart on my sleeve (although that would have been an awesome costume idea in retrospect—blonde wig, red dress, anatomically correct plastic heart tied to my arm oozing fake blood), so I did the next obvious thing. I decided to go as Barbie. But not just ANY Barbie—mostly because I don’t own anything pink. But Ken had a fedora, and I had a vest, so I decided to go as Barbie-Heimer. It was, I admit, decidedly weak when compared to other Barbie-Heimer costumes I’ve seen on the internet, but I thought it was cute. And at work on Hallowe’en, I got a lot of compliments. At a certain point, I stopped calling myself Barbie-Heimer (because most people were confused and didn’t get the reference) and started calling myself the One Of A Kind Barbie, and customers were like, “Oh, that’s adorable.” And I was. Or at least I thought I was.

Close to lunch, a customer I know slightly came in and she was all excited. “The Goodwill up the street has Louis Vuitton handbags! I just bought one, and they have more!” My heart leapt, because as you may or may not know, I am currently obsessed with LV bags since the little fake one I had mysteriously disappeared. I asked my 23-year-old boss if I could take lunch early and I raced over to the Goodwill. Sure enough, there were two Louis Vuitton handbags (replicas, of course) in the showcase for like 25 bucks each, so I took both and lined up to pay. The girl who had gotten them out of the showcase for me looked like she was in her late teens/early twenties, and she was wearing gothic makeup and some kind of spiderwebby costume under her smock:

Me: I like your costume.
Girl: What costume?
Me: Oh nothing. I’m Barbie!
Girl (looks me up and down): No.
Me: You don’t think so?
Girl: Noooo.
Me: I was going for a kind of Barbie/Oppenheimer vibe…
Girl: Hmmm. Ok, maybe.

And while many people might have been offended or upset, I thought it was hilarious and laughed about it all the way back to work, clutching my new fake Louis Vuitton handbags. When I brought them home, I told Ken the story:

Ken: She’s nuts. You look just like a Barbie doll.
Me: I know, right?
Ken: And you’re going to sell the purses, right?
Me: What? No way! Barbie needs designer bags, KEN.

39 thoughts on “I’m A Barbie Girl”

  1. I have to say how much your post resonates with me, especially the bit about having to improvise big life events. When Amelia and I decided to tie the knot, we were swept up in a whirlwind of love and logistics. We didn’t have the luxury of time, and in the midst of all the rush, I had this dream of exchanging vows in a Star Trek Officer’s Uniform. Alas, the universe had other plans, and I couldn’t find one in time.

    Your story also reminds me of a Halloween years ago. After over two decades in my fire department career, the stars aligned to give me Halloween off due to a last-minute schedule change. I seized the opportunity to dive into the Halloween spirit in a town where my face wasn’t familiar, donning my fire gear as a costume. I’ll never forget the surprise and joy of being awarded first place for the most authentic costume. It wasn’t just the win that made it special; it was the serendipity of it all, the chance to step out of my everyday life and into a night of playful anonymity.

    Thank you for sharing your experiences and for sparking such fond memories with your post. 🙂

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    • Getting married in Star Trek costumes would be cool. One of the girls I work with was wearing Picard’s command red. But of course if you’re familiar with the OG Star Trek, the red shirts always got killed off, so she was really confused by our older customers telling her to be careful!

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  5. I saw that picture of you online, and I thought you pulled the look off magnificently!!! We all dressed up as Power Rangers at work. I wore a powder blue jersey dress, and Nate helped me tape chevron-type lines in white around the sleeves and at the waist–I did my hair in a ponytail with a blue ribbon and wore boots and tights. It was fun.

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  8. I wonder if the Halloween costume’ness comes from masquerade balls of ancient times. Disguising oneself releases inhibitions allowing our true natures to emerge. Could that be part of the appeal? Part of the Purge mentality…
    Were my true self to be exposed I’d prolly just crawl back into my cave, shadows and all.

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  9. Your costume is amazing! I had a brief thought that if you really wanted to go with the Star Trek theme you could have paired the red dress with the blonde wig and been Yeoman Rand, but that’s a bit obscure. Also most of the fun of Halloween is dressing up the way you want. The only time I’ve done a theme is when another department where I work decided to come to the work party as The Addams Family and they had all the characters but one so they called me up and asked me to be the one they were missing. And I said, “Oh, when you think of me you think of Uncle Fester. Thanks a lot!” But of course I put on a bald wig and a black robe and had a light bulb I could light up when I stuck it in my mouth.
    And I don’t get why Ken would ask you to sell the purses. Fashion is a costume you wear year-round. Never part with it.

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