First look at 'blockbuster' Barbie exhibition as it opens in Glasgow

On the other side is a Barbie-lover’s paradise. Most of the rooms are painted in the classic Barbie pink, while more than 150 dolls are on display, alongside clothes, playsets and vehicles, from 1959 to the present day.

Kelvingrove is bracing itself for a “blockbuster” exhibition when Barbie: The Exhibition opens on Saturday, which it believes could be one of its biggest yet.

In a glass case close to the entrance is a rare, hand-painted first edition Barbie doll from 1959. Decked out in a striped black and white swimming costume, her face is quite unlike the Barbie familiar to generations of children.

“In 1967, they did a big redesign and that doll is my favourite,” says Ms Thom, senior curator of the Design Museum in London, which created the exhibition. “She has a completely different head and wardrobe and they pitched her as more of a swinging, London mod, rather than previously, when she had been more about classic elegance.”

As well as the original dolls, it charts Barbie’s evolution through the past 67 years, including the first black, Hispanic and Asian versions of the doll and the first Barbies with Down Syndrome and in a wheelchair.

Barbie’s various careers - from astronaut to musician, chef and doctor, while various incarnations of the Barbie Dream House are also on display.

The original Dream House, created in 1962, is a single-story, foldable studio apartment made mostly of cardboard, while a 1978 version is based on work by renowned architect Frank Gehry, modelling the “rustic wooden holiday home” popular in mid-century America.

Ms Thom admits the timing of the Barbie film, starring Margot Robbie, had given the exhibition a boost.

Previously on display at London’s Design Museum, it is now set to run in Glasgow for four months, before embarking on a yet-unannounced world tour.

“The timing was perfect for us,” she said. “We had been working on the show for some time before it came out, but it gave people an entry route into that back story, which was good for us.”

She points to Super 8 footage broadcast as part of the exhibition which shows the first ever Barbie dolls being manufactured in Japan in 1958.

“It shows what the exhibition is all about, that Barbie is designed and made by people,” she said.

“I think the Barbie doll is a canvas on which people can project their own aspirations and assumptions and desires and that will mean different things to different people.”

Jane Rowlands, head of museums and collections at Glasgow Life, which runs Kelvingrove, said the exhibition was likely to be one of the biggest seen at the museum.

“We’re expecting it to be pretty popular,” said Ms Rowlands. “It is a very busy summer for Glasgow, with the Commonwealth Games and the Games Festival and this is something to add to that mix.

“I think it will be a blockbuster.”

Barbie: The Exhibition opens at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow on Saturday and runs until 18 October.