Barbie, The Bear and the fashion duchess who loved Elvis: what you should see, do and read this week

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I love Frank Gehry, the architect who propelled Bilbao onto the world stage with his extraordinary Guggenheim museum. Barbie? Not so much. But the news that one of her early Dreamhouses was inspired by Gehry’s mid-century designs has made me look at Barbie anew. In fact, our piece this week about Barbie: The Exhibition at London’s Design Museum may very well turn your pretty little head too.

Who knew Barbie’s world was a societal barometer of what was going on in the rapidly modernising 20th century? As our author Daisy McManaman points out, “her houses, fashions, vehicles and even her face, hair and body can be seen as a pink-tinted reflection of western culture”.

Looking at Barbie from a design perspective, we can view the development of tastes, attitudes and culture as the west emerged from the austere postwar years into the 1960s and a whole new world of colour and possibility. Embracing new freedoms and experiences, it was the early days of consumer culture and the burgeoning second wave of feminism.

Barbie’s original Dreamhouse in 1962 was a cool pad that could have been taken straight out of a Mad Men set. Its very creation telegraphed the possibilities at a time when women couldn’t even buy a house on their own. Of course, it may be a stretch to think of Barbie at the forefront of women’s rights, but perhaps we could see her as a stealth Oops!-I’m-a-feminist-by-mistake, much as Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s movie Barbie riotously proclaimed.

After all, Barbie creator Ruth Handler wanted a doll that could be apsirational for girls, and not just a plaything that encouraged the idea of motherhood. Astronaut Barbie floated into view in 1965. Her black sister Christie marched along in 1968 and then came every kind of career-Barbie you can think of.

The stick-thin, blue-eyed blonde moved with the times to reflect sociopolitical issues. Her design evolved to more accurately reflect the looks of black women, Hispanic women, and represent disabled women and fuller-figured women. There was a fashion collaboration with Oscar de la Renta, a Warhol painting, a running-for-president Barbie – heck there’s even a Frida Kahlo Barbie!

As this exhibition reveals, the cultural impact of the shapeshifting Barbie looms larger than we may think. America’s sweetheart doll may now be 65, but she will forever be a perky 20-year-old with a cool house, a campervan and 295 jobs. But let’s not even get started on Ken.

Erdem’s last duchess

Two weeks ago I visited Chatsworth House in the Peak District for a new fashion exhibition of British-Turkish designer Erdem, whose spring/summer 2024 collection was inspired by Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. Born in 1920, “Debo” was the youngest of the famous Mitford sisters, a society beauty who loved her chickens as much as she loved London parties. She turned Chatsworth from postwar penury into the hugely successful visitor attraction it is today.

Imaginary Conversations reveals how Erdem connected to the passions of a woman he never met, but got to know by immersing himself in her belongings, her style and her beloved Chatsworth itself. The result is a gorgeous collection featuring damask opera coats inspired by furniture fabrics, a centrepiece gown made from Chatsworth’s chintz curtains, a skirt with motifs borrowed from hunting tapestries and a big bold leather jacket signalling Debo’s love for Elvis.

I love a good slow-burn horror film – not the kind that makes you scream and jump out of your seat, but the ones that disturb and unsettle and won’t leave your head for days afterwards. The Korean film Sleep looks like it fits that bill in the most spine-tingling way.

Jason Yu (one-time assistant to Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho) has created an atmospheric tale of a young couple with a baby on the way. Their happy marriage is unravelling due to the husband’s sleepwalking, and his disturbing somnambulist behaviour gets weirder and more terrifying after the baby is born. When his wife wakes in the middle of the night to find him sitting bolt upright in bed, saying, “Something’s inside”, the ambiguity of this statement sets up a feeling of dread that doesn’t let go. Wonderfully creepy, there’s flashes of humour too.

Crash, bang, wallop: The Bear is back

Speaking of dread, I’m a recent convert to restaurant drama The Bear, which offers some of the most stressful TV I’ve ever watched. I constantly marvel at the shouty chaos and the way the excellent ensemble cast embody it. But I worry for the leads as they goad and roar at each other, threatening to pop a blood vessel.

It’s all so beautifully set up in the desperate struggle to succeed – not to mention all the swirling undercurrents of grief, loss, anger, family and kinship. Just a few episodes in and I’m eating it up.

Meanwhile, season three has dropped, and this week we look at how The Bear challenges gendered emotional stereotypes – tough resilient males and softy emotional females – that have hindered women in workplaces like elite kitchens. As Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) unravels psychologically, sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) steps up to calmly run the show, underscoring the ridiculous generalising of gendered norms.

Despite all the rain, it is actually summer, and that can only mean one thing: books! Big, fat delicious reads to lose yourself in on the beach with guilt-free pleasure. We bring you five of the best books of the summer, including James, Percival Everett’s innovative retelling of the Mark Twain classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, this time from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. Another top pick is Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, a superlative tale of a murderous femme fatale who lures lonely men to their fate with the promise of gourmet and bodily pleasures.