ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 13, 1996 TAG: 9608130034
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BURKE (AP)
SOURCE: MARYLOU TOUSIGNANT THE WASHINGTON POST
People sometimes tell Irina Creaser she looks just like a Barbie doll. Maybe it's her reedy thinness and precise posture. She is a model, after all. Or it could be her curled, blond tresses and wispy eyelashes.
Or maybe it's because as she is telling you this, she's decked out in a tight red skirt, sleeveless cotton top and polka-dot scarf that match - exactly, down to the red-and-white handbag and spiked pumps - the outfit on the 1964 Swirl Ponytail Barbie she is holding in her hand.
Creaser had her tailor fashion two doll-and-me ensembles for Barbie exhibits that she hosted in Tokyo and Helsinki a few years ago. Swirl Barbie accompanied her, of course, along with 174 other dolls from Creaser's extensive Barbie collection.
How extensive? A good guess would be more than 600, she said, glancing around the wood-paneled basement of her Burke home, where Barbies (and Kens and Midges and the rest of Barbie's extended clan) stare back from every nook with their frozen smiles and perfect hair.
Creaser's husband, Frank, a forbearing creature who doesn't fully understand his wife's craving but indulges it anyway, hung the shelves that line the walls, five high in places. The result is a virtual shrine to Barbie, the $1.4 billion-a-year cash queen of the Mattel toy line who, at age 37, is only five years older than Creaser and equally wrinkle-free.
On Creaser's shelves, luau Barbie stands near barbecue chef Ken, a few boxes away from astronaut Barbie and sailor Ken. There are dolls wearing Shakespearean costumes, fairy tale finery, cheerleader sweaters, surgeon's scrubs, business suits and beach togs. Not to mention wedding attire: Never married but always prepared, Barbie has about 30 bridal gowns in her closet, with new ones released each year.
All of this helps keep Mattel atop the clothes heap, with nearly 1 billion fashions - and 1 billion dolls - manufactured since 1959.
``Irina has one of the biggest collections around, a very good collection,'' said Marlene Mura, co-publisher of Barbie Bazaar magazine, distributed bimonthly to 80,000-plus hobbyists. ``Some people have a few thousand dolls, but that's very, very rare.'' Mura estimates the Barbie-collector family at a half-million people worldwide.
``People used to think it was really strange, but now we're not as alien-like as we used to be,'' said Sarah Sink Eames, of Boones Mill. Eames has been stashing Barbies around her house for 36 years and hopes one day to open a museum featuring her growing collection of more than 5,000 dolls and thousands of outfits and other Barbie trappings.
With a mint-condition original Barbie now fetching $7,000 to $10,000, investors have jumped into the collectors pool with unbridled enthusiasm, but Eames and Creaser say they're not in it for the money.
``I was doing this when Barbie was worthless and people were ashamed of her and putting her under the table at doll shows,'' said Ms. Eames, 43. ``Investment never occurred to me.''
So, too, with Creaser, although her Barbie population did drop from about 800 a few years ago, when she and her mother decided to unload several dolls for some pretty respectable cash, including one that sold for $6,500. What remains in her basement -- some of it in locked cabinets -- is insured for about $350,000, three times what Creaser estimates she paid originally.
Like all Barbiephiles, the German-born Creaser still remembers her first Barbie, a gift from her grandmother in Dusseldorf who, Creaser said, strongly disapproved of Barbie's exaggerated anatomy but nevertheless fulfilled her 5-year-old granddaughter's deepest wish of having the doll. The next year, Creaser got her second Barbie while vacationing with her parents in Austria. Others followed, and she was hooked.
``I was an only child, so it was me and my Barbies,'' she said.
With her mother, Inge Streng, Creaser concocted elaborate doll pageants and competitions that often featured a doll who Creaser recollected ``ran a very strict ballet school.''
At a national Barbie convention in 1983, Creaser and her mother, who also had moved to the United States, bought 50 dolls. ``Our bank account went from whatever it was to zero,'' Creaser said. ``But I still wasn't thinking I'd become serious about collecting. I was just taken with their beauty.
``I have this fascination with their ever-changing beauty. I'm a model, and Barbie is a symbol of beauty and elegance and intelligence. She's not just a dumb blonde but someone girls aspire to be like. I identify with her.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JUANA ARIAS/Washington Post. 1. Irina Creaser seesby CNBBarbie as a symbol of beauty, elegance and intelligence. 2. Irina
Creaser's Barbie collection is believed to be around 600 dolls. Her
husband, Frank, hung the shelves that line the walls of the Creaser
home, five high in places. The result is a virtual shrine to Barbie.
3. Creaser's collection also includes an Oriental Barbie. 4. Irina
Creaser is decked out in a tight red skirt, sleeveless cotton top
and polka-dot scarf that match - exactly, down to the red-and-white
handbag and spiked pumps - the outfit on the 1964 Swirl Ponytail
Barbie she is holding in her hand.