Few toys are more recognisable than a Barbie. The iconic doll is turning 70 in a few years, and to celebrate she’s making her way to Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum.
Barbie: The Exhibition made its debut last year in London’s Design Museum, receiving high praise across the board (including from us at Time Out). Its time in the capital came to an end earlier this year, but the exhibition isn’t being shoved into storage. Instead, it’s moving up north.
The exhibition will be open in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum from June 13 until October 18 2026. It will include more than 250 objects covering everything and anything to do with Barbie; different dolls from the past seven decades, clothes, playsets and Dreamhouses, and even an entire section dedicated to her signature pink. These items ‘tell the story of Barbie through a design lens, including fashion, architecture, furniture, and vehicle design, which are all spaces where she has left a mark on culture’.
Highlights include a rare, original Barbie doll from 1959 in her famous black and white swimming costume, a talking Barbie, and various dolls which represent 'evolving cultural shifts around diversity and representation'.
According to Tim Marlow, director and CEO of the Design Museum, interest in the exhibition – which he described as ‘joyful, fascinating, inspiring, illuminating and even nostalgic’ – when it opened in London ‘[exceeded] even our confident expectations’. He’s confident that this trend will continue in Glasgow, saying that the team ‘looks forward to seeing both the exhibition re-staged and new audiences encountering a re-framed cultural icon’.
Glasgow Life is the council-owned organisation which oversees all of the city’s municipal cultural hubs, including Kelvingrove. Its chair, Bailie Annette Christie, says that it is ‘delighted’ to give Scottish fans the chance to learn more about the blonde doll and all of her accessories.
Christie added that ‘this will be the first time a Scottish museum has staged a major exhibition devoted to Barbie’, and noted that the doll is ‘not just an icon but a creative force that has sparked excitement, ideas and conversations for decades.
‘For generations of Barbie fans and new audiences alike, this promises to be a joyful and memorable experience.’
Where is Glasgow’s Barbie Exhibition?
You’ll find it at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Argyle Street, G3 8AG
What you can expect at the Barbie Exhibition
Time Out’s four-star review of the Design Museum exhibition said that the show was ‘a joyful celebration of fashion, play, design and girlhood’, but that it was ‘hard to escape the feeling that ultimately Barbie is a product, manufactured by a corporation to make money’.
You can read that review in full here.
How much will tickets cost?
Ticket prices haven’t yet been confirmed. You can sign up for updates and find out more information on the official exhibition website here.
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