It’s the summer of Barbie, and I’m thinking about her Dream House.
Not its recent incarnations – so much pink and plastic! – but the 1962 folding cardboard original. The studio apartment came with modest furnishings: a small bed, a couch, books, a TV.
Yet this Dream House’s meaning resides in what it doesn’t contain: a kitchen, a bathroom, a nursery or a family. This is the mid-20th century bachelorette pad for a woman unencumbered by domestic obligations. I’ve often pictured myself sitting on that couch, alone and reading happily.
Though I never owned that Dream House, I understand its allure. Many others do too – interest in dollhouses and miniatures has been rising steadily for the past decade. All things miniature enthrall a new and younger generation of digital natives; social media brim with tiny wicker chairs, high-top sneakers the size of a fingernail, petite slices of cake destined for teeny tables in miniscule houses. More than 200,000 people follow The Book of Mini author Kate Ünver on Instagram for her mini picks, and the artist Paris Renfroe invented the term “minfluencer” for those who have catapulted small masterpieces into our public consciousness via the internet.
But why the boom in tiny homes, right now? Why do dollhouses so fascinate us? I’ve posed these questions to many artists, collectors and enthusiasts for the book I’m writing.
Social media has widened the audience for miniatures. When I was a child in the 1970s, if you didn’t have a dollhouse yourself, you’d have to find them in a museum or a miniature show. Now the world of dollhouses and miniatures is available 24/7 on screens we can hold in our hand.
Yet there’s something more crucial. In recent history, with the threats of climate change, social unrest, political turmoil and gun violence – so much instability – people have turned back to miniatures and found solace and joy in tiny things. In a sense, all dollhouses are dream houses, sites where creativity sets us free.
