‘Toy nerd’ happy to live in a Barbie world

The white exterior and spartan grey staircase of Jian Yang’s tidy house gives no hint of the shock that lies within — a pink living room floor and his collection of more than 6,000 Barbie dolls.

The 33-year-old Singaporean favours minimalist decor, but the Barbies and 3,000 other dolls dominate three sides of the main room and spill over to fill nine mirrored cabinets in his dressing room and the shelves of his study.

“Incongruous is kind of me,” Yang said. “When you meet me outside of this, I’m not that kind of guy. I’m not what you expect from a guy that collects dolls.”

Yang has a professional interest in toys and consumer trends as director of strategy at Omicom Media Group. But his Barbie collection began at age 13 when he bought the “Great Shape” model in a turquoise Spandex gym outfit and striped leg warmers.

“Before I knew about social norms, I was a boy that watched this on TV, liked it and wasn’t allowed to have one. As I grew older, got my own allowance, I started getting the freedom to buy whatever I wanted.”

His boyhood interest turned into a “crazy obsession” that his friends support and his family has come to accept. “I’ve also got the ex-girlfriends who get insecure about this kind of stuff . . . They look at dolls and go ‘OK, that’s the competition’, which is quite troubling but it’s a reality.”

The self-described “toy nerd” reckons he has spent at least S$500,000 (€280,000) over the last 20 years on his collection.

Yang said Barbie was an icon that still had a future but “the relevance is waning” as princesses and ballerinas give way to the ghoulish imagery and stories popularised by vampire movies such as Twilight and New Moon.

Yang’s oldest Barbies date from the early 1960s, including one in a nurse’s outfit with cat’s eye glasses. But his passion runs the gamut of eras and styles, including Barbies in dozens of national costumes and editions with the likenesses of Grace Kelly, Barbra Streisand, Carol Burnett, and Elizabeth Taylor.

The rarest Barbie he owns is a model sold only in boutiques of the Comme des Garcons fashion label. “My friend found her in Hong Kong and made an emergency phone call to me,” he said.