For most girls, their first toy is usually a doll. They choose the dolls based on their outfit displayed in the box. But soon the outfit becomes soiled, and the interest in that particular doll dies out, forcing parents to buy another set of dolls! Dolls, especially Barbie dolls, can be expensive; and finding the one you like can be difficult in Dhaka. So Nadia Khan, an American living in Bangladesh, began combining and transforming her interest in arts and fashion by creating her own clothing line for her Barbies.
Gallery Longitude Latitude 6 (LL6) put on Nadia’s display of her own miniature creations at an exhibition titled “Dress Your Doll” on October 23. Curated by Shehzad Chowdhury, the exhibition which was originally scheduled to be on display for just one day, was later extended to three days due to the interest it generated. The exhibition also featured a workshop where Nadia showed enthusiastic children how to make their own clothing designs with their choice of scrap materials – from paper, tissue/napkins, polythene, bubble-wraps, to any other material that they wanted to dress their dolls. Attended by several children accompanied by their parents, the children started with drawing their own clothing design on paper first, which Nadia then helped transform into reality by sowing the dress on to the dolls.
Aside from the exhibition itself, one appealing feature of the exhibition was how Nadia turned the art exhibit into a family event. Parents were as engrossed as the children. It was also interesting that the dolls were wearing multicultural outfits, from South Asian, Middle Eastern, to Western dresses. Through immersion, children learned how art can turn ordinary material into extraordinary statement by giving life to inanimate objects.
Nadia Khan has been interested in Arts and Fashion from a very early age. While her interest in playing with barbie dolls have long diminished, she continues to make miniature clothing for her younger sister's barbie dolls. She says, "it allows me to make a miniature ‘demo’ of the clothes I would one day like to create for myself." Nadia also paints using multi-layered mix mediums. She hopes to attend university in 2017, to study arts and fashion; and hopes to have her own clothing line in the future.