This townhouse accommodation is home to a media-industry creative, as able-bodied as 10,000 Barbie dolls!
WHO: A 37-year-old bachelor
HOME: Upper-floor townhouse assemblage in Serangoon
SIZE: 1,050sqf
From the backward bluff of the townhouse homeowner Jian Yang lives in, you wouldn't apprehend to acquisition a home with such anarchistic interiors. It is alone afterwards ascendance the access to get to his second-floor accommodation that you are absorbed in a apple of dolls.
There are several floor-to-ceiling displays, with customised shelving distinctively advised to be doll-height, and a 12m run of wardrobes that are "six dolls-deep". But bare of the dolls - all 10,000 of them - the amplitude is absolutely a bare canvas with a abreast look, little beautification and a pared-down structure.
It was what artisan and artisan Vincent Lim of Visual Text Architects (VTxT) knew was required, to acquiesce the huge accumulating of dolls to be showcased in the best way possible.
"But it's not aloof dolls, absolutely - I adulation toys!" says Jian, whose accomplishments is in advertising.
The dolls, however, are his pride and joy. We acquisition out added about his baby devotion, and how it fits into his home.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PASSION FOR DOLLS.
I've been affairs dolls back 1984, and it started with Barbie, as it was alone affair in the bazaar at the time. Later on, I began accession Jem Dolls, Equestria Girls, Blythe, Pullip, Monster High, Disney Princess and more…
I'm one of those guys who aloof brand to buy toys - it aloof happens that the focus is on dolls, possibly because of the appearance and pop-culture references accompanying to them.
I additionally accept toys from Star Wars, Transformers, Sky Commanders, Littlest Pet Shop, Baby Alive - all the Hasbro brands, actuality and in my office.
HOW DID THIS INTEREST BEGIN AND GROW?
Back in 1984, beneath the Christmas tree, I opened a present that happened to be my sister's - it was a doll. But your four-year-old apperception doesn't see it as a "girl's toy" - it's aloof a toy that you'd like.
And in a child's mind, aggregate merges - Barbie can be a adherent to He-Man, or a G.I. Joe giant. I aloof saw her as addition toy - an activity amount with brushable hair.
So, as with any added accumulating area you buy added pieces to complete it, I was affairs new clothes, shoes, and cars.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THESE DOILLS, AND COLLECTING THEM?
There are so abounding facets, but here's one thing: I accept an attraction with faces - as with altered facial features, you accomplish faculty of them in the apple and are able to see them as cultural generalisations - so attractive at a doll's face is one of the reasons.
Every baby has a altered face, with altered bark colours, eye colours and beard colours.
I'm absolutely added of a fan of the bistered and African-American Barbies than I am of the albino Barbie, as albino is too generic! Can you brainstorm a albino baby affairs off this look? (Refers to an African Barbie baby in all-embracing fashion.)
The detail is insane, with the accoutrement and aggregate and, application your imagination, you would anticipate that this is a atramentous babe who went to Scotland - this accouterments can be pulled off alone by this doll.
I additionally like that Barbie is aloof a actual aloof figure, whoever the adolescent wants her to be, clashing - for archetype - Disney characters with a anchored backstory that sets the comedy pattern. Also, I like the actuality that all these items in my abode are not objects, but absolutely capacity - they are a chat in themselves.
For example, a few of these dolls would admonish me of a memorable aboriginal cruise to New York.
WHICH IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE DOLL YOU HAVE?
The one I paid the best for was an bargain allotment at a alms accident by Swarovski and Mattel. She's a Silkstone Barbie with Swarovski crystals, alone advised by Singapore artisan Dan Goh for the event.
Silkstone is a vinyl and ceramics amalgam actual created by Mattel, for a altered bark texture, added weight and added beneficiary value. I paid $3,600 for the doll.
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOU'VE SPENT ON THE DOLLS?
My asperous appraisal is 10,000 dolls times an boilerplate of $20 each. But as some amount a lot more… it could assignment out to be about $500,000.
The collection, however, is account millions.
WHEN IT CAME TO DESIGNING THE SPACE, WHAT WAS YOUR MAIN CONCERN?
My abrupt was basically: I accept a accumulating account millions, so I would like to absolutely acknowledge it. I didn't accept any aftertaste formed, as it was my aboriginal home, so I was beholden that Vincent (the artisan and designer) managed to acquisition a articulation for the space.
Because I apperceive what an cutting accumulating can attending like - a lot of my accompany are collectors of everything, from artisan vinyl abstracts to Star Wars. When you see a Transformers collector's house, it's like a junkshop explosion.
So I told myself, I charge a amplitude that enables me to alive like a animal being, which aloof happens to accept a antic accumulating of dolls.
HOW DID YOUR DESIGNER ACHIEVE THAT?
First, he agape bottomward the non-structural walls, and larboard aloof two abutment beams, to alter with shelving to affectation the dolls.
Vincent knows that dolls about appear in 12- and 16-inch heights, so the accomplished amplitude was created for the collection, to the point area I accept alone a bed, daybed and dining table as stand-alone pieces. Aggregate abroad was congenital in.
This commodity was aboriginal appear in the AUGUST 2017 book copy of Home & Decor.
