It’s a Barbie world and we’re all Barbie girls. Or at least that would be the ideal, living in a pink world of imagination where you can be anything you dream. That’s the message that comes across in the brand new World of Barbie exhibition here in Los Angeles.

I took my 5 year old son to the exhibition after taking him to the movie, giving us a fully immersive day in pink. The new exhibition is not really affiliated with the movie, while there are obvious parallels you should know up front that this is not a walk through experience of sets from the movie, which I was aware of and not expecting. The marketing makes that pretty clear but wanted to let you know as a disclaimer. Does it pair well with the movie? Absolutely, both are fun representations of Barbie, her history and what she means to people all over the world.

The reason I took my son is not because he’s particularly into Barbie but I’ve raised him to see toys as more gender neutral. He understands that typically girls play with Barbie but anybody can play with Barbie and that’s okay. That’s her whole thing, anybody can play with her and she can be anybody. While I definitely enjoyed the movie much more than he did (some of the jokes went over his head) the exhibition was firmly all ages, he had a blast.

One of the first things you can experience is Barbie’s “pool” that’s actually a ball pit with a pink slide. This was probably his favorite part, as a child that grew up during the pandemic experiencing a ball pit isn’t as common as it was for us. He also thoroughly enjoyed the Barbie theater playing Barbie animated films. We had to make sure to find the movie on a streaming platform so he could finish it.

There are several interactive exhibits that take you into the worlds of Barbie, where she’s everything from a surfer, astronaut, weather person, talk show host, anything you can imagine pretty much. As a toy collector I especially loved seeing the historical toys on display. There was a great evolution of the Dreamhouse display, her cars through the years, and of course the original Barbie doll herself.

This was a great experience for the whole family. I really enjoyed the interactive nature of most of the exhibition elevating it from just photo ops, which there are plenty of. My son loved it and he even asked to go back. I had wanted to take my son to the World of Barbie for a while, but waited until the weekend the movie released. Sadly the exhibition seems to be in its final months so you might want to check the availability if you’re in the Los Angeles area, tickets can be purchased here. Are you ready to visit World of Barbie?