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My name is Marc A. Lagler, as a child of a tailor’s family, I was born on January 30. 1965, in Schwyz - the heart of Switzerland.
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When I was a young boy, I often played with my sister’s dolls and in the early seventies, I owned my first Barbie doll for which I already made some self designed fashions.
I remember these Barbie’s and Ken’s from that time very well and some of them even became rarities in the meantime.
These were: the “Gold Medal Skater Barbie’s” or ”Skier Barbie’s”, “New Look Ken”, “Superstars Ken and Barbie”, “Beauty Secret Barbie” as well as
“Western Barbie and Ken” among other original “©Mattel fashion's”.
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As I was not sufficiently interested to make the tailor’s trade my definite living goal, I finally became a salesman in a supermarket.
Following my apprenticeship, I departed from my chidhood home and the dolls were subsequently left behind.
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At the age of 19, I registered for an art course pertaining to dollmaking, nativity art in particular.
Thus, my creative abilities grew wider, such that I was finally able to conduct dollmaking courses all by myself.
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Some ten years later (in 1992), while visiting a doll auction in Zürich, my childhood memories came all of a sudden back to my mind while seeing all these vintage-dolls and other new collector’s Barbies. Much to my surprise, I noticed how these dolls changed hands between mostly grown up men and women and all this at incredible high prices. Notwithstanding the cost, I purchased a doll and a book about the history of Barbie.
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Fascinated by my new acquisitions, I decided to become a collector too, and within a year’s time, I already owned as many as 300 Barbies!
Then, for the first time, I traveled to Barbie’s® native country in California, always in search of more rarities for my private collection.
There were plenty of these and I spent half a fortune on limited- and special-editions. Before returning home, having purchased so many items,
it became a real problem to carry them along with my restricted weight luggage; thus, I had to ship most of these treasures by aircargo.
Back in Zürich, while attending another local doll convention in March 1993, I met with other collectors and dealers who gave me many useful hints and tips about collecting Barbie’s as well as some addresses of doll literature; this gave me the opportunity to get in touch with US Barbie dealers.
Consequently, my collection grew rapidly and this required a larger apartment (at this time, I was a proud owner of a lot more than just beautiful and rare Barbie’s but I kept,
of course, only the ones I liked).
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In this same year, I started to make my own fashions which might have been inspired by ©Mattel’s International series.
I first created folklore dresses based on the originals of all Swiss cantons, for the “Barbie” models.
Then, followed by traditional costumes of many countries for which ©Mattel had not yet produced to the international market:
dresses from the German Black Forest, soon followed by those of Austria, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Africa, Arabia, Brazil and even Thailand.
A further step was then the creation of dolls from the pasttime, including those from the fifties, the twenties, the turn of the century and of course,
also all the various dress-fashions of the 18th and 19th centuries, which often feature delicious models, from street wear to festive or carnival dresses,
not to speak about royal robes.
It was also in 1993 when I had been approached by the organizers of the local doll convention: Jutta and Karl Alber,
to participate to their autumn fair by just exposing a display as an eye catcher, showing some of my own designed fashions.
I gave it a thought and, finally, agreed; the results were quite successful!
Since then, I became a devoted Barbie fashion designer.That means: I purchase the suitable Barbie’s from the store shelves and then,
in an affectionate and painstaking procedure, begin to transform them into exclusive “Collector items”. To begin with, I usually select the suitable fabrics,
patterns or combinations; these are then cut to the size, tacked together for the preview to the critics; usually my friend.
Then, we decide for which type the dress would fit best: “Barbie”, “Marina”, “Midge”, or “Christie”.
Following completion of the dress, the positions of arms and hands are then evaluated and altered, if necessary, which requires a difficult and lengthy procedure.

Thank you that you took your time to read all this!