Whenever Chaz LaGreca wants to revisit the strict yet comforting era of his youth - filled with cars with fins, pillbox hats and Technicolor movie idols - all he needs to do is enter his bedroom.
There he finds his time machine - Barbie. She stands in vintage multiple in a cabinet. She lounges in a toy kitchen set, on top of his chest of drawers, chronicling 1950s and 1960s America. Staring back at him are the faces and favorite outfits of Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Doris Day, and the clothes that the grown-up women in his life used to wear.In real life, LaGreca works as an executive chef, running a corporate employee restaurant in the Minneapolis area. But, he says, "When I play with (the Barbies) I'm a million miles away."
"For anybody who is a collector, it's a personal thing. It gives them joy," said LaGreca, his dark-haired maleness an arresting counterpoint to the voluptuous, candy-haired dolls surrounding him in his home. "It's a comfort to me. This replays that specific time for me."
LaGreca is not the only guy who goes for Barbie. Within the huge nostalgia wave gripping the baby boomer generation is a Barbie mania that kicked into high gear less than 10 years ago. It shows no sign of subsiding, and a national expert estimates that at least 15 percent of the millions of Barbie collectors are men.
"Barbie, if anything, is a mirror of where we've been since 1959, and it's not just her clothes; it's also her structures, accessories and vehicles, and the attitude," said Joe Blitman, a Los-Angeles-based dealer and author.
Those are the things that attract men to Barbie, he said, whereas women tend to collect the dolls to "re-create their childhood or to re-create the childhood they never had."
Kids have enjoyed dolls forever and always will, Blitman said. For boys, the preferred term is action figure, covering GI Joe to Batman. But to Blitman, they are all dolls. "The only difference between Barbie and GI Joe is a haircut and a hemline," he said.
LaGreca, who grew up in Niagara Falls, N.Y., describes his dad as "a macho Sinatraesque union leader" who laid down the law: no playing with Barbie.
So LaGreca developed a ruse. "I needed a passenger for the Tonka truck, Dad," he'd say, and make sure the driver was GI Joe.
His love affair started in 1963, when his sister reached under the Christmas tree and unwrapped a platinum-haired Barbie wearing a flaming red velvet tent coat with matching hat, purse, shoes and long, white gloves. "When I saw that at Christmas and it was in my hand, it was Doris Day who walked off that huge screen and became part of my world."
He explained that it reminded him of the day he had seen "Pillow Talk" with his Aunt Rose and had sodas afterward.
"There was still an innocence in that era and yet a sophistication and a fashion sense that the Barbie doll just captured."
By the time he reached junior high school, LaGreca had stomped out his love for the plastic princess, but his ardor reignited about two and a half years ago when he ran across a vintage Barbie for sale. Kazaam. "It was back to 1963, and the tape rewound," LaGreca said.
It was almost like being a kid again, but even better because, as he said to himself, "Hey, you know what? I'm 42 years old and nobody can tell me I can't play with dolls."
It unleashed a passion. His first acquisition was the Fashion Queen Barbie, a bald-headed number wearing a gold-striped swim suit and a turban, with three wigs - red, blond and brunette. Off and running, he went on to buy ponytails, bubble cuts, Skippers and outfits as fancy as their names: Plantation Belle, Fashion Luncheon, Commuter Set. He has about 80 dolls, all dating to the pre-Mod era of 1959 to 1967.
Like other avid collectors, LaGreca scours doll shows, estate sales, garage sales and flea markets for his treasures. Even his dad has come around and now hunts for the doll at garage sales for his son.
LaGreca recently became a part-time doll dealer, in part to support his habit, and sells at the Nostalgic Toybox in Stillwater, Minn.
Although some men pursue the Barbie hobby as a personal, even solitary mission, others discover Barbie through female friends, wives or girlfriends.
In 1988, Paul Huether married his sweetheart, Barb, in Hawaii and someone gave them Island Fun Barbie for a wedding present. That was the start to their collection, one that stands as a mirror to their marriage, travels, hobbies and good times.