Barbie’s story started back in March 1959 when, created by Ruth Handler, it was launched into the American toy market. According to the History Channel, co-owner of the toy company Mattel, Inc., Handler came up with the idea after watching her daughter play with dolls made from paper, and thus came to life the 11-inch plastic version. It reportedly became the first mass-produced toy doll with adult features in the US.
The History Channel pointed out that Barbie—or Barbara Millicent Roberts in full—was modeled after a different doll, known at the time by the name of Bild Lilli.
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Over Barbie’s more than 60-year-long history, there have been plenty of different versions of the doll. They include not only Barbie with different clothing or hair, but her depicting representatives of different occupations, and—eventually—body types and ethnicities, too. Back in 2016, Mattel introduced Barbie Fashionistas, which featured four body types, seven skin tones, 22 eye colors, and 24 different hairstyles.
Harper’s Bazaar revealed that the new body shapes were introduced after the head of the Barbie brand, Evelyn Mazzocco, undertook a poll of ‘Barbie haters’ in order to see what were the main things the doll was ridiculed for. The most common responses stated it was ‘out of touch,’ ‘materialistic’ and ‘not diverse’.
Barbie is believed to have represented over 200 different career choices, ranging from an astronaut to a singer, a computer engineer, and way beyond. In addition to all sorts of the Barbie doll herself, in 1961, the toy company also introduced Ken Carson—Barbara’s plastic significant other, who reportedly has tried out roughly 40 different professions.
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Time pointed out that Barbie and Ken’s love story started back in 1961 when they were working on a commercial together. Unfortunately, after more than four decades together, the couple broke up in 2004. Mattel’s vice president of marketing at the time, Russell Arons, shared the upsetting news in a statement, saying that “their Hollywood romance has come to an end”.
But Barbie dolls didn’t stop with countless variations of Barbara herself and plastic figurines of Ken; back in 1967, the first celebrity-lookalike doll saw the light of day, dedicated to the supermodel Twiggy.
Other famous people with their own Barbie dolls include Cher, Beyonce, Elton John, Katy Perry, Naomi Osaka, Jane Goodall, Audrey Hepburn, Zendaya, and more.
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Over the years, the Barbie doll has become so widespread that Mattel estimates it has more than 99 per cent global awareness, Harper’s Bazaar reports. It also pointed out that, according to recent statistics, as many as three Barbies are sold every second, adding up to over a billion of them sold since it was created.
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Considering the doll’s popularity and long-lasting history, it’s no surprise that the recently released Barbie movie created quite a buzz as well. According to CNN, just three weeks into its run, it already surpassed the billion dollar mark at the global box office. This makes Barbie’s writer-director Greta Gerwig the first solo female director with a billion-dollar movie.