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Barbie Dolls in the Real World

Source : The Economist
Known as Barbie to the world, her full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. She was patented in 1958 by Mattel and introduced to the world in 1959.

Her creator Ruth Handler (co-founder of Mattel) named Barbie and Barbie's boyfriend Ken after her and husband Elliot Handler's own children Barbie and Ken. Read more about the history of Barbie and Mattel at the Barbie Media website.

She is one of the world's best-known children's toys, a fashion icon, a family-loving, friendly, free woman and ultimately - a plastic doll. Yet this plastic doll has inspired millions of girls and women and is the cornerstone of a global brand with worldwide appeal.





There are also those who say that Barbie dolls give girls and women an unrealistic 'perfect woman' to look up to and that having Barbie's figure to 'compete' with leaves girls and women feeling bad or depressed about their own not remotely Barbie-like figures.

According to a 2006 Developmental Psychology article by Dittmar et. al.,
"... early exposure to dolls epitomizing an unrealistically thin body ideal may damage girls' body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling."

Fact is that if a regular human woman had Barbie's figure, she would be deformed. As the Daily Mail reports, she would have a neck incapable of supporting a body too small to hold necessary internal organs.

Barbie wasn't designed to look like a real woman, however. As Kim Culmone, Vice-President of Design for Barbie explains to Co. Design:
"Barbie's body was never designed to be realistic. She was designed for girls to easily dress and undress. ... Primarily it’s for function for the little girl, for real life fabrics to be able to be turned and sewn, and have the outfit still fall properly on her body."


Source : Stuff.co.nz
According to an 03 July 2013 article on New Zealand website Stuff.co.nz, Pittsburgh (USA) artist Nickolay Lamm has re-created Barbie in the image of today's 19-year old American woman.

Barbie as designed by Nickolay Lamm is shorter and stockier than traditional Barbie dolls (as the screen-cap on the right shows), has actual hips and a figure that resembles reality instead of fiction - finally!

New Barbie as created by Mr. Lamm looks natural to me - she looks like women I see on the street and around me, not like one of those Plastic-Fantastic airbrushed types we see in magazines these days.

The designer according to the Stuff.co.nz article:
"A lot of people say we shouldn't criticise Barbie because she is a toy. ... However, if there's a small chance that it's negatively affecting young girls, and if normal Barbie looks awesome, why not create normal Barbie?" 
Well done Mr. Lamm and thank you for adding some realism to the lives of women and girls everywhere!

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