Moving with the Times

Barbie is one of the most famous children’s toys out there. Manufactured by American company Mattel Inc. and created by Ruth Hangler, Barbie has been around for 57 years now. She was launched in March 1959.

Ruth Hangler got her inspiration for the doll when she saw the Bild Lilli adult-bodied doll from Germany, and suggested the idea of another adult-bodied doll to her husband and co-founder of Mattel, Elliot. The doll was named after her daughter Barbara, who regularly played with dolls.

Over the years Mattel have attempted to change Barbie to be more relatable.

In May 1997, Mattel introduced the ‘Share a Smile Becky’ doll which came in a pink wheelchair. Kjersti Johnson, a 17 year old student from Tacoma, Washington, and who suffered with cerebral palsy, recognised that this particular doll did not fit into the elevator of the Barbie doll dream house. Mattel announced that they would redesign the house in the near future to accommodate the doll.

Barbie became a role model for young girls. However. a standard Barbie doll stands at 11.5 inches tall – if we scaled her up to a height of 5 feet 9 inches, her chest measures at 36 inches, her waist 18 inches and her hips 33 inches – a totally incorrect perspective when it comes to the size of a woman.

According to the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, Barbie would actually lack the 17 to 22 % body fat required for a woman to menstruate if she were to be real. Customers of the Barbie doll product agreed that Barbie represented an unrealistic body image for its target audience.

Despite this, Barbie went on to celebrate her 50^th anniversary in 2009. The celebrations included a runway show for the Mercedes-Benz fashion week in New York. The event featured looks created by fifty well known designers including: Vera Wang, Calvin Klein, Diane Von Furstenberg, Bob Mackie and Christian Louboutin.

Now that we have reached 2016, Mattel Inc. have created a new range of Barbie dolls in the hopes of making Barbie more relatable. Barbie now includes three new body types, tall, petite and curvy. She will have different eye colours, seven new skin tones and 24 new hairstyles to choose from. Definitely a move in the right direction.

With researchers finding that children as young as eight in the UK were experiencing body dissatisfaction, and almost 40% of girls aged 14 admitting to regular dieting in 2015, the pressure was on for changes to be made, if Mattel wanted to remain dominant in the doll market and continue to sell three dolls a second.

Mattel wrote in a statement, “By introducing more variety into the line, Barbie is offering girls choices that are better reflective of the world they see today”.