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Barbie is the world's best selling doll and was first sold on March 9, 1959. The best selling Barbie was one released in the early-1990s, Totally Hair Barbie, with stylable hair so long it reached from her head down to her toes.
Ruth Handler had noted that her daughter Barbara preferred playing with paper dolls that looked like adults rather than like children. When in Europe, she noticed a German doll named Lilli and bought it for Barbara.
Lilli was a gold-digging character from a "racy" comic strip drawn by Reinhard Bentheim for Das Bild, and the Lilli doll began to be sold in Germany in 1955. It was marketed to adults, not children: M. G. Lord, in her Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, characterized the original doll as a "gag gift for men, a pornographic character."
Ruth Handler says that when she bought Lilli for her daughter, she was ignorant of its adult nature. Ruth Handler and Elliott Handler, the co-founders of Mattel, bought the rights to market Lilli: with a hair color change from blonde to brunette, and a name change to Barbie (after Ruth's daughter Barbara) she was sold in the United States starting in 1959 at New York's annual Toy Fair.
The first Barbie doll had a black-and-white striped swimsuit and signature ponytail. In the succeeding years, Mattel fashion designer Charlotte Johnson based Barbie doll fashion designs on the Paris fashions.
Ruth Handler had stated that she thought it "was important to a girl's esteem that she play with a doll with breasts," and Barbie was certainly qualified to be that doll. If the doll originally marketed were human-sized, her measurements would have been 39"-18"-33". These measurements were not based on actual human metrics, and the unrealistic size of Barbie has been controversial, with many suggesting that playing with Barbie decreases rather than enhances a girl's self-esteem. In response to criticism, Mattel adjusted the chest measurement down, and the waist measurement up, though the proportions are still uncharacteristic of most women.
Redesigned by Jack Ryan and manufactured by Mattel, this one doll is a $1.9 billion dollar a year industry, with two Barbies being bought every second.
Barbie's fictional biography has developed as her sales continued. She has been given the fuller name Barbara Millicent Roberts, and a family and friends have been manufactured for her, starting with her permanent beau Ken. Additions to the family tree included Skipper (debut 1964), Tutti, Stacie (1992), and Kelly (1995). Barbie has dated Ken since 1961, and has long broken ties with her best friend Midge. Barbie is still said to attend Willows High School in Willows, Wisconsin.
Barbie has thirty-eight recorded pets, including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. Barbie has used her driver's license to the fullest, with pink convertibles, trailers and more. She also has a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners, while not serving as a stewardess.
On February 12, 2004, just days before Valentine's, Mattel spokespeople announced the split of Barbie and Ken after 43 years of dating, saying in their press release that they "have decided to spend some time apart."
"Barbie® and Ken® have always been an extraordinary couple with so much on- and off-screen chemistry," said the pair's business manager, Russell Arons, Vice President Marketing, Mattel. "In fact, they just finished wrapping their fourth movie together, 'Barbie™ as The Princess and the Pauper,' which debuts this fall. And now they feel it's time to spend some quality time – apart."
A Mattel press release ended saying "Although their future is yet to be set in "cement," one thing is for certain - Barbie® and Ken® will always remain the best of friends."
Barbie has been used in an effort to promote Amateur athlete at the Olympics (including swimming, figure skating)
Over the years, Barbie has evolved. Originally available as either a blonde or brunette, Barbie has changed the color of her hair many times since her introduction in 1959. Today there are ethnically diverse versions of Barbie that feature different skin tones, facial characteristics, as well as different hair colors and make-up.
One of the most publicized changes happened around the turn of the century, as Barbie's ultra-thin waist widened to more natural proportions. This change, rallied for years by some parents' and anorexia groups, is to encourage young girls not to be as hyper-actively concerned with their weight, and thus to eat more healthily and avoid eating disorders.
Barbie is often looked upon as an icon of Western childhood. Her popularity ensures that her effect on the play of Western children attracts unusual scrutiny.
The enormous range of available accessories relating clothes, hair, make-up, parties and looking pretty give rise to the accusation that Barbie encourages young girls to focus on shallow trivia. Her accessories reflect a lifestyle that is unobtainable for most of the girls who play with her. She also portrays an unrealistic body image; If Barbie were scaled to human proportions, she would be towering over most men and have an impossible breast size. For most of her life she was available only as a white woman of apparently European descent.
However at the time Barbie was released, most dolls were baby substitutes, rather than adult dolls, and it could be said that Barbie's very existence encouraged girls to play outside the traditional role of housewife and mother. The range of professions for which Barbie accessories can be bought has been expanded recently, including doctor, politician, US Marine and paralympic athlete. Barbies with different racial characteristics have also become available in recent decades.
Because Barbie is a cultural icon in the United States, and the dolls are inexpensive and easily obtained, artists have referred to Barbie and her accompanying products, either as homage or as parody. The Mattel Corporation disapproves of many of these uses for the dolls, and has used trademark and copyright claims to attempt to suppress them.
"Barbie" is often used as a derogatory slang word to mean that a person, particularly a girl or woman, is stupid, as in "Barbie brain", "Barbie bimbo" or "Barbie head".
The Middle Eastern country of Saudi Arabia outlawed Barbie dolls on September 10, 2003.
Pop-dance band from Europe Aqua gained worldwide recognition with multi-platinum international hit "Barbie Girl". It led to a lawsuit filed by Mattel. The lawsuit was later dismissed.
The mid-1990s saw a line of early novels, featuring her adventurous exploits. By the late-1990s, Mattel had moved to featuring her in interactive 3D video games for both gaming consoles and personal computers. In recent years, she has taken the computer animated movie industry by storm, guest appearing in Toy Story 2, and later her own direct-to-video movies, Barbie's Nutcracker and Ed Koch. Tiffany's creates a sterling silver Barbie doll. The International Collection becomes the Dolls of the World Collection. Swiss Barbie® and Irish Barbie are introduced.
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