Barbie

The first Barbie doll was presented at the American International Toy Fair in New York March 9, 1959 by her creator Ruth Handler. The almost immediate success of this new kind of doll gave her husband and partner the opportunity to create the Mattel Creations. The Barbie doll with her opulent breasts, her thin waist and long legs would, in fact, was completely against the style of dolls of that time. In this it was the first doll with an adult body.

Origins of the Barbie doll

Barbie is short for Barbara, the name of the daughter of Ruth Handler. Initially, Barbie was a copy of an adult German doll named Lilli, Ruth Handler had given to hes daughter Barbara after observing that children preferred playing with paper dolls representing adult women. Her measurements, initially hypertrophied, were reduced to normal proportions over the years.

From 1959 to 1960, Barbie was only black and white: her hair was platinum blonde, the apple of hes eye was white and she wore a striped shirt. The reason is that advertising Barbie mobilized a new medium at the time: television. She had to be at her best on the small screen that did not yet broadcast in color. In addition, from 1959 to 1970, the Barbie look slightly downwards and right. Since then gently bent the doll's head, it gave the false and mischievous eyes of women of the time.

In 1971 Malibu Barbie (the "Malibu Barbie"), blonde heady tanning impeccable finally looks straight ahead. From that moment, Barbie dolls will have their trades, professions and leisure accessories multiplying a perspective of more and more explicit diversification in the roles of women nowadays.

Ken

If since 1980 the ethnic type of Barbie has so much more diversified, it is not so much of her original companion Ken that he has changed little over the years. In 2005, Barbie has also severed its connection with Ken for Blaine, an Australian surfer, but Mattel Ken relaunched in February 2006 against the indifference of young buyers for Blaine.