Even though she was only a little girls' toy and sometimes confident at first, Barbie has become a massive cultural icon worlwide. Here is why, as the Mattel-produced doll is blowing her 50 candles, her anniversary is being celebrated the world over in different ways.
For example, it was recently honoured alongside real life fashion powers such as designer Norma Kamali by the AAFA (American Apparel and Footwear Association)'s American Image Awards, who were given in New York on Tusday, May 12.
The doll, whose elongated body figure and mensurations have created controversies between its manufacturers and feminist groups, has seen her birthday marked by several exhibitions over the world, most of them sponsored by Mattel.
The Mexican version of it featured the work of 10 Latino designers to dress Barbie instead of the traditional powerhouses such as Ralph Lauren and Christian Dior, among them the famous duo Sofia Casares and Alejandra Albarran (behind the brand Alessa Casati) and above all, showed a radical cultural change. Indeed, the evolution of the doll, named Barbara Millicent Roberts at its creation, revealed that, until the late seventies, she was only represented as a woman with a fair skin.
"When Barbie changed to Barbie Malibu in 1977, she had darker skin, and for the first time, children with darker skin could actually relate to their dolls; before then, they only knew of the fair skinned Barbie, and she was what all the little girls wanted to be." said Juan Carlos Frank, a Barbie collector since 1978 who loaned several of his own dolls to the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City.
It was like a paradygm shift, and that is when the famous little adult doll could be embraced by all little girls. Later, Mattel also understood the importance of showing various types of women through the Career Girl Barbie and Astronaut Barbie and even the Black Barbie and Hispanic Barbie, demonstrating their comprehension of the importance for girls to see their heritage and roots represented in the icon.
The Mexican exhibition opened in early March has already been very successful with the locals.
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