Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall and have a neck twice the length of a normal human’s neck
Barbie was originally based on the “Bild Lili doll”, a prostitute in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin and first sold in Germany in 1955. The doll was marketed to adult men in bars and tobacco shops, not to children
Barbie’s boyfriend Ken was not sold in India until recently because it clashed with the traditional arranged marriage
Ruth Handler, the co-founder of Mattel, was also the inventor of prosthetic breast implants
Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts. She is from Willows, Wisconsin, and went to Willows High School.
Barbie was named after the daughter of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler. Their son’s name is: Ken.
The first Barbie doll sold for $3.
The first Black, and Hispanic Barbie dolls were introduced in 1980.
Barbie’s first career was as a teenage fashion model. She has since had other careers including astronaut, rock star, paleontologist, presidential candidate, and Olympic ice skater, as well as many others.
Barbie introduced a rap group in 1990 called “Barbie, and the Beats.”
More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making the fashions of Barbie, and her friends, making Mattel one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.
Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls, and her friends sold since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.
Every second, three Barbie dolls are sold somewhere in the world.
Barbie doll has kept up with the times and trends since her debut in 1959. In matters from career, to family and friends, to fashion, she is right there changing along with girls and the world. Some fun facts to boost your Barbie I.Q.
Barbie doll has had more than 80 careers -- everything from a rock star to a paleontologist to a presidential candidate.
Barbie doll’s first career was a teenage fashion model.
Barbie Goes to College was introduced in 1964.
Army Barbie, introduced in 1992, represented a medic Sergeant enlisted in Desert Storm.
The first Olympic athlete Barbie was introduced in 1975; she is competing again as an Olympic swimmer in 2000.
Summit Barbie dolls were introduced in the 1980s to commemorate the end of the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Barbie doll represented a candidate for President in 1992 and ran again in 2000 with a platform of opportunities for girls, educational excellence and animal rights.
The military series of Barbie dolls, Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps went through approvals by the Pentagon to ensure the most realistic costumes.
Barbie doll represented an astronaut in 1965, 1986 and 1994.
In 1997, Share A Smile Becky was the first Mattel, Inc. fashion doll introduced with a wheelchair.
The Barbie(TM) Sport collection, including a clothing line and sport-related dolls, was introduced by Mattel in 1998 to allow girls to play out their athletic aspirations every day. It’s a global village these days .
Barbie doll was introduced in Europe in 1961.
Italian was the first nationality Barbie doll represented in the Dolls of the World Collection.
Quinceanera Teresa doll was released in Mexico in 1994 to celebrate Girls Day.
The Barbie doll is currently marketed in more than 150 nations around the world.
Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls and family members sold since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.
One of the latest nationality Barbie dolls from the Doll’s of The World Collection is Princess of the Incas Barbie, released in 2001 wearing an ensemble inspired by the Inca tribe and is authentic in every detail right down to her headdress.
Barbie doll has represented 45 different nationalities.
The first black and Hispanic Barbie dolls were introduced in 1980. 2002 marks the debut of Kayla, Barbie doll’s new multi-cultural friend.
Freundshcafts (Friendship) Barbie was introduced in 1990 to commemorate the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Life of the party .
Barbie doll has had over 43 pets including 21 dogs, 14 horses, 3 ponies, 6 cats, a parrot, a chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a zebra.
The best selling Barbie doll ever was Totally Hair Barbie, with hair from the top of her head to her toes.
Barbie doll has five sisters, Skipper, introduced in 1964, Tutti, a twin introduced in 1966, Stacie in 1992, Kelly in 1995 and Krissy(TM) in 1999.
Barbie doll’s boyfriend, Ken doll made his debut two years after Barbie in 1961 and in 2001 marks his 40th anniversary.
Ken doll was named after the son of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler.
The first celebrity to join the Barbie doll family was fashion model Twiggy in 1967 and the M. C. Hammer doll, complete with a cassette of his songs, was added in 1991.
Barbie doll’s first pet was a horse named Dancer.
Barbie doll’s best friend, Midge was introduced in 1963 and then again in 1988 as California Midge.
1999 was the first year that a family member of the Barbie doll was introduced into the line as a large-scale doll, Cuddly Soft(TM) Kelly.
Doll collecting is second only to stamp collecting as the most popular collecting hobby in America -- Barbie doll is collected by women, men and children around the world.
The Barbie Polaroid I-zone is an instant camera that allows girls to create postage-size sticky pictures of all their fun activities.
Fashion police sign off -- Barbie doll’s record is sparkling
Over 1 billion fashions have been produced since 1959 for Barbie and her friends.
More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making Barbie doll and her friends’ fashions, making Mattel one the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.
Barbie doll has had more than a billion pair of shoes and over one hundred new additions to her wardrobe annually.
Barbie doll’s signature color is Barbie pink.
The “Barbie Fashion Designer” CD ROM was the best-selling software title of the 1996 holiday season.
Barbie doll’s collection of couture includes designs by Givenchy, Versace, Dolce & Gabana, Vera Wang and Gucci.
The Barbie clothing line for real girls includes knit tops, bootleg pants, backpacks, sleepwear and accessories. A dazzling debut . . .
Barbie doll was introduced in 1959 and first appeared in the now-famous black and white striped swimsuit and signature ponytail.
The inventor of the Barbie doll is Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel. She named the doll after her daughter, Barbara.
During the first year of her introduction in 1959, 351,000 Barbie dolls were sold.
An original 1959 Barbie doll in mint condition has sold for up to $10,000.
Barbie doll is currently a $2.5 billion dollar-per-year industry including licensed products under Barbie Consumer Products.
In 2001, Barbie doll stared in her first movie, Barbie in the Nutcracker; in 2002 she will return in Barbie as Rapunzel.
Barbie doll is celebrating 43 years as the world’s most popular fashion doll in 2002.
Barbie CD ROMs have been the best selling children’s software titles in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.
Barbie.com is the number one girls’ site with logging over 8 million monthly users who spend an average of 42 minutes on the site per visit.
Barbie.com is an online community for girls with the mission to engage, enchant and empower girls by inspiring them to be creative and explore their individual interests. About Mattel
Girls Division
The origins of Barbie–the most popular doll in the world in the last half of the twentieth century–can be traced to Lilli, originally a Das Bild comic strip character of a saucy blonde, later produced as a pornographic doll popular among bachelors in postwar Germany. While on a trip to Europe, Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler discovered Lilli, the prototypical doll she believed would enable girls like her daughter, Barbie, to imagine their future selves in roles other than that of mothers. (Baby dolls dominated the postwar American toy market.) Male designers at Mattel modified the German sex toy into a teenage doll they encoded with the prevailing feminine ideals of both purity and prurience and a consumer culture ethos. The eleven-and-a-half inch Barbie doll and her extensive miniaturized haute couture wardrobe were marketed to stimulate consumer desire among America's youngest shoppers. In turn these shoppers proceeded to make Barbie the most successful product in the history of the toy industry.
Although one billion Barbie dolls had been sold by the early twenty-first century, the doll was not immediately popular with consumers and social critics. Controversy developed shortly after the doll's marketing debut in 1959 at the New York Toy Fair. Mattel's claims about the doll's "educational value" did not convince many mothers at the time who detested the doll's exalted femininity and scandalous sexuality. Barbie's seductive figure, suggestive look, and provocative wardrobe designed to attract the attention of men like her boyfriend Ken led feminists to condemn the doll for its sexual objectification of women. Social critics denounced the doll's materialism–as exemplified by her lavish lifestyle and shopping sprees–and the slavish consumerism it fostered in daughters of hard-working breadwinners. Although Barbie changed with the times from fashion model to career woman, many still pointed to the preoccupation with body image in girls whose beauty ideal was defined by Barbie's unrealistic physique. (She would be ten feet tall if she were real.) On the other hand, scholars and others have shown that girls and boys, children as well as adults, play with Barbie dolls in ways that contest gendered norms.
As a quintessential icon of American femininity, the Barbie doll has served as the focus of countless satirical artistic works, many of which, like The Distorted $arbie website, Mattel has tried to censor. A Barbie doll starred in Superstar (1987), a movie by Todd Haynes that traced the anorexic life and death of singer Karen Carpenter. The iconic Barbie has been printed on faux prayer cards and has been crucified on the cross. In 1993, the Barbie Liberation Organization switched the voice boxes of three hundred Barbies with those of G.I. Joes, leading the Barbies to bellow, "Eat lead, Cobra! Vengeance is mine!" and the perky G.I. Joes to chirp: "Let's go shopping!"
By the early twenty-first century the average American girl between the ages of three and eleven was said to own ten Barbie dolls (purchased at a rate of two Barbies every second). However, a high-priced market developed for the dolls among adult collectors. Among the numerous collectors and dealers who specialized in Barbie dolls, the Barbie Hall of Fame in Palo Alto, California, with its ten thousand Barbies, was the largest collection in the world.
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