11/5/2022 0 Comments The first barbie doll![]() Peter Max painted Barbie in 1994 in his signature Cosmic style. BillyBoy, a jewelry designer who also designed two dolls for Mattel, was an avid Barbie collector and insisted that he would only allow Warhol to paint his “portrait” if it was a portrait of Barbie. In 1986, Andy Warhol painted a portrait of Barbie, which was in fact intended as a portrait of Warhol’s close friend BillyBoy. Much like the paper dolls that Ruth Handler’s daughter would play with, Barbie can be endlessly customized to represent the personal style, mood, and dreams of the customer, and many artists recognize this blank canvas as the perfect jumping off point. Pop Artists in particular are drawn to Barbie’s mix of commerciality and high fashion. Barbie would continue to make waves for decades to come, introducing Barbie Fashionistas in 2016 with a diverse range of body types, skin tones, and hairs to better suit the doll’s diverse range of customers, and releasing the Inspiring Women collection two years later, featuring dolls of history-making women like Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, and Katherine Johnson.īarbie has inspired a huge range of art forms and artists. The same year, over 40 international Barbie dolls were introduced. The first African-American Barbie was introduced in 1980, designed by Kitty Black Perkins who would go on to be Barbie’s chief designer of fashions and doll concepts. During the 1960s, Mattel introduced several new characters to the Barbie universe including Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, her little sister Skipper, and her best friend Midge. To inspire this market, Barbie has had over 200 careers including doctor, scientist, policewoman, ballerina, and university student. The huge success of the Barbie doll was due in large part to the then-niche market of young girls that Handler recognized. Known for her ever-changing style and career, Barbie was imagined as a reflection of the times, and thus her model constantly shifts, originally mimicking the look of 1950s movie stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. ![]() Mattel bought the rights to the Lilli doll and, in 1959, debuted Barbie at the American Toy Fair in New York. ![]() Officially named Barbara Millicent Roberts, Barbie’s look was modeled after Bild Lilli, a doll inspired by a character from a German comic strip. ![]() Inspired by her daughter playing with paper dolls, Ruth Handler created Barbie as a non-traditional fashion doll aimed towards helping young girls look toward the future. When Harold Matson, co-founder of California-based toy manufacturer Mattel, sold his share in the company to partner Elliot Handler, Handler’s wife Ruth stepped into the role that Matson left behind. Through hundreds of careers and countless redevelopments, Barbie has remained a fixture of our culture since her invention in 1959. Mattel Barbie, Vintage Advertisement, 1965 ![]()
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