CONTAMINANTES
Barbie: Life in plastic: To date, over 1 billion Barbie dolls have been sold. The average American girl aged between three and 11 owns a staggering ten Barbie dolls, according to Mattel, the American toy giant that manufactures her. An Italian or British girl owns seven; a French or German girl, five. The Barbie brand is worth some $2 billion—a little ahead of Armani, just behind the Wall Street Journal - making it the most valuable toy brand in the world [...]
The doll was modelled by Ruth Handler, who founded Mattel along with her husband, Elliot, on a German toy for adult men called Lilli. Mrs Handler discovered this 11½-inch plastic doll while visiting Germany, and named her adapted version after her daughter, Barbara.
About a Doll
Q: Your mother, Ruth Handler, invented the Barbie doll. How did she get the idea?
Barbara Segal: I was 15. It was the first trip my whole family ever took to Europe. In Lucerne, I spotted a doll in the window like I had never seen before. It was an adult, figurative doll, sort of a sculptural thing, I guess. It was more like a paper doll, but in plastic. In those days, it was Madame Alexander dolls, baby dolls and paper dolls. I only liked paper dolls. You could change the clothes, playact. Once I had seen the doll in the window in Switzerland, I noticed it in some of the other countries also. I was going crazy because I wanted different clothes for it, and they didn't sell the clothes separate. You had to buy a different doll every time you wanted a different outfit. My mother thought, Why is this daughter of mine so crazed about this doll? She bought a couple of them. And when we got back, I never saw them again. They were torn apart and researched, and they got the idea of the separate clothes, and the rest is history.
Ruth Handler, creator of the Barbie doll, died on April 27th, aged 85