FOR NEARLY 60 years Barbie has been something of an icon.
The original blonde children’s doll (first launched in 1959) with the unfeasibly long legs is now set for a makeover however according to its makers Mattel.
Three new doll templates are set to be introduced in order to make Barbie a little more representative of reality as part of this year’s collection, which has been given the very 2016 hashtag #thedollevolves.
The three new figure-types will be: ‘curvy’, ‘tall’, and ‘petite’. The classic Barbie will still be an option however.
Several new skin tones and hair colours are also set to be added to the roster to showcase the doll’s new-found diversity, according to Mattel.
All told the new line will feature:
“Girls everywhere now have infinitely more ways to play out their stories and spark their imaginations through Barbie,” the company says in a statement on its website.
Along with more overall diversity, we proudly add three new body types to our line.
The creation of new ‘body-type templates’ is possibly something of a belated acknowledgement that in her original guise, Barbie would struggle to live if she were in fact human due to a lack of body fat.
With her proportions extrapolated into the real world the original Barbie would be 5’9″ in height and weigh roughly 110 pounds. By contrast the average height and weight of American women in 2013 was 5’4″ in height and a weight of 166 pounds according to the New York Daily News.
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