Barbie has got a new body, yall!
But is America ready for the next generation of realistic looking Barbie dolls? A comprehensive feature in Time magazine explores the background that has led to today’s unveiling by Mattel of an entirely new crop of diverse figures.
I’d like to call it the Ava DuVernay effect. After all, the limited edition dolls made out of the image of the award-winning director (“Selma“) sold out in minutes of it becoming available on the Barbie and Amazon site. Then, within days, the $65 collector’s doll was being auctioned off at $300 a pop. So no doubt. Mattel got the message last December that diversity sells.
So in keeping with its new direction, the toy company released today a new crop of dolls that come in all heights, shapes, sizes, skin tones and hair colors and texture.
The dolls will also be set in an entirely new scenarios outside of homemaker and wife.
Nice. I love the game developer one!
Mattel is keeping the original Barbie dolls but will start to roll these new ones out beginning in March. You can pre-order now at the Barbie website!
But the question was put out there by a participant in BBC’s “Have Your Say” site who asked, “Are kids going to want these Barbies?”
Inquiring minds, want to know. We’ll see. Here are the others