The 63-year-old Forestville woman can’t deny that the doll with the straight bleached blond hair influenced her life, and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It’s what my parents taught and modeled to me.” Barbie inspired a move to Californiaīarbie, to Lynn Rogers, has a sun-kissed California tan. “I grew up with Barbie, and I don’t believe the way I feel about beauty and physique is at all tied to Barbie. ![]() ![]() That’s what they're going to remember more than a toy,” the 37-year-old dietitian and mom of two said. ![]() What’s important is what you model to your kids. “I see a lot dolls now that have giant eyes. Few are anatomically accurate, Giselle noted. She said her daughter, who plays Barbie mainly with Grandma Yvette, plays with a lot of other dolls at home in all shapes and sizes. In the big picture, it’s not just one toy that is going to be her impression.” “My first thought was, ‘Oh, is Barbie portraying an unrealistic image of beauty?’ But I think it’s all in how you talk about things. Mom Giselle (who asked that her last name not be used), said it gave her pause when Esme received her first Barbie doll. A few weeks ago, Esme threw a wedding for Barbie Jasmine and Aladdin dolls, both about 30 years old. This is a special time, between grandmother and granddaughter, a chance for quiet play and pretend. She also has Barbie’s 1960s bathroom scale - permanently set at 110 pounds. Willeford has treasured this doll for more than 50 years, keeping everything from her threadbare red ball gown to her plastic apartment with its wild mod interior inspired by London’s Carnaby Street fashion of the 1960s. But also in the bunch is Willeford’s own Miss Barbie, a rare variation with wigs (quickly yanked from the market because her sleepy eyes scared little girls). Here are all the dolls Esme’s mother, Giselle, and her sister played with in the 1980s and 1990s. This is a special thing she does with her granddaughter Esme, when the 4-year-old comes over. On a bright August afternoon, Yvette Willeford unfolds a blanket on her Santa Rosa patio and spreads out two generations of Barbie dolls, more than two dozen in all, plus their cases, accessories, clothing and a swimming pool activated with a garden hose. This device is unable to display framed content. ![]() In a documentary about the doll, feminist Gloria Steinem dissed Barbie as “everything we never wanted to be.” She has managed to prevail over a drumbeat of backlash from critics who say she projects an unattainable standard of beauty and models materialism at its worst. But after winning her degree in 1963, she started busting gender barriers as an astronaut, a surgeon and even a Marine Corps sergeant.Īfter more than a billion Barbies produced since the prototype hit the market in 1959, she remains the queen of the toy box, outlasting generations of competitors, from Tammy and Tressy to Bratz. Early Barbie could be a nurse, a fashion designer, a ballerina or a flight attendant. Today’s girls might choose a petite Barbie or a Barbie with curves, a classic 11½-inch fashionista with an impossibly proportioned body or a 28-inch companion the size of a toddler. Ask 10 random women what their Barbie looked like and you’ll get 10 different answers because Barbie transformed to suit new generations.īarbie could sport a 1962 bubble cut, a mod flip, a ’70s Malibu tan or a massive platinum mane. She made friends and lost friends, from Midge to Nikki. She came in countless guises, beginning with sultry eyes and a snappy ponytail sure to turn heads on the runway or in the malt shop.īarbie changed interests, sports, careers, hairstyles, faces and coloring. Nearly every girl in America and many across the globe born in the last 70 years has a relationship with Barbie.
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