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SPECIAL EDITION

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EX
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I N S M OV I E
NEW ll A b o u t t h e
+ A nic Doll
Ico

CUT! PRINT!
In 2015 Barbie (accessorized
with a viewfinder and
script) added film director to
her impressive résumé.
 4
THE ORIGINAL
INFLUENCER
How Barbie got into our
childhoods and stayed

PART I: PART II:

THE MOVIE AN AMERICAN
10 ICON
GIRL ON FILM 46
An inside look at Barbie, THE BABE THAT
starring Margot Robbie
and Ryan Gosling RUTH BUILT
The Handler family
16 and Barbie’s origin story.
Plus: the ’60s!
EXCLUSIVE!
THE BARBIE CAST 58
TELLS ALL! KEN: THE FOREVER
Margot Robbie,
Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, PLUS-ONE
Kate McKinnon, Simu Evolution of a perfect,
Liu, America Ferrera, if plastic, boyfriend.
Michael Cera and director Plus: the ’70s!
Greta Gerwig share stories
from the set. 64
Plus: So. Many. Barbies. WORKING GIRL
Barbie has had
34 hundreds of careers,
ALL DOLLED UP and one big job—
Bringing tiny clothes inspiring kids to dream.
to the big screen. Plus: the ’80s!
Plus: Merch! Some
familiar faces get small 72
SHE’S EVERY
40 WOMAN
A DOLL’S HOUSE New dolls reflect the
The Dreamhouse is diversity of her fans.
architecturally implausible. Plus: the ’90s!
The Barbie filmmakers
built it anyway 80
MINI MUSE
Great fashion
collaborations.
Plus: the ’00s!

88
‘I DRESSED BARBIE’
Memoirs of a
prolific designer.
Plus: Barbie today!

96
ONE LAST THING:
BARBIE

A BIG CULTURAL
FOOTPRINT
Margot Robbie as the 1959
debut doll in Barbie.
Cover image courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
 FOREWORD

The
Original
Influencer
AS THE WOMEN
BEHIND THE BARBIE
MOVIE KNOW, YOU
CAN OFFLOAD YOUR
DOLLS BUT NOT
T H E I R I M PACT
By A L L I S O N A D AT O

A good way to start getting

to know someone is to ask
about her Barbies. Decades
may have passed since she
outgrew the dolls. But the
sense memories run deep:
the sheen of Barbie’s
synthetic hair, the faint
vinyl smell of her cheeks,
the tactile satisfaction
of peeling and sticking
decals on her camper, the
frustration brought on
by one always-lost shoe.
Any of these can take
a person back to her
beginnings. Barbie, by
living her aspirational
lifestyle right there in kids’
rooms around the world, is
the ultimate influencer.
When she was a child in
rural Dalby, Australia, Margot
Robbie obsessed over the
pink Dreamhouse of the
1990s. She remembers how
Barbie would float in her hand,
from one floor to another, no
stairs required. On the other
side of the globe in Potomac,
Md., future Insecure creator
Issa Rae invented romances
for her Barbies and Kens.
In Los Angeles, America
Ferrera, like so many Barbie
owners, could not resist the
impulse to chop the doll’s
blonde hair. Why didn’t it
grow back? And, incidentally,
why was it so often blonde?
Even if a woman didn’t
have Barbies as a girl, the
question gets at something
formative. Maybe she was
raised in a home that didn’t
allow them. That’s a whole
discussion in itself.
Greta Gerwig’s mother
was iffy on Barbie. Some
teenagers in their suburban
Sacramento neighborhood
gave Greta their hand-me-
down dolls, but her mom
long resisted buying one. “I
have this kind of sense
memory . . . standing in Toys
‘R’ Us, looking at the wall of

4
 LIVING FOR THE ’GRAM
Yoga, scented candles,
performative self-care? Yes,
Barbie is also an Instagram
influencer. These images are
from her @barbiestyle account.
Barbie dolls and just loving
them, feeling they seemed
to represent something
totally glamorous and grown
up, this world that was
beyond me,” says Gerwig,
who grew up to act in, write
and direct movies. When
young Greta did, at last, get
a Barbie of her own—brand-
new in the box with that
curlicue B logo—she
believed Santa Claus must
have delivered it; her mom
would never! Girls learn
early that no one is neutral
on Barbie.
Now, in a swirl of pink and
affectionate knowingness,
comes 2023’s Barbie movie,
starring Robbie (one of the
film’s producers), in the title
role and directed by Gerwig.
With it, People is dedicating a
special edition to the world’s
most popular doll. There’s an
exclusive look at the making
of the film, behind-the-
scenes photos and interviews
with Robbie, Ryan Gosling
(Ken) and more of their
costars (see “The Barbie Cast
Tells All,” page 16). And
there’s plenty devoted to the
doll herself: Her outsize place
in the culture, her evolution
into a reflection of her diverse
fan base and the passions
she has evoked since her
1959 debut at the New York
Toy Fair.
Barbie was the brainchild of
a woman, Mattel cofounder
Ruth Handler, who aimed to
create a 3D version of her
daughter’s adult-looking
paper dolls and in so doing
became a pioneering female
leader in 1960s corporate
America. Barbie was also
based on a German bachelor-
BARBIE PEOPLE 5
 FOREWORD
party gag toy, and her U.S.
patent held by a man who
threw swingers’ parties in a
Hollywood castle (see The
Babe That Ruth Built, page 46).
In recent years she’s been
depicted in a range of
ethnicities, abilities and
body types and has pursued
more than 250 careers,
part of the current Mattel
leadership’s efforts to
6
wield the power of Barbie’s
awesome influence
thoughtfully. “Our purpose
is to inspire every kid that
plays with Barbie,” says SVP
Kim Culmone. “Especially
girls who need a role model
to help show them that
they can be anything.” The
approach, Culmone says, has
resonated. In 2021 “we had
the best year Barbie ever
had . . . the world responds
with its purchasing power.”
The movie, of which Mattel
is a producer, takes gentle
issue with the optimism of
the “Girls Can Do Anything”
messaging. A narrator, Helen
Mirren, while introducing the
politics of Barbie’s world to
the uninitiated, explains that
the doll has effectively solved
gender inequality.

Did she? Or did she thwart
progress? The arguments
around Barbie go something
like this: She inspires creative
play. Or she undermines
self-esteem. She’s obsessed
with dating and shopping.
Or she shattered glass
ceilings before they cracked
in real life. She’s got an
implausible figure. Or she
developed some more
ON THE SET
Laughter between
takes of Barbie: Ryan
Gosling, Greta
Gerwig, Simu Liu and
Margot Robbie.
realistic body shapes.
Barbie is more inclusive
than ever. Or, sure she is—
but everyone knows who
is the real Barbie.
“We wanted to talk about
those issues, because it’s
part of the legacy of the
brand,” says Gerwig, who
wrote the film’s script with
her life partner, Noah
Baumbach. “How do we
׺׺
‘ I T WA S
I M P O R TA N T
TO M E
TO K EEP M Y
A D U LT H E A D
AND MY
CHILD’S HEART
P R E S E N T AT
THE SAME
TIME WHILE
DIRECTING’
—GRETA GERWIG
grapple with these things?”
Says Robbie: “We ended up
having big conversations
about the complexities of
being a human.” The result,
she says, is “fun and silly and
complicated and profound.”
Theirs is a contemporary
take, with multiple Barbies
and Kens played by Issa Rae,
Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu
and many others. There are
humans too, America Ferrera
among them, because dolls
are lifeless without people.
At the same time, the
movie is nostalgic. “There’s a
collective memory to
contend with,” says Gerwig.
But Barbie’s power is also
personal, rooted in individual
girlhoods. Long after she
donated her dolls to a
Sacramento children’s home
(Mom’s idea), Gerwig had to
settle on a logo for the film.
Mattel had changed the
signature B over the years—
which did she want? Easy.
“The Barbie logo of my
youth,” she says. “I have an
emotional connection to it.”
BARBIE PEOPLE 7
 T H E M UCH-
T
LO O K A G O T R O B B I E A S
I N S I D E
E M O V I E S ! A N TA R R I N G M A R A S  .  .  .  K E N
B I E G O E S TO T H E E N F E AT U R E S RYA N G O S L I N G
BAR R D
C I P A T E D B I G -S CH I O N D O L L A N
ANTI N I C FA S
T H E I CO

8 BARBIE PEOPLE
 PERFECT PARTNERS
“Margot is great at everything,”
says Ryan Gosling. Of Ken, he says,
“he’s completely humorless. So,
of course, that’s very funny.”

9
 WELCOME TO
HER WORLD
Barbie Land makes
“massive nods to the
architecture and
mountains of Southern
California,” says
production designer
Sarah Greenwood.
But ultimately,
“everything about the
world is totally fake.”

THAT KEN-DO SPIRIT

Below: As Barbie (Emma
Mackey) and Ken
(Kingsley Ben-Adir)
look on, Barbie (Robbie)
cools a face-off between
Ken (Simu Liu) and Ken
(Gosling). “We have
multiple outfits, each
more vibrant and more
ridiculous than the
other,” says Liu. “But I
do feel like this movie
and the spirit of Barbie
is about owning your
shine and becoming the
very best version of
yourself.” Opposite:
Ben-Adir, Gosling and
Ncuti Gatwa as Kens.

10
INSIDE THE MOVIE

BARBIE PEOPLE 11
 INSIDE THE MOVIE

׺׺
‘AFTER
FALLING ON
THE ICE AS
MANY TIMES
AS I DID
DURING
I, TONYA, I WAS
LIKE, “ROLLER
BL ADES?
THAT’S EASY” ’
—MARGOT ROBBIE

ALL RISE!
“I love this script,” says Issa Rae (who
plays President Barbie). “There was
just so much respect and homage
paid to the world of Barbie.”

12
COMPANY B
Above, from left:
Doctor Barbie (Hari
Nef), Author Barbie
(Alexandra Shipp),
Lawyer Barbie (Sharon
Rooney), Justice
Barbie (Ana Cruz
Kayne) and Physicist
Barbie (Emma Mackey).

CAUGHT
FLAT-FOOTED
Weird Barbie (Kate
McKinnon) inspects the
feet of Barbie (Robbie)
when her heels hit the
ground inexplicably.
Left: Ken and Barbie
leave for the real world.

BARBIE PEOPLE 13
 MEET HER MAKER
In the real world Barbie
finds her way to Mattel
headquarters and
encounters the toy
company’s CEO (Will
Ferrell, right). “You
think of a Barbie as
invulnerably stylish and
cool,” says costar Kate
McKinnon. “Margot has
so much inner brain and
heart that jumps out.”

FULL SPEED AHEAD

Opposite: Barbie and
Ken are all smiles on the
not-so-high seas.

14
 INSIDE THE MOVIE

׺׺
‘ WE HAD SO MUCH FUN. IT’S LIKE
EVERYONE’S BEEN WAITING
THEIR WHOLE LIVES FOR A CHANCE
TO EXPLODE INTO THE WORLD
OF BARBIE AND WEAR PINK’
—MARGOT ROBBIE

BARBIE PEOPLE 15
16
 FUN, FUN, FUN
“It’s been years in the
making,” says Robbie
(with Gosling), who is also
a producer of the film.

The Barbie Cast

Tells All
M A R G O T R O B B I E , R YA N G O S L I N G ,
K AT E M C K I N N O N , I S S A R A E , S I M U L I U ,
AMERICA FERRERA, MICHAEL CERA &
D I R E C TO R G R E TA G E R W I G R E V E A L H O W
T H E Y STO P P E D L AU G H I N G J U ST LO N G
E N O U G H TO B R I N G B A R B I E ’S WO R L D TO L I F E
By A L L I S O N A D AT O + K A R A W A R N E R

BARBIE PEOPLE 17
 Because this is a Barbie story,
it begins at a pink palace.
A real one, in fact—the
blushing Beverly Hills
Hotel, where a few years ago
Margot Robbie met with
Mattel’s CEO to pitch a Barbie
movie. Robbie has an eye for
stories that ask audiences
to reconsider women who
provoke strong opinions: She
played Tonya Harding in I, Tonya and a Fox News anchor
in Bombshell and produced the dark, comic revenge
fantasy Promising Young Woman. She was ready to take
on Barbie and her tiny, pink, very abundant baggage.
The rights secured, she needed a like-minded collaborator.
“Even in that initial meeting, I said, ‘It needs to be someone
like a Greta Gerwig,’ ” Robbie recalls. Gerwig, whose first two
films as writer-director, Lady Bird and Little Women, were
Best Picture nominees, happily came aboard and wrote a
script with her partner in life, filmmaker Noah Baumbach.
Both women had a personal past with Barbie. They knew the
film should confront the complicated feelings people have
for the doll. And that it should also have a slide coming out of
Barbie’s house. And dance numbers. And a bonkers amount
of pink. “There are clever conversations, and then the whole
thing is silly and fun and ridiculous,” says Robbie.
They populated their world with many more Barbies,
among them Issa Rae and Kate McKinnon; and some
humans, America Ferrera and Will Ferrell. They resurrected a
discontinued doll, Allan (Michael Cera), and added a handful
of Kens including Simu Liu and, crucially, a game-for-anything
Ryan Gosling. People spoke to Gerwig, Robbie, Gosling and
more of the cast about life on the London set where the
behind-the-scenes crew embraced pink Barbiecore style,
and the dancing rarely stopped, even when the cameras did.
“One of the women in the sound department said, ‘I read that
bright colors, especially pink, make you happy—it makes your
dopamine and serotonin levels higher,’ ” recalls Gerwig. “It
was the most joyful set I’ve been on, ever.”
How did you start thinking about this role.” I said to Greta, “I don’t
Barbie as a character? know how to play it so she doesn’t
MARGOT ROBBIE The movie kicks seem unintelligent.” Barbie’s
IN THE PINK
off with Barbie—the Barbie I extremely intelligent, but she From left: Margot
play—having an existential crisis. also hasn’t experienced anything. Robbie, Alexandra Shipp
I’d worked on it for so many years “I don’t want her to seem vapid, (Author Barbie), Michael
Cera, Greta Gerwig,
as a producer before I started but she shouldn’t be informed.” America Ferrera and
thinking as an actor. Then suddenly Something like shame shouldn’t Arianna Greenblatt
I was like, “Oh yeah, I need to play be a concept that she can even (a human girl).

18 BARBIE PEOPLE
THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

19
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS
׺׺
‘NONE OF THE KENS REALLY
UNDERSTAND WHAT
THEY’RE COMPETING ABOUT.
THERE’S A CHILDLIKE
INNOCENCE TO THEM’
—SIMU LIU
fathom but not because she’s not
smart. It’s because she’s never been
embarrassed before. She hasn’t
encountered something that would
make her doubt before—until she
starts having her existential crisis.
GRETA GERWIG Of course, I’ve
known who Barbie is for forever,
and there’s some sort of collective
memory that I wanted to tap into,
something about: We invent things
like dolls to explain to ourselves
what it means to be human. Part
of me wondered if there was a way
that we could allow the doll to also
20
have that humanity. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful if the Queen of Plastic
was given something real?
Did you give thought to people—
adults—who are Barbie-obsessed
watching this film?
GERWIG Mattel was very generous in
opening their archives and bring-
ing me into where the brand is now.
They talked about collectors and
fans who knew all of the history, were
invested in different specific dolls.
We wanted to show some of the most
iconic versions of the dolls . . . and to
put in Easter eggs for people who are
die-hard fans. I like any community
that really nerds out, and the Barbie
community nerds out really hard,
and it’s pretty beautiful.
How do you prepare to play a doll?
RYAN GOSLING I feel like Margot
and Greta just kind of conjured
Ken out of me somehow. It’s the
first and only script I’ve ever read
where she had written me into it. So
already the spell was being cast as I
read this thing for the first time. It
was kind of like that moment in The
 EVERYBODY DANCE NOW
The film’s Barbie Land setting is “almost like this Adam
and Eve world where self-consciousness does not exist,”
says Simu Liu (in formation with other Kens).

NeverEnding Story where the kid
reading it realizes that the charac-
ters inside can hear him.
ROBBIE It was just kind of fun for
us to figure out, “Okay, how much
are we going to physically act like
a doll?” We decided early on that
we weren’t going to be going too
overt with that kind of stuff. More
than anything, I was trying less
to look and act like an adult but
actually to embody a child, which
was so fun because there’s so
many instances where Ryan and I
have these massive tantrums, and
it’s just inherently funny watch-
ing grown-ups dissolve into a tan-
trum the way a 3-year-old would.
Finding my inner child was more
helpful than trying to make
something feel stiff or plastic.
Tell us about your characters.
SIMU LIU My Ken’s name is Ken
Simu. It is not every day that you
get to play a character named after
you. All the Kens—how do I put
this?—don’t really have a whole lot
to do with their lives. The Barbies
are doctors, Nobel Prize winners,
astronauts, physicists, authors,
everything in between. Kens are
just Kens, and in the absence of
really anything to do, their job is
Beach, which is just hanging out at
the beach and waiting for a Barbie
to validate their existence.
ISSA RAE Greta picked my brain: If
this were the child version of you,
how would she dress her President
Barbie? How would her President
Barbie act? She is who my childhood
version of a President would be. I
think that she commands a lot of
respect. But that’s for you to judge.

BARBIE PEOPLE 21
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

׺׺
‘ E V E RYO N E H A S
A N A S S O C I AT I O N
WITH BARBIE,
GOOD OR
B A D . I WA S N O
DIFFERENT’
—MARGOT ROBBIE

KATE MCKINNON So the Weird

Barbie is that one special Barbie,
or several special Barbies, that I
feel like every kid had that you play
with a little too hard. You give them
a haircut, and then you cut that
hair more, and then you draw on
their face with marker, and you put
them in other doll’s clothes, and
they become a receptacle for your
worst impulses.

And she’s always in the splits. How

did you manage that?
MCKINNON That’s not my real leg.
That was an ingeniously concocted
fake-leg rig. I stood there for hours
without breaking a sweat.

Amazing Halloween costumes will

come out of these characters.
MCKINNON I pray. That’s
my goal in life: Provide joy on my
favorite holiday.
GOSLING I have seen some of them
this past Halloween. I saw a roller-
skating Ken coming down the road.
I feel that Kenergy is brewing. It’s a
Ken-aissance.
There are also some humans. What
can you tell us about yours?
AMERICA FERRERA Gloria is a hu-
man that Barbie encounters in the
real world . . . and then hijinks ensue.
I think I’m allowed to say that. I
was so giddy and felt so lucky when
Greta called me. Even though Bar-
bie was such an iconic narrative for
young girls, it didn’t seem necessar-
ily like an accessible one for me. The
fact that there was space for some-
body like me inside of that narrative
is a positive and is real change and
growth from what I grew up with.
And then there’s Allan. For the
uninitiated, who is Allan?
MICHAEL CERA Allan is a bit of a
sad figure. He’s contextualized
completely by someone else, Ken,
who he just lives for. He and Ken
had their glory days, and now that’s
so far behind, it can never come
back. I think it’s a bit of a failed
venture, this doll. The market was
not showing any interest in him.
I hope that this movie will renew
that, and there’ll be resurgence of
Allan dolls. It can be a slow-burn,
triumphant tale for this poor little
guy. I actually bought an Allan doll.
It lived in the makeup room for the
whole movie.
RAE That cracks me up that Mi-
chael Cera bought an Allan doll. I
mean, he’s just already naturally

22

funny, but he embodied him per-
fectly. So whatever works.
How did all the many Barbies and
Kens get on in real life?
LIU Margot was so great. She had a
sleepover with the Barbies before
photography started, and the Kens
were allowed to either visit briefly
or to phone in and say hi. So we
made sure to show our support but
not be overbearing with our pres-
ence. And all the Barbies and Kens
got in a group chat .
CERA I don’t have an iPhone
myself. . . . I have a flip phone. But I
still think I wouldn’t belong on [the
group chat] anyway, because Allan
is sort of in his own little world.
Greta’s gift for me when I arrived
was a picture disc of NSYNC’s No
Strings Attached, which felt like
somehow a real guiding light in the
backstory of this character.
RAE I got there late. I was so sad
[to miss the sleepover]. But there
INSTANT
GRATIFICATION
Robbie, Ana Cruz
Kayne (Supreme
Court Justice Barbie),
Gerwig and Hari
Nef (Doctor Barbie)
sharing an early peek.
were so many bonding activities.
Simu’s birthday happened there.
And Margot and Tom [Ackerley,
Robbie’s husband and coproducer]
would have movie nights.
GOSLING Margot had this pink day
once a week, where everyone had
to wear something pink. And if you
didn’t, you were fined. She would
go around collecting the fines, and
she would donate it to a charity.
What was really special was just how
excited the male crew members
BARBIE PEOPLE 23
 were. At the end of the film, they
all got together and, with their
own money, made pink crew shirts
with rainbow fringe. It was this
opportunity for them to show their
respect and admiration for what
Margot and Greta were creating.
It was almost like that scene at the
end of Dead Poets Society, where
they all get on their desk and say,
“O captain! My captain!”
Did you ever get fined?
GOSLING No, I was often in pink,
because of the Ken wardrobe.
Simu, Michael and Ryan are all from
Ontario. Was there some bonding
among the Canada guys?
GOSLING Did you just inadvertent-
ly say Kenada? Like Ken-ada. We’re
all Ken-adian.
24
Oh my God. Yes! Ken-adian! But
Michael would say he’s Allan.
GOSLING [Sighs heavily.] Oh. Allan.
Did everyone grow up with Barbies?
ROBBIE I wasn’t actually a hard-
core Barbie girl. I didn’t have my
bedroom filled with Barbies. My
sister must have had some but
wouldn’t let me play with them.
“My cousin had a bunch. For me
it was all about the Dreamhouse.
That’s what I had.
MCKINNON I was more of a
block person.
FERRERA My cousin had lots and
lots of Barbies. Half of them were
always naked and in the splits, for
sure. We cut their hair. I definitely
had the experience of being a bored
kid with a poor defenseless Barbie
doll. And of course, if you had
brothers or boy cousins, you knew
that they were going to be defiled
in some way.
RAE My Barbies were fulfilling
scenarios. They were also like
sex ed, when I didn’t know what
sex was. They were my opportu-
nity to play God—Barbies were
the Sims for me before I played
the Sims. There was also a lot of
stigma associated with Barbie.
I felt like there was a lot of pres-
sure, image-wise, playing with
White Barbie dolls and my
parents making sure I had Black
Barbie dolls so I felt represented.
Barbies made me aware of
race at a young age—there was s
o much held on Barbie’s shoul-
ders. As a kid I just wanted to
play and tell stories and make
them kiss.
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

IT WAS A STRETCH
“Even in the scenes
with no dancing, they
were always doing
these massive group
dance warm-ups at the
beginning of the day,”
says Gosling (left, with
Kingsley Ben-Adir).
“Jenny White, our
choreographer, would
lead the whole cast
and crew.”

SLIDE RULE
Robbie says she asked
Gerwig, “I have one
request: ‘Please, can
Barbie have a slide that
goes from her bedroom
down to her pool?’ She
said, ‘Really? That’s the
only request?’ I’m like,
‘That and there could be
a Mermaid Barbie?
That’d be great.’ ”

What is interesting is how this
Barbie operates on a kid’s view of
the world, but that the movie also
acknowledges how adults
understand her.
RAE Part of the brilliance of the
movie and of Greta and Noah’s
writing is that it doesn’t shy away
from any of that. There is such a
stark playfulness, but it’s such a
rich examination of the way that
we created this doll for play and
then have placed all these
expectations on it and critiqued
it, resented it.
ROBBIE It does end up moving to
quite a profound place. I don’t want
to pigeonhole it to saying it’s just
about the complexities of being a
woman. The complexities of being
a human, really, is the conversation
that we end up having.
RAE In Barbie Land there’s so many
different Barbies. Barbies can be
everything. And Ken, not so much.
I remember I had a Jean Jacket Ken
and a Black Beach Ken who was
really fine, had waves on his head and
his hair and great shorts. But that’s
like, that’s all I can say about Ken.
For the guys maybe you didn’t have
a Barbie, but you knew about her.
How does she fit in for you?
GOSLING My kids were my
introduction to it. I think they’re
confused as to why I would want
to play Ken. They have no use for
Ken. There is a scene that required
an extra amount of prep and work
from me. And my kids were around
for the months at home, as I was
prepping for it. So they, inadver-
tently, were prepping for it too.
And they came to set that day and
were a huge sense of support and
doing it with me off-camera.
CERA Neither of my sisters really
went deep on the Barbie world,
but they dabbled. We were like a
Polly Pocket, Cabbage Patch kind
of house. I was Ninja Turtles and
Ghostbusters, basically.
LIU What can I say, I was a product
of the patriarchy of the times. I
learned to play with action figures.
Fire trucks and He-Man were cool,
and anytime anybody brought up
Barbie or anything pink to me, I
was like, “Ew, gross.” I was an only
child, and we were an immigrant
family. So the toys I had were
whatever my parents got from
the nearby garage sale. I honestly
didn’t have that much exposure to a
physical Barbie doll. Now, I know a

BARBIE PEOPLE 25
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

׺׺
‘MARGOT AND
RYAN WERE FUNNY
BECAUSE THEY
COMMITTED TO
IT INCREDIBLY
HARD . . . IT’S OUT OF
LOVE. THEY WERE
FUNNY BECAUSE
THEY WERE TAKING
IT SO SERIOUSLY’
—GRETA GERWIG

26

“You couldn’t help but be a doll and be immersed in this world when you stepped foot on-set,” says Issa Rae, who plays President Barbie.
“Especially when you got to see the other cast members dressed up. It was always fun to see everybody’s costumes for the day.”
lot of boys tortured the Barbie doll.
I actually never did.
What about for you, Greta?
GERWIG I had a mom who was a
little suspicious of Barbie, the way
a lot of moms—in that generation
especially, coming off of the ’60s—
were about Barbie. But there were
girls in the neighborhood who
were a little bit older than me, who
ended up giving me their Barbie
dolls when they outgrew them. My
mom eventually did relent. I said to
her, “There must be a Santa Claus,
because you would never buy me a
Barbie.” I have a memory of playing
with them alone, of creating stories
with them alone. Actually it’s a
little hard to describe what that
state of play feels like as an adult.
I can see my kids go into it, and
it’s a very beautiful state. As you
get older, sometimes you lose it.
Maybe for me, writing is the way to
connect back to that state.
HOW THEY KEPT IT REAL
As you got older and became aware
of the discussion around Barbie—
that her body was unrealistic, that
this might hurt girls’ self-esteem—
how did you think about it all?
GERWIG In a way making the movie
was kind of processing all of these
different facets. Part of what Noah
and I were doing in the script is look-
ing at where the brand began—as
she describes herself, “stereotypical
Barbie”—then how different they
are today than they were even 20
years ago. Also being able to, through
the characters, really confront what
the argument against a Barbie would
be head-on. To not talk about it
would be a glaring omission. What’s
fascinating about Barbie is that it’s
both this thing that you can love and
have all these criticisms against. At
the same time, Barbie went to the
moon before women had credit
cards, which is sort of extraordinary.
What a wonderful, rich landscape of
contradiction to step into.
FERRERA Any other version
wouldn’t fly in this age, any version
that didn’t accept all the complex
feelings people have. Barbie’s un-
apologetic acceptance of her own
fabulousness is actually quite revo-
lutionary when you think about
it, that in this imaginary world,
there’s a place where girls are like,
“We’re everything, and we’re all
we need.” And Ken kind of serves a
purpose, but he’s not the point.
MCKINNON The world-building
is so clear and has huge ideas in it
about life and gender politics and
all of this stuff that’s really subver-
sive baked into it, while at the same
time being just kooky and fun.
What was the reaction as the cast
stepped onto the pink Barbie Land
set for the first time?
GOSLING It was like what I imag-
ined Dorothy felt like showing up
in The Wizard of Oz.
ROBBIE I was obsessed with the
BARBIE PEOPLE 27
 Dreamhouse, and I can’t tell you
what a surreal experience it was
watching hundreds of people build
a real-life Dreamhouse on these
incredible sets and watching all
the things that we played with as
kids transform into life-size toys in
front of your eyes, and then getting
to physically go on the slide and
wake up in the bed.
RAE The set designers put in every
single little piece, from pencil
sharpeners to little ornaments that
you’ll never be able to see. The at-
tention to detail was just so stellar.
GERWIG Pink was such a huge
part of it. I really wanted to connect
with my emotional memory of Bar-
bie, which was pink. I never wanted
to forget what I loved as a little girl:
I wanted bright, I wanted sparkles,
I wanted iridescent. We had, I don’t
know, 500 different swatches of
pink, and it was always the brighter,
happier ones. I didn’t want any-
thing too salmon-y. It made me feel
like it was honoring the little girl RAE That was my first day on-set. It said other than in that moment. I’m
inside myself. was so overwhelming because I’m pretty sure it’s what got me the role.
not a dancer. That was scary to meet GOSLING I loved working with
Were you allowed to go down the the entire cast for the first time and Simu; he’s so great at everything.
slide when you weren’t filming? be thrown into a dance number. Basically all of the other Kens
GOSLING No . . . that’s Barbie’s LIU At one of my first meetings and Barbies were all dancers.
slide. We were all very respectful of with Greta, she asked about my
Barbie’s stuff. dance background. I shared that I Ryan, you’ve danced before, so it’s
was a competitive hip-hop dancer not like it was foreign.
There is also some serious dancing in college. I’ve never seen Greta so GOSLING Well, I hung up the
in this movie. impressed by anything that I’ve hammer pants a long time ago.

28 BARBIE PEOPLE
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

FOR THE BLOOPER REEL

“Ryan is a great improviser,” says Kate McKinnon (with
Gosling). Inset: Gerwig stifling her reaction to the scene. The
director and the former SNL star were in a college comedy
troupe together. “I knew she was a genius,” says McKinnon.

I had to dust them off.
CERA I still have those moves in
my body. I really worked it.
FERRERA I happened to be hang-
ing around on a dance rehearsal
day, and they needed a stand-in
because Margot was off doing
some Very Important Producer
thing. I was like, “I’ll be Margot.”
I learned the choreography, and
then I just kept showing up to
dance rehearsal just because I
wanted to be there with every-
body. I had zero place in the dance.
I was not supposed to be there.
GERWIG Everyone on-set did the
warm-up. I mean, it wasn’t just
the actors. The camera crew did it.
Rodrigo Prieto, who is my genius
cinematographer, was in the front
doing the dance. Every guy on-set
knew all the words to the Ken
song and would sing it. It was sort
of extraordinary.
How did you manage to shoot with-
out laughing through every take?
ROBBIE Ryan is the most come-
dically gifted actor I have ever
worked with. He really is. He’s
known for his dramatic acting, and
rightly so. But he is unbelievably
gifted with comedy, and I ruined

29
 THE BARBIE CAST TALKS

YOU CAN’T
BE SERIOUS
“He does do everything
in this movie: singing,
playing the guitar,
dancing,” says Robbie of
Gosling. “There was no
end to the surprises
Ryan would come out
with every single day.”

most of his takes because I was
laughing through all of it.
MCKINNON Margot, it’s just so
fun to try to make her break. She
doesn’t. She’s a consummate pro-
fessional, but it’s fun to try.
ROBBIE Fortunately I’ve done a
movie [Bombshell] with Kate, and
I’ve done SNL with her too. I love
her so much. But I could brace
myself for what she would come
out with. Ryan, it was just so unex-
pected every time.
GERWIG Margot and Ryan . . . it’s like
watching Carole Lombard and John
Barrymore. They’re just outrageous.
They’re so great. I would have to
hide myself behind a barrier and
have something that I could bite so
that I didn’t laugh and ruin the takes.
LIU The great tragedy of bring-
ing masters like Will Ferrell and
Kate McKinnon on board is that
no matter how many golden takes
they give, you can only print one
version of the scene.
GERWIG The first time Ryan walked
onto the set wearing an all-pink out-
fit . . . I couldn’t believe he was going
to wear this. I mean, I knew what the
costume was going to be, but when
he actually showed up as Ken, I don’t
think I’ve ever laughed harder.

30

The costumes are amazing.
Did you keep anything?
ROBBIE I did not keep any cos-
tumes, because I always have my
producer hat on, and I was like,
“No, they have to be archived. It
belongs to the studio, blah, blah,
blah.” Then I talk to all the other
actors, and they’re like, “Oh, I
took that.” And I’m like, “Dam-
mit, why didn’t I?”
MCKINNON I was not allowed to
keep any parts, no. I was fortunate
to work very closely with the hair
and makeup master Ivana Pri-
morac and the costume designer
Jacqueline Durran. They are
amazing artists. Every square inch
of the entire look was painstakingly
delved into, which is funny because
it’s supposed to look like she’s had
the s--t kicked out of her, basically.
׺׺
‘THE MIX OF
B A R B I E , M A R G OT
A N D G R E TA I S
SO UNEXPECTED.
IT’S THE VERSION
OF BARBIE WE
DESERVE IN THIS
G E N E R AT I O N ’
—AMERICA FERRERA
LIU I don’t know if I was allowed to
keep it or not, but there is a . . . shall
we say a Ken onesie. I knew from the
moment that I laid eyes on it that I
wanted it forever. It’s so comfy, but
it’s also fabulous and amazing.
Is this film a one-off, or will there be
a Barbie Cinematic Universe?
GERWIG I hope it is the launch of
a world and a bunch of different
Barbie movies. There’s a tone and a
humor and a joy, and obviously the
world is so beautiful. I want to go
back to Barbie Land.
ROBBIE Greta has a very specific
thing where she can be very silly
and very clever at the same time,
but it’s also very heartfelt. Her
humor never feels cynical or cold.
It’s always warm and loving, but
also really, really silly and kind of
zany and absurd. I actually think
it’s a bit of a throwback in tone. To
be honest, I don’t feel like I’ve seen
a movie that utilizes that kind of
comedy in a long, long time.
It can certainly live on through
tie-ins. Ryan, have you seen the doll
Mattel made of you as Ken?
GOSLING Let’s just say it’s some-
thing you can never unsee. Another
Ken that my kids cannot play with.
Interviews were conducted
separately and edited for space
and clarity.
BARBIE PEOPLE 31
 THE BARBIE
C A S T F E AT U R E S
A LOT O F D O L L S .
H E R E , A G U I D E TO
T H E TOY C H E ST

So.
Many.
PRESIDENT BARBIE
Issa Rae
Barbies. WEIRD BARBIE
Kate McKinnon

׺׺
‘BARBIES
CAN BE
EVERY THING ,
AND
THEY ARE
EVERY THING .
AND SO
BARBIE LAND
REFLECTS
T H AT ’
KEN DOCTOR BARBIE —ISSA RAE
Simu Liu Hari Nef

LAWYER BARBIE JOURNALIST BARBIE KEN

Sharon Rooney Ritu Arya Kingsley Ben-Adir

32
 ALLAN & MIDGE
Michael Cera plays Ken’s pal, while
Emerald Fennell (from The Crown) is
his wife and Barbie’s BFF, Midge.

KEN AUTHOR BARBIE MERMAID BARBIE

Ncuti Gatwa Alexandra Shipp Dua Lipa

DIPLOMAT BARBIE PHYSICIST BARBIE KEN

Nicola Coughlan Emma Mackey Scott Evans

BARBIE PEOPLE 33
 All
Dolled
Up
HOW BARBIE’S COSTUME DESIGNER
MET THE CHALLENGE OF INTERPRETING
DECADES OF LOOKS OWNED—AND
LOVED—BY MILLIONS
By C A R L A S O S E N K O

34
96 BARBIE PEOPLE
 “There’s something a little high-
maintenance about Barbie,” says Margot
Robbie. “It’s not just a top and a skirt.
It’s a top, a skirt, a jacket with a bow. It’s a
hat with a bow. It’s a pair of cute shoes that
match. She’d take forever to pack for a
trip!” Multiply that across at least 11
Barbies and five Kens, and you begin to see
the monumental task for costume designer
Jacqueline Durran. “Every time the scene
changes, everybody changes,” says
Durran, who adds that director Greta
Gerwig tends toward more scenes, not
fewer. “She nearly killed me on Little
Women,” says Durran, who won an Oscar
for that effort. “That’s part of the greatness
of her movies—so much energy.”
It isn’t only filmmakers she had to satisfy
but also fans with memories of specific
outfits. She also considered how kids play.
With the gingham ensemble (next page):
Barbie “wakes up, and let’s say the child
takes that clothing pack and Barbie is put
into the dress. By the time she gets to the
beach, she’s in the beach part, and it all
matches.” In other films a character can
spend a day in one outfit. But as doll
owners the world over know, “you’re always
dressing a Barbie.”

CAMP ICON
Robbie’s Barbie alone
had 30 looks, many
custom-made and in
some cases, says Durran,
“we made the fabric.”
Right: Her sketches for
the cookout scene.
 GINGHAM STYLE
Manipulating scale conveys “doll-ness,” says
Gerwig. Doll clothes rarely have proportional prints,
and “a button is enormous” so kids can work them.

GOOD SPORTS
“Everyone was happy, and everyone bought into the whole concept,” says
Durran of the cast’s reaction to their sometimes very over-the-top costumes.

STANDOUT LOOKS
“I wasn’t prepared for being on Venice Beach in those outfits and trying to
skate—something you can’t really prep for,” says Ryan Gosling, sporting ’90s
Ken roller-blade garb. “Thank God Margot was there as my rock.”

FRAYED AND FAMILIAR

“My intention was to keep tethered to the
history,” says Durran, whose sleeveless denim
jacket had hints of Earring Magic Ken.

36 BARBIE PEOPLE
DON’T MESS WITH A CLASSIC
Barbie’s 1959 black-and-white
one-piece and Ken’s 1961 red
trunks are Durran’s most literal
interpretations of the original doll
clothes. Above: her sketches.

37
 YOUÕRE A DOLL!

Fun
Sized!
YO U K N E W T H E Y
WERE COMING:
NEW DOLLS BASED
O N T H E S TA R S
P L AY I N G T H E D O L L S

HOW SHE SHINES

For the disco
jumpsuit Durran had
asked Best to see
gold and white looks
from the Barbie
archive. He later
made the tiny
version of her vision.

In a pop culture mobius-

loop moment to rival any
metaverse, there are now
Barbie dolls in the likenesses
of actors playing Barbie dolls.
“Anyone who signed up for
this project probably
anticipated it,” says Robert
Best, Mattel’s VP of product
design, who has Barbiefied
loads of stars, an often
emotional process. “You’re
capturing the essence of
who they are. You want
them to love it, and you
also want it to feel accurate,
knowing that fans have
an expectation.” VEST IN SHOW
It begins with a visit to the Ken’s denim may
already be a fan
Barbie HQ in El Segundo, favorite. As early
Calif., where a machine images of Ryan
(“8,000 cameras that blind Gosling in costume
you,” per Michael Cera) hit the internet,
“there’s a reason
creates a 360º digital scan people were losing
as a reference for a team of their minds,”
artists. “In the past a lot of says Best.
the sculptors worked in clay,
from photographs,” says Best.

38
 POLITICAL GLAM
Issa Rae’s President Barbie
doll comes with an evening
look—and a sash! (How
come President Biden never

׺׺
got one of those?)

‘IT IS ABOUT
REPRESENTING
THEM AS THEY
WA N T TO
BE SEEN, AND
B E I N G FA I T H F U L .
YO U H AV E
TO D O A LOT
OF EDITING
T O T R A N S L AT E
D OWN TO
T H AT S I Z E ’
—ROBERT BEST,
VP BARBIE DESIGN

The challenge this time was

to create Margot Robbie “but
have it identify as Barbie,” he
says. “It needs to look like the
character.” The doll outfits
are based on Jacqueline
Durran’s costumes, them-
selves inspired by signature
Barbie looks. “It truly feels like
they paid attention, which,
as a Barbie designer, was so
gratifying,” says Best. “We
then tried to make a faithful
version of their vision.” With
the dolls complete, he says,
“it’s been fun to see the
talent’s reaction. You want
them to be happy. You don’t
want someone to see their
doll and say, ‘Oh God, that’s
SISTERHOOD OF not what I look like!’ ”
THE TRAVELING
PANTSUIT Of course there is another
Just because she group who will need to give
plays a human the Barbie Barbies a thumbs-
character, Gloria,
doesn’t mean
up. “The kid experience is
America Ferrera core to what we’re doing,”
isn’t also a doll. says Best. “We are first and
foremost toy designers.”

BARBIE PEOPLE 39
 A Doll’s
House
YOU CAN RIDE THE SLIDE AND WALK
ON THE POOL: BARBIE’S
PRODUCTION DESIGNER SHARES
HER SECRETS OF THE SET
By C A R L A S O S E N K O

FAKING IT
In the cul-de-sac, “everything is
three-dimensional up to the wall,” says
Greenwood, who flattened out some
palm trees and mountains to make the
space feel like a kid’s diorama.

40
 EXTREME
OPEN PLAN
“The whole thing
about Dreamhouses
is that there are
no walls,” says
production designer
Sarah Greenwood.
So that’s how the
sets were built.
“When you go really
wide, you get CGI,
but everything else
is in-camera.”

STICKER SHOCK
“In the car, her rearview
mirror is a decal, and
where the radio would
be is a decal,” says director
Greta Gerwig. “Using
a sticker detail instead
of having an object felt
so ‘toy’ to me.”

HIDE-AND-SEEK
Barbie dolls don’t use
stairs—but human
actors do! “There are
staircases throughout
[for] safety,” says
Greenwood. “We tried
every which way so
they’re not seen.”

BARBIE PEOPLE 41

Real estate envy is real—for many it starts
with the Dreamhouse. Be jealous of
Margot Robbie and the other Barbie-movie
Barbies who got to inhabit that fantasy
home, as it was constructed on a London
soundstage. For production designer
Sarah Greenwood, the challenge was not
building the Dreamhouse as it would exist
if it were an actual house, but rather
creating a human-size version of the
implausibly wall-less, stair-less toys people
grew up with. “They defy architectural
logic,” Greenwood tells People. Realizing
them entailed “massively complicated”
cantilevers and other feats of engineering.
Creating a space where people seem
like dolls was largely a trick of scale. “The
roof is only about 1 ft. higher than your
head, because that’s the way Barbies are
42
1
when they’re standing in a Dreamhouse,”
notes director Greta Gerwig. Says
Greenwood, a six-time Oscar nominee
(Atonement, Beauty and the Beast):
“Everything we built—the houses, the
cars—is 22 percent smaller than they
would be in real life.” So Robbie’s Barbie 2
seems massive inside her car, because,
as any little girl knows, you really have to 3
squish those long plastic legs in there.
The key to a cohesive world was to
write guidelines and stick to them.
The two women, along with costume
designer Jacqueline Durran, had, says
Gerwig, “months of calls, of trying to figure
out what are the rules of the universe,
how does it look?”
What they came up with was a
hypersaturated palette inspired by
Gerwig’s love of 1950s musicals, which
are rife with lush green lawns, blue skies
and magic hours (think Funny Face and
High Society). There are also nods to
Barbie’s native Southern California: the
space-age L.A. airport building that here is
the color of bubble gum, the Malibu coast
and the mountains of the SoCal desert, all
in one improbable vista that flattens into a
two-dimensional backdrop—just like a toy.
“Just endless fun,” says Greenwood. “From
the very first script I read, it remained true.”
 SECRETS OF THE SET

4
IN THE DETAILS
1. There’s no mirror
in her vanity, no
water in her shower.
2. Barbie’s closet
suggests toy-set
packaging showing
off everything
that’s included.
3. Nice view from the
bedroom, but for
Gerwig it was all about
those pink sparkles:
“I didn’t want anything
that felt too tasteful.”
4. Yes, Robbie really
went down that curlicue
slide. “There’s a wire
so that they could
control the speed,”
says Greenwood. “And
there were a couple
of [unseen] posts to
hold it up.” Her pool,
which she can walk
across, is made of resin.
 1⁄ 2" D O L L
O F A N 1 1
O R T H I S TO RY
A SH
 NIFTY AT 60
An original 1959
Barbie doll, alongside a
portrait of Mattel
founders Ruth and Elliot
Handler with kids Ken
and Barbara, in a 2019
birthday exhibit.

BARBIE PEOPLE 45
 The Babe That
Ruth Built
BASED ON A GERMAN DOLL FOR MEN, PATENTED BY
A ROCKET DESIGNER AND NAMED FOR AN AMERICAN TEENAGER,
BARBIE WAS THE BRAINCHILD OF RUTH HANDLER
By C A R L A S O S E N K O

THE HANDLERS AT HOME

Elliot, Ruth, Ken and Barbara—
aka Barbie—Handler
in Los Angeles in 1955.

46
barbie was born in 1959, a fully formed
teenage babe. Barbara Handler was born
in 1941, an actual baby. The year Barbara
turned 4, her parents, Ruth and Elliot
Handler, started a company in the fam-
ily’s Los Angeles garage making plastic
picture frames and, with the scraps,
creating dollhouse furniture. Ruth would
watch Barbara and her friends play with
paper dolls and would “listen, fascinated
. . . hour after hour,” she would write in a
memoir. “I discovered something very
important: They were using these dolls
to project their dreams of their own
futures as adult women. . . . Wouldn’t it be
great if we could take that play pattern
and three-dimensionalize it?”
The daughter of Polish immigrants,
Ruth, who’d previously worked as a
movie studio secretary, hit upon a novel
idea: that girls would want to “be” a
grown-up doll rather than “mother” a
baby doll. “You must remember, Barbie
was the first fashion doll for children in
the form of an adult,” says Kim Culmone,
SVP of Barbie design at Mattel. “Ruth
was able to sell Barbie in a toy industry
that was hesitant to think of a doll that
a girl could use to project her hopes and
inspirations.”
At the time, such a doll was itself
just a hope. Ruth pitched the idea to
Elliot and their then partner Harold
“Matt” Matson in the company named
for the two men (Matt+El). Both were
skeptical, she recalled in her 1994 book
Dream Doll. “ ‘Ruth, it won’t work,’ I
was told flatly.” Their team pointed to

BARBIE PEOPLE 47
 GILDING THE LILLI
Unlike Barbie,
who was meant to
inspire young girls,
her predecessor Lilli
was built to delight
grown men. Mattel
acquired the rights to
Bild Lilli in 1964.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE
Elliot, Ruth and the Mattel team broke
ground on the company’s headquarters
in Hawthorne, Calif., ca. 1960.

prohibitive production costs, but she didn’t believe
it. “I really think that the squeamishness of those
designers—every last one of them male—stemmed
mostly from the fact that the doll would have breasts.
Even Elliot, who has an uncanny knack for correctly
predicting what others will buy, feared that no
mother would buy her daughter a doll with a chest.”
Meanwhile, Mattel expanded into toy uku-
leles, pianos and music boxes and by 1951 was a
multimillion-dollar business. It outgrew its suburban
garage, and Barbara outgrew paper dolls. Still, Ruth
held on to her idea. On a 1956 family trip to Switzer-
land, she and Barbara spotted a figure—a tiny plastic
fully mature woman—in the window of a Lucerne
toy shop. “Here were the breasts, the small waist, the
long, tapered legs I had enthusiastically described for
the designers all those years ago,” recalled Ruth.
The Lilli doll was based on a buxom gold-digging
character in a comic strip from Bild-Zeitung, a
German tabloid. The Bild Lilli doll was sold in
tobacco shops to men for purposes that have perhaps
been lost to history. Dashboard mascot? Gag gift?
Lilli made her way into toy stores, but anyone famil-
iar with her persona wouldn’t be inclined to buy her
for a child. Ruth, though, saw her dream come to life.
She brought a Lilli home and put Jack Ryan, Mattel’s
new VP of research and development, on the project
of adapting the men’s doll for American girls.
Lured to Mattel from Raytheon, where he’d de-
signed missiles for the U.S. Defense Department, Ryan
drew up the specs and would hold the patent on the
doll that Ruth would name after her daughter. Also
the eventual creator of Mattel’s Chatty Cathy doll and
Hot Wheels cars, Ryan was an outsize and sometimes
troubled personality. Married five times, including to
actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, he became notorious for wild
parties at his faux-moated castle in Bel Air. (From
People’s 1975 profile: “Guests ate lavish meals without

48

benefit of utensils in the tapestry-laden ‘Tom Jones’
room. By dialing certain combinations of numbers on
the 150 telephones in the house, Ryan could activate
a waterfall . . . or order caviar for eight in a sumptuous
tree house with a crystal chandelier.”) He ultimately
feuded with the Handlers and left the company in
1974. But in the late ’50s Ryan was Mattel’s secret
weapon in winning the space race in miniature. It
would outpace its competition with a plastic rocket
that could soar a thrilling 200 ft. into the air.
Just ahead of the 1959 toy fair, The New York Times
predicted it would be the year’s hottest item with this
headline: “Toy Missile No Flight of Fancy.” Tossed in
at the end of the story was the news that the company
was also bringing out an 111⁄2-in. doll with “a teenage
figure,” the Times noted, “contrasting the infantile
rotundity traditionally given to dolls.” Needless to say,
the paper missed the real bombshell to come.
Barbie debuted March 9, 1959, a date that is now
HER ORIGIN STORY
the character’s official birthday. She had a last name,
Roberts, a striped swimsuit and a 22-piece wardrobe
(sold separately). But response to the $3 fashion doll
was poor among retailers. “Eighty percent who saw it
said, ‘The American public will not buy it,’ ” Ruth later
told The New York Times. So the Handlers reached their
audience by airing ads during The Mickey Mouse Club.
The little girls got it, and stores that had refused to carry
Barbie, said Ruth, “a year later . . . were begging us for the
stuff.” By 1964 a million Barbies walked on tiptoe among
us. Soon Barbie branched out from fashion model: She
was a nurse, an astronaut, a big-city career girl. Her
clothing choices exploded—and so did the controversy
around her. Mattel’s own research showed that some
mothers worried about giving their daughters a doll
with “too much of a figure.” The effect of her mythical
proportions, along with later talking versions that chat-
tered about shopping and dating, led to a protest outside
the 1972 toy fair, where members of the National
BARBIE PEOPLE 49
 BLUEPRINT FOR BARBIE
A 1961 patent filed by Mattel VP of design Jack Ryan (left, with second wife Zsa Zsa Gabor) reveals
the doll’s detailed construction. Opposite: Barbie’s March 9, 1959, debut look: black-and-white-
striped bathing suit, shoes, sunglasses and a suggested retail price of $3.
 HER ORIGIN STORY

׺׺
‘ I WEN T U P TO
MY H OT EL RO O M
A N D B U R S T I N TO
T E A R S O F G R I E F.
MY ‘BABY’ HAD
BEEN REJECTED’
—RUTH HANDLER ON
BARBIE’S RECEPTION AT
THE 1959 TOY FAIR

BARBIE PEOPLE 51
 HER ORIGIN STORY

THE FAMILY BUSINESS, THEN AND NOW

Ruth and Elliot at work in 1951; their company also gave kids Hot Wheels and the See N’Say talking toy. Opposite: Barbara Handler Segal
cemented her legacy (and her namesake’s) by setting the doll’s handprints and footprints at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre in 2002.

Organization for Women derided Barbie as sexist and
materialist. Not everyone, it seemed, loved Barbie.
That included Barbara, who was 17 when her
namesake was launched. When fans learned who she
was, “they would come up to me and say, ‘So you’re the
Barbie doll.’ I did not like it. It is very strange to have
a doll named after you,” Barbara Handler Segal told
People in 1989 for Barbie’s 30th anniversary. She had
married (and divorced) and had a daughter, Cheryl,
who said she grew up never owning a Barbie. “Much of
me is very proud that my folks invented the doll,” said
Segal. “I just wish I wasn’t attached to it.”
Her brother was similarly ambivalent. “Ken is Mali-
bu. He goes to the beach and surfs. I was the kind of kid
who played piano and went to movies with subtitles,”
he told People in 1989. “All the girls thought I was a jerk.”
Later a real estate investor, Ken Handler (who died in
1994) allowed that “I owe the house I live in to Barbie”
but felt back then that his mother’s doll held “the wrong
values. She should care about more than going to the
beach. . . . She should care about poverty and suffering in
the world. I wish she would work in a soup kitchen, but
then she would never sell.”
In fact, Barbie’s come a long way, baby. A recent
iteration presented her as vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert,
who codeveloped a COVID-19 shot. Yes, she still has
clothes and cars and pink houses, but she has always
had a job—just as Ruth Handler did. In 1975 an SEC
investigation into claims that Mattel falsified profits
forced her and Elliot out of their company. Ruth plead-
ed no contest, paid a fine and denied the allegations.
But she was demoralized without work. “I couldn’t
just screech to a halt after racing all my life,” she told
People. Already she was on to her next project: a line of
prosthetic breasts in an array of sizes called Nearly Me
for women who, like her, had had cancer surgery and
been faced with one-size “globs with no left or right.”
They too were a success. “I’ve lived my life from breast
to breast,” she was known to joke, but she was serious
that “a woman who has had a mastectomy should look
well and feel good about herself.”
Ruth, who died in 2002, lived to see Barbie
become a dentist, a WNBA star, a President. “One
of my strengths is that I do have the courage of my
convictions and the guts to take a position, stand up
for it,” she wrote. “That enthusiasm . . . carried
Mattel along many times in many ways in our his-
tory. It certainly did in the case of Barbie.”

52 BARBIE PEOPLE
 ׺׺
‘BARBIE WAS
JUST SUPPOSED
TO BE A TEENAGE
GIRL OR ADULT
WHO HAD
A NICE FIGURE.
. . . IT WAS VERY
INNOCENT’
—BARBARA HANDLER SEGAL,
TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

53
 The ’60s!
BARBIE GOT RIGHT TO WORK—
H O W E L S E T O P AY F O R T H AT
HOUSE, THE CAR AND ALL HER
FANCY CLOTHES?

HAPPY
BIRTHDAY!
On March 9,
1959, Barbie
debuted in
both blonde
and brunette
versions. Voting
with their piggy
banks, buyers 1960
made blonde the
standard model. 300,000
Sold!

THE ROMAN HOLIDAY LOOK

The 1953 Audrey Hepburn film inspired a
chic early outfit (including hat, coat, bag,
gloves and jewels). On eBay today: $1,200.

HI, KEN!
March 11, 1961, introduced Ken
Carson ($3.50). In their first
TV ad he and Barbie met at a
dance, and “somehow she knew
they’d be going together.”

HIGH ACHIEVER
Initially employed as a model,
Barbie branched out as a
fashion designer, singer, nurse,
ballerina and flight attendant
(right) by the end of 1961.
Exhausted, she took no new
jobs in 1962.

54
 A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN
She might have
entertained Ken in her 1962
cardboard ranch house,
but the first Dreamhouse
belonged to Barbie
more than a decade before
most women were able
to get a mortgage without a
man to cosign.

HER FIRST BFF

A pal from Barbie’s hometown
of Willows, Wis., the freckled
Midge Sherwood hung out
between 1963 and 1967 when she
ghosted Barbie—er, was
discontinued—until the ’80s.

PINK MY RIDE
Early Barbie splurged
on a 1962 Austin Healy
roadster, a U.K. import.
She later bought American
but always went for
open tops—easier for kids
to load her in.

BARBIE PEOPLE 55
 MIXED DOUBLES
From the start Barbie
exemplified a sporty and
privileged lifestyle. In the early
’60s she, Ken, Midge and
Allan dressed for a friendly
lunch at the tennis club.

AHEAD OF HER TIME ‘WHAT

Barbie (and her bubble cut) SHALL I
went to space in 1965, long
before women entered WEAR TO
NASA’s astronaut corps in THE PROM?’
1978. Only in 1983 did a real —TALKING
American woman, Sally Ride BARBIE, 1968
(below, on the Space
Shuttle), join her in orbit.

JULIA JUMPS OFF

THE SCREEN
Diahann Carroll’s
widowed single-
mom character from
her hit sitcom Julia
was, in 1969, the
first Black celeb doll.

56 BARBIE PEOPLE
 THE ’60S
TWIGGY
IS A DOLL!
Barbie’s first
celebrity likeness
was British teen
model Lesley
Hornby, aka
Twiggy. Her
1967 miniskirted
mini-me earned
her a million in
royalties.

57
 Barbie’s
Forever
Plus-One
OFTEN A BRIDEGROOM, NEVER A
HUSBAND, KEN HAS CHANGED HIS LOOK,
B U T H I S D E VOT I O N R E M A I N S CO N STA N T

Suddenly there was Ken, who debuted

EARLY MAN
The first Ken’s
flocked hair was
prone to falling out
in water. In 1962
(above) he was
reintroduced with
molded plastic hair.
BUT WHAT DOES HE DO?
Fans of Barbie understood
Ken’s place from the moment
of his well-dressed 1961
debut. Others, not so much.
Will they or won’t they?
Despite an enviable closet of bridal
gowns from Vera Wang, Carolina
Herrera, Badgley Mischka and more,
Barbie and her longtime love Ken have
never quite made it to the altar. Why
ever not? Is she having too much fun
being single? Or is Ken just another
stereotypical commitment-phobe, a
12-in. plastic inaction figure?
Ken Carson and Barbie Roberts got
together in 1961. Their official narrative
says they met at a dance—or possibly
on the commercial shoot depicting that
dance. But in reality their romance
begins with early Barbie owners writing
to Mattel and asking for a boy doll. This
was before G.I. Joe—the dating pool
was limited. (Raggedy Andy? Mr. Potato
Head? Both spoken for but also: As if!)
There were Superman and other
comic-book figures. But Barbie did not
need an alpha male with that much
family drama. She needed a forever
prom date with a deep wardrobe and
nothing but time on his tiny hands to
accompany her on her own adventures.
with nine outfits (sold separately). He
rode in Barbie’s cars, visited her homes,
matchy-matched her most memorable
outfits and shared her penchant for
career changes. He’s been a lifeguard, a
doctor, a farmer, a cameraman and a
hamburger chef, among other pursuits.
Barbie has achieved more, but Ken has
never been threatened by her success.
And then, just before Valentine’s Day
2004, the unthinkable. Through their
representatives, Barbie and Ken
announced that they had broken up but
would always “remain the best of
friends.” Fans did not give them
space—many petitioned for a reunion.
But by summer Barbie had rebounded
with an Australian surfer doll, Blaine
($14.95). Recall that the early 2000s
saw the debut of The Bachelor and The
Bachelorette on TV; Blaine was selected
as Barbie’s new guy by millions of online
voters. Is it possible that Ken was edged
out for marketing purposes? And if so,
might the matchmakers at Mattel bring
him back for the same reason?
In fact, that is what came to pass. On
Valentine’s Day 2011 they were a couple
again, just in time for the release of the
Barbie and Ken Gift Set ($5). For the
romantics, here’s how it officially
happened: “They were reunited as
costars on the set of Toy Story 3,” Lisa
McKnight, vice president of marketing
at Mattel told Entertainment Weekly.
“They found they were kind of missing
each other. I think they both realized
that they’re made for each other.”

58
 1978 1984 1992 1993 2011
Superstar Ken Dream Date Ken Totally Hair Ken Earring Magic Ken Sweet Talking Ken

IT’S ALLAN!
Ken’s pal Allan
Sherwood joined
the gang in 1964.
He was soon
discontinued—
sidekick to a
sidekick is a tough
gig—but
reappeared
married to Midge
in the 2003 Happy
Family playset.

2017
Three Ken Fashionistas: Cali Cool, Hip Hoodie and Classic Cool. The
year introduced new body types (from slim to broad) and new skin tones.

BARBIE PEOPLE 59
 The ’70s!
A HUGE SUCCESS, BARBIE
IS NOW SMILING! KEN
G E T S G R O O V Y, A N D S K I P P E R
HAS A GROWTH SPURT

HERE’S THE
STORY . . .
No one could raise AFTER!
Barbie’s cool NEW
quotient in 1970
like Marcia Brady.
Actress Maureen EYES
McCormick BRIGHT
appeared in a
commercial for the Smile
Living Barbie,
which moved more
realistically (and,
crucially, was
easier to dress).

HOW TO GET AHEAD

Why should Barbie have all
the fun experimenting with
her look? Mod Hair Ken
(1972) came with stick-on
facial hair and miraculously
never had stubble.

HAIR, APPARENTLY
Perhaps even more than
changing the doll’s clothes,
girls loved styling her hair.
Mattel took notice and in
1973 offered Quick Curl
Barbie with “magic” hair
that held its shape. (In fact,
it had tiny wires between
the strands.)

60
 BEFORE

I’M LOOKING AT
YOU, MALIBU
Early versions of
Barbie’s face gave
her a fashion model’s
mysterious side
glance and pursed
mouth. A makeover
in 1971 gave her
a friendlier look:
Malibu Barbie
has eyes that face
forward and
a big smile—she
has teeth!

BEFORE SPF
AWARENESS
The whole Malibu
gang—Christie, P.J.,
Barbie, Ken and
Skipper—got
Sun Lovin’ editions
(1978-1980) with
swimsuits and
tan lines.

VAN LIFE
Was camping hugely
popular in the 1970s,
or did Barbie make it so?
Her sunny Country Camper
(1971) fit with her new
beachy, outdoor lifestyle.

BARBIE PEOPLE 61
 KIDS PLAY THE DARNDEST THINGS
They never say “Barbie” in this 1978 SNL sketch, but by then she was big enough
to stand up to satire. Gilda Radner was a girl in an ad for the (fake!) “Looking for
Mr. Goodbar Sleepytime Playset,” in which her dolls mingled at a singles bar.

NEW TO THE FAMILY

The decade saw the arrival of
Miss America, the first
Olympians (all gold medalists,
naturally) and a Pacific Island-
featured Hawaiian doll that
could hula with a
twist-and-turn waist.

YOU DIDN’T DREAM IT:

GROWING UP SKIPPER WAS REAL
Little sister Skipper, launched
in 1964, grew up fast in 1975. Pump
the arm on this short-lived model, and
she got taller and grew breasts.
As the ad said: “Two dolls in one
for two kinds of fun!”

62
 THE ’70S

STAR POWER PLAY

A year after a competitor,
Mego Toys, brought
out its hair-down-to-there
Cher doll in 1976, Barbie
declared herself a superstar
and sparkled with jewelry,
a big smile and a gown in an
enduring shade of pink.

BARBIE

GOES
Pink!

HOUSE PROUD
Now a townhouse with
a pool—or at least an
illustration of one—the
Dreamhouse gets a
working (pulley)
elevator in the 1974
model. By decade’s end
it is a modular A-line in
then-popular Harvest
Gold tones. Future
homes succumb to a
comprehensively pink
fantasy palette.

BARBIE PEOPLE 63
 Working Girl
B A R B I E H A S H A D A LOT O F C A R E E R S A N D O N E TO U G H J O B :
INSPIRING GIRLS TO BELIEVE THEY CAN BE ANYTHING
By R O N K E I D O W U R E E V E S

64

LEANING IN
Barbie (and Ken, Ken, Ken and Ken) brainstorm in the
boardroom. Her career paths have mirrored—or sometimes
outpaced—that of women in the real world.
in the hall of fame of high-achieving
women you’ll find some amazing
hyphenates: Dolly Parton (singer-
songwriter-actress-amusement park
proprietor-vaccine underwriter!).
Oprah Winfrey (pageant winner-
talk show host-actress-girls’ school
founder-CEO!). Jennifer Lopez (singer-
dancer-actress-health advocate-
cosmetics entrepreneur-triathlete!).
But when it comes to the GOAT, there’s
only one who’s truly done it all: Barbie.
The mighty little doll has amassed a
résumé that includes firefighter, micro-
biologist, lute player, zookeeper . . . we
can’t fit them all here, but it is more
than 250 jobs (so far).
It helps, of course, that she is fic-
tional. “Barbie is fundamentally a tool
for storytelling,” says Mattel’s Kim
Culmone, the SVP for Barbie and
Fashion Dolls design. “We create
stories for Barbie as designers, but ulti-
mately once that doll is in the hands
of a child—or even an adult collector—
they project their own narratives onto
the doll.”
Barbie’s early story imagined her
as a teen model (1959), a clothing
designer (1960) and a fashion editor
(1965), with a brief detour as a college
graduate and a babysitter (1963) whose
playset included books on how to get a
BARBIE PEOPLE 65
 SHE WORKS HARD
1960 1961 1973
Fashion Designer Ballerina Surgeon
raise, travel and—yikes!—“How to Lose Weight.” She
played more of the era’s familiar roles for women:
flight attendant, ballerina, registered nurse, career
girl. But she blazed a path when she met Ken in a
battle of the sexes on the tennis court, more than a
decade before Billie Jean King faced Bobby Riggs in
1973, and Miss Astronaut Barbie went to space four
years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon
in 1969. This is the tricky line Barbie has walked, in
high heels, kicky sneakers or space boots: Her count-
less accomplishments can inspire girls to be any-
thing—or they can stand in contrast to a less-than-
rosy reality. It would be almost two more decades
before Sally Ride flew a NASA mission. And while
Barbie has been a candidate in every U.S. presiden-
tial election year since 1992 (including with an all-
female ticket in 2016), in the real world the country
has yet to vote a woman to the White House.
Exhausted after her first burst of résumé-building,
Barbie took a break from adding new gigs between
1967 and 1972. That year, however, sales fell off
for the first time. The Equal Rights Amendment
had passed the House and the Senate. Ms. Maga-
zine was founded. It was time for Barbie to get back
to work. In 1973 she revealed that she was now a
surgeon. She also enjoyed the gold and glory that
66
1991 1992
Naval Petty Officer Rapper
women illuminated in that decade’s Olympics.
Barbie was a triple threat as a figure skater, gym-
nast and skier! And, in the era that coined the term
“supermodel” thanks to icons like Lauren Hutton,
Beverly Johnson and Cheryl Tiegs, she returned to
her modeling roots (1977).
The ’80s saw real women flood into the work-
place. The decade was equally huge for Barbie,
who became a veterinarian, an actress, an aerobics
instructor and a CEO. With flesh-and-blood women
at last aboard the Space Shuttle, she refreshed her
astronaut credentials, this time in a pink space suit
(1986). The same year, as she found herself compet-
ing for real estate on toy-store shelves with dolls
based on the popular cartoon Jem and the Holo-
gram, Barbie began fronting her own rock band,
Barbie and the Rockers. Meanwhile, not long before
real women would be cleared to fly in combat, Bar-
bie was promoted to both Air Force pilot and Naval
Petty Officer (1991). Then she later became a Marine
Corps Sergeant (1992) and Army Medic (1993). Back
on Earth, she dropped rhymes as a rapper, donning
a black sequin jacket, gold hoop earrings, a gold
chain and a beat-blasting boom box.
“What she wears and what accessories she comes
with are important—those are additional tools for
 1996 2010 2018
Veterinarian News Anchor Robotics Engineer

storytelling,” notes Culmone,

whose team consults with actual
professionals to get the details
right. When Barbie became a wild-
׺׺ To parents, it may feel that
they just bought teeny tiny eques-
‘ R E A L L Y , W H O trian gear when it is time to now
K N O W S W H A T purchase itty bitty hospital scrubs.
life conservationist (2019), they BARBIE WILL But for Culmone, Barbie’s many
asked Jane Goodall (who also got careers are, yes, profitable but also
her own doll in 2022).
D O N E X T ? aim at a higher purpose. “We want
In the 2000s, Barbie really got
T H A T ’ S U P T O to make sure that we’re exposing
busy: Formula One driver, cowgirl, T H E W O R L D ’ kids to careers that they may never
—BARBIE SVP, HEAD OF
film director, TV chef, architect and DESIGN, KIM CULMONE
have considered,” she says.
SeaWorld wildlife rescuer. Sensitive “We’re creating a balance between
to a misstep back in the ’90s when careers kids relate to—whether
a talking Barbie doll used her voice to complain that’s a dancer or gymnast or a doctor or an ice
that “math class is tough,” Mattel has ramped up skater—along with careers that perhaps may open
Barbie’s STEM acumen to the 10th power, making their horizons about what’s possible for them.
our girl a computer engineer, video game developer, Maybe it’s something women are under- indexing in
chemist and astrophysicist. representation or that girls may have not been
“Our purpose is to inspire every kid who plays exposed to previously.” So in the past two years
with Barbie—especially girls who need a role model Barbie has become, among other things, a chief
to help show them that they can be anything,” sustainability officer, a farmer, an interior designer,
says Culmone. If she’s doing her job—and Barbie’s a makeup artist, a microbiologist, an alpine para-
doing hers—they hope, she says, “to counteract skier, a dentist, a panda rescuer, a pastry chef, a
messaging that perhaps they are limited in what volleyball player, a wardrobe stylist and a renew-
they can achieve, which is not the case. Girls can be able-energy engineer. But not wanting to forget the
and do anything, especially when we support them fun of purely imaginative career paths, the company
as a society.” also revealed Barbie to be the Tooth Fairy.

BARBIE PEOPLE 67
 The ’80s!
DURING THE MORE-IS-MORE DECADE
THIS BABE WORKED HER BOD,
BROUGHT HOME THE BACON AND
GOT HER 15 MINUTES OF FAME

68 BARBIE PEOPLE
 LET’S GETS
PHYSICAL
Aerobics instructor
Barbie hit the scene in
1984, complete with
leg warmers and stripes,
just like VHS workout
queen Jane Fonda.

NEW, BUT ALSO OLD

While 1980’s first Black
Barbie wore contem-
porary fashion, “Hispanic
Barbie” featured
traditional dress and was
sold primarily in Spanish-
language markets.

FACTORY GIRL!
One of Andy Warhol’s last paintings, 1986’s
Barbie, Portrait of BillyBoy*, was an homage to his
muse, an artist who collected 11,000 of the dolls.

69
 1985
FIRST
DESIGNER
Barbie!

BARBIE x DE LA RENTA
The biggest names now line
up to dress the gal from
Willows, Wis. But the first,
in 1985, was Oscar de la
Renta (above), who created
the doll’s premiere designer
capsule collection, made up
of jewel-toned and metallic
outfits that would make any
human fashionista jealous.
When the Dominican-born
fashion star died in 2014,
Barbie’s social accounts
remembered him as
“an exceptional designer
& an elegant man.”

70
 THE ’80S

SHATTERING THE
PINK CEILING
As women put
on power suits,
Day-to-Night
Barbie (and her
briefcase) arrived in
1984, created by
Kitty Black Perkins,
then chief designer
of fashions and
doll concepts.

BARBIE PEOPLE 71
 She’s Every
Woman
S H E STA RT E D O F F B LO N D E , W H I T E A N D W I T H F E W
F R I E N D S W H O LO O K E D M U C H D I F F E R E N T.
HOW DID BARBIE COME TO EMBODY EVERYBODY?
By R O N K E I D O W U R E E V E S

72
 MEET BARBIE
& KEN, 2022
Recent dolls show
off varied body
types, ethnicities
and other
traits—the Malibu
Ken at near
left has vitiligo.

barbie is blonde. she’s got blue eyes and a figure that should exist
only in fashion sketches. If you wanted to approximate the classic image of
Barbie in a live-action film, you would probably cast . . . Margot Robbie. But
Barbie is also Latina. And Asian. And Black. She’s got straight hair. She’s got
natural hair worn in an Afro. She’s got locks. She’s on the short side. She’s
pretty tall. She’s curvy around the waist and hips. She’s athletic. She uses a
wheelchair. She has a prosthetic leg. She is, as of 2023, a woman with Down
syndrome. She is, in other words, very nearly every one of us. Don’t see your-
self in Barbie? Speak up. “We get a lot of feedback from fans and consumers,”
says Kim Culmone, senior vice president and global head of Barbie and fashion-
dolls design at Mattel. “Whether that’s about a new ethnicity that they want to
see represented or a new feature in the doll—it’s important for us to listen.”
Though the color most associated with her is pink, for her first seven years

BARBIE PEOPLE 73
 EVERY WOMAN

A BEAUTIFUL
EVOLUTION
Barbies from 2020,
dressed by costumer
and stylist Shioni
Turini (Beyoncé,
Insecure), stand
behind Kitty Black
Perkins’s first
Black Barbie,
introduced in 1980.

Barbie
friend
CHRISTIE
1968

Barbie lived in a very White world. Her sisters, her
pals, her boyfriend and her “mod” British cousin
Francie all had her same Teutonic complexion, though
some did have brown hair. Then, in 1967, Francie—still
a mod, no longer a cousin—turned up in a darker skin
tone. Was this the first Black Barbie doll? Not exactly.
Her features were identical to her White counter-
part’s, rendered in light-brown vinyl. And, like earlier
Francie, she was shorter than Barbie, which made
sharing groovy clothes impossible.
Then, as the civil rights movement amplified the idea
that Black Is Beautiful, Barbie met Christie in 1968.
Christie had facial features and hair that were distinctly
Black, and she stood eye to eye with her blonde pal—let
the wardrobe sharing begin! While nearly a decade
passed between the two dolls’ debuts, Christie’s arrival,
in fact, outpaced the real fashion world’s evolution; not
until 1974 did American Vogue feature a Black model,
Beverly Johnson, on its cover. (Baby steps, it seems,
are not just for 111∕2-in. dolls.) As fabulous as she was in
her time, Christie was a supporting player, the Black
best-friend role still common in TV and films. Barbie
remained the star. And if you’re a girl playing pretend,
why wouldn’t you want to look like the star?
In 1976 a former children’s clothing designer, Kitty
Black Perkins, took a job at Mattel designing doll outfits,
becoming the only African American in that role. Per-
kins had grown up in segregated South Carolina, and
though she had never owned a Barbie until her job in-
terview, she was the force behind the first Black Barbie.
Same name, but “I wanted her to have her own person-
ality,” Perkins told the Greenville News in 2019. For her
coming-out in 1980, Perkins put her in a red disco dress,
a bold necklace and earrings dangling below her hair. “I
gave her a short natural,” said Perkins, who included a
pick among the accessories. The box was familiar pink,

74

but the message was new: “She’s Black! She’s Beautiful!
She’s Dynamite!” Most important, she was Barbie.
The same year introduced Hispanic Barbie. And
soon after, an “Oriental” Barbie, as she was called
then, and a Black Ken. Barbie was no longer only
Caucasian, but no matter what she looked liked,
she had her same sky-high career goals, the fantasy
houses, the cars, the clothes and the friendships, fun
and love—Barbie’s aspirational life was for everyone.
But Barbie still had her critics, who focused on that
improbable figure—36-18-33—which now came in
several shades. “I don’t want my daughter to think that
being a woman means she has to look like Barbie and
date someone like Ken,” Susan Reverby, then direc-
tor of women’s studies at Wellesley College, told the
Los Angeles Times in 1989. Could Barbie ever be truly
diverse if she didn’t embrace all types of bodies?
It took 27 more years—and a notable 20 percent
Barrier-
Breaking
BARBIE
A BARBIE WITH
DOWN SYNDROME
British model Ellie Goldstein introduced
a 2023 member of the Fashionista
line: “I felt so emotional and proud.”
falloff in sales between 2012 and 2014—before Mat-
tel introduced a line of curvy, petite and tall dolls in
2016. Cheers for the body positivity, sighs from the
parents on the hook for all-new wardrobes. But the
response was enthusiastic enough that more varia-
tion in Barbie—and in Ken and company—followed.
By 2020 the Fashionista line expanded to 176 dolls
in 35 skin tones, 94 hairstyles, nine body types and
a range of abilities. While the U.S. population has
become increasingly diverse, was there a market for
so many different dolls? “The year 2021 was the best
Barbie has ever had,” says Culmone.
Which brings us back to the Barbie movie. Classic
blonde Barbie (Robbie) is unquestionably the star.
But the excitement was real when posters indicated
that Issa Rae was Barbie too. And Hari Nef. And Dua
Lipa. And Ana Cruz Kayne. And Nicola Coughlan.
Onscreen as on the shelf, Barbie is us all.
BARBIE PEOPLE 75
 The ’90s!
AT C E N T U RY ’ S E N D
BARBIE (AND HER HAIR)
GOT B AC K TO T H E I R
RO OTS. P LU S : S H E S P E A K S !

POTUS WITH
THE MOSTEST
Barbie’s first
presidential bid, in
1992, coincided
with Bill Clinton’s.
She looked a lot,
however, like the
First Lady (and
2016 nominee). 1992

MIC DROP
Danish band Aqua’s
“Barbie Girl” was a 1997
hit, but Mattel sued.
Record label MCA
countersued. The case
was dismissed when
Judge Alex Kozinski
ruled: “The parties are
advised to chill.”
Best
SELLER
TO DATE
BIG HAIR, DON’T CARE
Barbie would have been totally tripping
over her Rapunzel-esque locks were it not
for high heels, hair ties and tubes of Dep
gel that came with every doll. She was so
popular, she was rereleased in 2017.
MEET
ME AT
THE
MALL!

LET’S
HAVE A
PIZZA YOU’RE
PARTY! MY
BEST
FRIEND!

BARBIE PEOPLE 77
 GO, TEAM!
Barbie was a
gymnast at the
1996 Atlanta
Olympics. That’s
the Dream Team
year (when Kerri
Strug secured
gold for Team
USA by vaulting
with an injury).

HONORING
HISTORY
In 1993 Mattel
released its first
special edition
Native American
Barbie, who paid
homage to the
Indigenous peoples
of the U.S. Later
editions featured
the dress of
various nations.

MILLENNIAL FAVE
A teen singer and star of the ’90s
TV hit Moesha, Brandy got the
Barbie treatment in 1999, because
“she shows girls that they can
do anything,” said Mattel’s Lisa
McKendall. Her holiday follow-up
(above) arrived the next year.

78
 THE ’90S

CAN’T SMILE
WITHOUT YOU
In 1997 Dentist Barbie
arrived to save our
pearly whites. She came
with a patient, her little
sister Kelly, and said
encouraging things like,
“Great checkup!”
Aww, thanks, Barbie!

BARBIE PEOPLE 79
The
Mini
MuseSHE ISN’T CLOSE
TO A SAMPLE SIZE, BUT
MORE THAN 150 TOP
NAMES HAVE HAPPILY
CREATED CUSTOM
LOOKS FOR BARBIE, A
COUNCIL OF FASHION
DESIGNERS OF AMERICA
HONOREE (REALLY!)

BADGLEY MISCHKA
The American team of
Mark Badgley and
James Mischka brought
BARBIE Barbie their modern
as take on Old Hollywood
KARL glamour in 2006.

Lagerfeld

THE HIGHEST
FORM OF FLATTERY
In 2014 Barbie
adopted the designer’s
personal style—down to
his fingerless gloves.
 From
RUNWAY
TO TEENY REALITY

VERSACE BYRON LARS GIORGIO ARMANI

A corset dress straight from the He’s dressed Michelle Obama—and What Barbie might have worn to
2003 ready-to-wear show. dozens of Barbies (this one: 2007). the Oscars in 2003.

BARBIE PEOPLE 81
 WHO ARE YOU WEARING?

Designer
DAYWEAR
FOR WORK & PLAY

DONNA KARAN DIANE VON FURSTENBERG CALVIN KLEIN

Dressed for shopping, this 1995 doll Barbie (in 2006) has “fun while A 2019 CFDA honoree, Barbie went
came with a Bloomingdale’s bag. remaining glamorous,” said DVF. casual in denim in 1996.

82 BARBIE PEOPLE
 Designer
WEDDING
COUTURE

CAROLINA HERRERA
The Venezuelan-born
designer is a favorite
of U.S. First Families. Is
this 2005 gown what
President Barbie might
wear to wed?

VERA WANG
Fashion’s bridal queen
has made several gowns
for Barbie (right: 1998)
and has a doll made
in her own image too.

83
 The IDOL WORSHIP
By 2005 American

’00s!
Idol (above: judges
Randy Jackson,
Paula Abdul and
Simon Cowell) was
a phenomenon,
having made stars
of Kelly Clarkson
Y2-OKAY! THE and Carrie
AUGHTS WERE Underwood. That
year Barbie and
HOT (AND HAUTE) friends Simone and
FOR BARBIE—NOW Tori went for the
50!—AND HER title and coveted
GROWING GANG record contract.

84
 2002

MIDGE
HAS A
Baby!

OOH, BABY,
BABY
Meet 2009’s
Newborn Baby
Doctor Barbie
(Ob-gyn Barbie?
More likely a
pediatrician). She
had pink heels, a
mini coat and
twin babes. Later
versions had more
realistic scrubs.

A BUMP IN THE ROAD

Congrats to Midge and Allan!
Already parents to son Ryan, in late 2002
they were welcoming a new addition.
The Happy Family playset featured
a fully preggers Midge (and magnetic
removable baby in her belly). Critics
accused her of promoting teen pregnancy.
But Midge was now a grown, married
woman. She and her bump are played
by Emerald Fennell in the film.

BARBIE PEOPLE 85
 LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S BARBIE AND SKIPPER
In 2002 SNL went “Inside Barbie’s Dreamhouse” where Barbie (Amy Poehler)
revealed Skipper (Britney Spears) was actually her daughter. “Haven’t you ever
wondered why we’re both double-jointed?” And Dad? A Han Solo action figure.

2009
SHE WALKS!
ABILLION To mark a half century
Barbie got her first
DOLLS
New York Fashion Week
Sold! show, with looks from
50 designers including
Betsey Johnson and
Calvin Klein.

SHE DOESN’T LOOK A DAY OVER 17

When Barbie turned 50 in 2009, nothing
but gilded glamour would do. Her retro
gown was created by VP of Barbie product
design Robert Best, who previously worked
for Donna Karan and Isaac Mizrahi.

86
 THE Õ00s

INDEPENDENT WOMEN
Three of the decade’s biggest names—Michelle Williams, Beyoncé Knowles
and Kelly Rowland (aka Destiny’s Child)—got the Barbie treatment in 2009.
A Queen Bey-Barbie crossover? Call it destiny fulfilled.

BARBIE PEOPLE 87
 EVERY LITTLE DETAIL
Spencer at work in 1968
and (opposite) at home with
some of her creations in 2019.
“It feels nice to look around
and see all my Barbies,” she
said then. “I feel proud.”

88 BARBIE PEOPLE
‘I Dressed
Barbie’
CA R O L S P E N C E R S H A R E D
A LO O K I N S I D E A
D O L L’S FA S H I O N H O U S E
By A I L I N A H A S
Twirly Curls Barbie. Crisp ‘n Cool Barbie.
Totally Hair Barbie. Great Shape Barbie.
It’s been nearly six decades since
Carol Spencer began her career creating
fashions for the iconic doll, but the
86-year-old designer can still recall the
names of nearly all of the hundreds of
versions lovingly displayed in her L.A.
home. “I’ve lost track of how many I
have,” she says. “But it’s a lot!”
Spencer, who designed thousands of
looks for Barbie over a 35-year career at
Mattel, chronicled her journey in a 2019
book, Dressing Barbie, published to coincide
with the 60th anniversary of the doll’s
creation. Working with her hands took a
physical toll over the years: “I went to get
my driver’s license, and they couldn’t get a
thumbprint—I don’t have all the grooves!”
And there was controversy along the way:
Barbie’s busty yet wasp-waisted physique—
not to mention her permanently high-heel-
ready feet—faced criticism for promoting
an unhealthy, unrealistic body image.
Spencer acknowledges the point. “Times
are changing, and we’re all evolving,” she
says. “But I don’t think she was so out of
proportion—people don’t understand doll
scale. And she’s a doll! Part of Barbie will
always be fantasy.”
Spencer first found her way into Barbie’s
orbit, in fact, because she chafed at the
traditional gender roles on offer when she
was growing up in Minneapolis. Career
opportunities for girls were “largely focused
on the ‘expected’ five: nurse, teacher,
secretary, shopgirl and seamstress,” she
writes. Eager to get into designing, “I
scraped money together to buy fabric, and
I started making my own clothes.” Stints at
various fashion houses followed, and in
1963, just four years after cofounders Elliot
and Ruth Handler released the first Barbie
doll, she was hired at Mattel. “My role was
mostly creating fashion with a theme,” says
Spencer, who often looked to her own
closet for inspiration. “Barbie became
a big sister, a friend, a parent.”
Barbie’s style evolved over the decades,
and the doll herself underwent multiple
transformations. “She became more and
more lifelike,” says Spencer, “with
bendable arms and legs.” Her professions
changed too. “During the women’s
movement [all of us designers] belonged
to the National Organization for Women,
but we didn’t flaunt it,” Spencer says. “It
was this quiet goal to start promoting
women. I wanted more choices for Barbie.
I wanted more choices for myself!”
As Spencer began designing for
international versions, her work took her
around the world. She retired in 1998,
able to look back with pride on the hours
of fun her creations brought to millions.
Though she never married or had kids,
“I thought of every child as my child,” she
says. “Seeing them play was wonderful.
It gave me a sense of satisfaction that I
was going in the right direction.”
And that’s a long way from where
she began. “As a little girl in Minnesota,
we used to dig in the dirt trying to get to
China,” she says with a laugh. “Well, I
got myself to China, and all over the
world. Barbie changed my life.”
This story first appeared in People
in 2019.
HER STORY
Spencer published
a book, Dressing
Barbie, in 2019
and has continued
to consult as a
doll historian.
 BARBIE TAKES PARIS
The City of Light’s Musée des Arts
Décoratifs was home to “Barbie: The
Exhibition” in 2016 and featured more than
700 Barbies, including the 1959 original.

90
 Today!
BARBIE’S BEEN THROUGH SOME
C H A N G E S , TA K E N S O M E H E AT A N D
MADE A LOT OF CELEB FRIENDS

SORRY NOT SORRY

Barbie fronted Sports IllustratedÕs
much-debated “Unapologetic”-
themed Swimsuit Issue in 2014.

A NEW BOD (OR THREE)

Time covered the 2016 launch of petite, tall
2016
and curvy dolls. Many embraced the new
shapes; others felt Mattel went too far—or FIRST
not far enough. “Ultimately haters are
going to hate,” said CEO Richard Dickson. CURVY
Barbie!

NOT FOR KIDS

The world’s priciest
THE SUPREMES Barbie—thanks to
A year after Brett Kavanaugh ascended to the 4 carats of gems around
Supreme Court in 2018, Barbie Judge Dolls— her neck—went for more
complete with RBG-inspired jabots—encouraged than $300,000
girls to “change the world for the better.” at auction in 2010.

BARBIE PEOPLE 91
 BARBIE NOW

THINK PINK
Fans including
(clockwise from top)
Ariana DeBose, Anne
Hathaway, Reese
Witherspoon, Julia
Roberts and Lizzo
have all embraced
Barbiecore in a big way
since 2022. And why
not? It’s impossible to
be sad in this color.

2022
CELEB
Barbiecore!

SAVE THE PLANET!

Barbie Loves the Ocean, who
joined the gang in 2019, was made
from recycled plastic.

92
 EXPLOSION
OF STARS
New famous friends
included actress Laverne
Cox, who cheered her
2022 doll as the first
“Barbie in the likeness of
a trans person.”
TINA TURNER, 2022 REBA MCENTIRE, 2011

ZENDAYA, 2015 MISTY COPELAND, 2016 FAITH HILL & TIM MCGRAW, JENNIFER LOPEZ,
2011 2013

BARBIE PEOPLE 93
 A REAL
DREAMHOUSE
In 2019 a Malibu
Airbnb offered
superfans the
opportunity to
book time in
Barbie’s abode—
slide included!

Credits
All Photos Provided by Mattel
Inc. & (Barbie film) Copyright:
© 2023 Warner Bros.
Entertainment Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
1 (film set) The Image Bank/
Getty Images; 44-45 Chesnot/
Getty Images; 46-47 Courtesy
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute, Harvard University;
48 Sipa/AP Photo; 50 (from
top) James Leynse/Corbis/
Getty Images;
5 Watford/Mirrorpix/Getty
Images; 51 Hector Mata/AFP/
Getty Images; 52 Courtesy
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute, Harvard University;
53 Alamy; 54 (1959) John D.
Mchugh/AFP/Getty Images;
(Roman Holiday) Alamy; (Ken
box set) Cyrus McCrimmon/
The Denver Post/Getty Images;
55 (Dreamhouse) Everett
Collection; 56 (Sally Ride)
Courtesy NASA; (Julia) Getty
Images; 57 (Twiggy doll)
Alamy; 58 (bottom) Hulton
Archive/Getty Images;
60 (Marcia Brady) Silver Screen
Collection/Getty Images;
61 (top left) Alamy;
62 (top, left) NBC/NBCU
Photo Bank/Getty Images;
(Hawaiian barbie) Alamy;
63 (Dreamhouse) Michael
Williams/Everett Collection;
64-65 Cortis & Sonderegger/13
Photo/Redux Pictures;
69 (Warhol) Laurent SOLA/
Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images;
70 (De La Renta) Jean
Guichard/Gamma-Rapho/
Getty Images; 71 Alamy(3);

94 BARBIE PEOPLE

75 Alamy; 76 (Clintons) Bob
Pearson/AFP/Getty Images;
78 (Strug) Al Tielemans/Sports
Illustrated/Getty Images;
84 (inset) Everett Collection;
85 (right, from top) Lawrence
Lucier/Getty Images; Alamy;
86 (right, from top) Mary Ellen
Matthews/NBCU Photo Bank/
NBCUniversal/Getty Images;
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images;
89 (from top) Christopher Polk;
Peter Zambouris; 91(SI Barbie)
Alamy; (Time cover) Photograph
by Kenji Aoki for TIME; (priciest
barbie) Robert Gray/Getty Images;
92 (DeBose) Gilbert Flores/
Variety/Getty Images; (Hathaway)
Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/
Getty Images; (Witherspoon)
Arturo Holmes/WireImage/Getty
Images; (Roberts) Tommaso
Boddi//Getty Images; (Lizzo) Anna
Webber/Getty Images
PEOPLE
President Leah Wyar
Editor Wendy Naugle
VP/Group General Manager, Digital
Zoe Ruderman
Creative Director Andrea Dunham
Director of Photography Ilana Schweber
Director of Editorial Operations
Alexandra Brez
PEOPLE BOOKS
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Senior Photo Editor C. Tiffany Lee
Writers Ronke Idowu Reeves, Carla Sosenko,
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Reporters Gillian Aldrich, Mary Hart
Copy Desk Joanann Scali (Chief),
James Bradley (Deputy), Gabrielle Danchick,
Rich Donnelly, Shakthi Jothianandan, Dan Morrissey,
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Editorial Director
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Editorial Operations Director
Jamie Roth Major
Manager, Editorial Operations
Gina Scauzillo
Associate Manager, HI FROM HERE!
Editorial Operations That time Barbie
Ariel Davis hit the rink at
Special thanks People’s corporate
Gabby Amello, Brad Beatson headquarters.
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 ONE LAST THING

Barbie
THE GLOBAL ICON ,
64, IS THE SUBJECT
OF A NEW FILM.
SH E SP O K E W IT H
P EO P L E V I A EM A I L
Last time I was starstruck
Every time I meet the incredible role
models I work with like Jane Goodall,
Billie Jean King, Naomi Osaka, Yara
Shahidi, Ibtihaj Muhammad. So many
inspiring women!
Last time I stayed up too late
When I was organizing my Dream
Closet. It’s not easy putting every
shade of pink in order from blush to
magenta, but somebody’s gotta do it!
Last fashion disaster
I don’t believe in fashion disasters!
Taking style risks is fun.
Last thing I do before
I go to bed
Making sure all the lights are turned
off in the Dreamhouse—including
the disco ball! Can’t keep the
neighborhood up with party vibes!
Last text that made me laugh
When Ken texted me: “Ryan Gosling
should play me in a movie.”
Last person I was mistaken for
When you’re this iconic, you’re never
mistaken for someone else ;)

96 BARBIE PEOPLE
 INTO THE
BARBIEVERSE
The amazing
origin story of the
world’s most
popular doll

BARBIE! THE LEGEND COMES TO LIFE

Cast Interviews: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on Being BARBIE & KEN • Director
GRETA GERWIG’s Vision: ‘It’s Out of Love’ PLUS How Mattel Creates Celebrity Dolls

EXCLUSIVE
PHOTOS!
Behind the
scenes of the
Barbie movie