When she was launched in 1959, Barbie and her slender, curvaceous figure marked a revolutionary departure from the traditional baby doll. Watching her daughter Barbara playing with paper dolls, distant descendants of late 18th century fashion plates and the first paper dolls for adults in the 19th century, Ruth Handler, one of Mattel’s founders, began dreaming of a three-dimensional fashion doll. Ruth observed that Barbara and her friends were not at all interested in dolls representing children but solely in those representing women: they imagined themselves in their future lives, as young women rather than as mothers and housewives.

Ruth’s determination finally convinced Mattel’s directors, then all male, to manufacture such a doll. Directly inspired by the German advertising doll Lili, Barbie was launched with her own mythology: born in Wisconsin, Barbara Millicent Roberts has a family and clearly identified friends, but her age has deliberately never been specified so that she can embody either an adolescent or a young woman. She successively has been a high school pupil, university student, nurse and airhostess before exercising more than 150 professions, from the most traditional to the most avant-garde. Barbie has been a vet several times, a palaeontologist, computer scientist, racing driver, schoolteacher, doctor, ballerina, policewoman, and even a presidential candidate four times and an astronaut before Neil Armstrong in 1965. Her ever-present boyfriend, Ken has become just as famous. Barbie is more than just a doll, she is a life.

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107 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris
266 boulevard Raspail, 75014 Paris
63 rue de Monceau, 75008 Paris
> phone +33 01 44 55 59 02
 
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Barbie
Texts : Anne MONIER, Denis BRUNA, Michel PASTOUREAU, Frédéric BEIGBEDER, Aurore BAYLE-LOUDET
Published by Les Arts Décoratifs

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