IS AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS
BLONDE FADING INTO HISTORY?
By JILLIAN BERMAN
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
here’s little in America that looks virtually the same
as it did 55 years ago, but Barbie is an exception. ¶
Over the years, Barbie maker Mattel has peppered the
iconic doll with cosmetic fixes — giving her a mod hairstyle
like Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s, sending her to work in
a skirt suit in the 1980s and turning her into an Olympic
gymnast in the 1990s — to keep up with Americans’
changing preferences. Still, in popular imagination, Barbie is
Barbie: The blond teenager with unrealistic proportions and
delicate feet made just-so for stepping out in high heels.
Despite nearly constant outcry over her image, Barbie has sold. Parents have bought more than 1 billion Barbies over the years, and she’s
widely considered the most successful doll ever. But now, Barbie’s controversial look may be in danger of killing her. Barbie sales dropped 13
percent worldwide last quarter from a year before — and that’s after a
string of bad quarters in late 2012 and early 2013.
The “disproportionately sized blond girl” is losing her appeal, said