Style Icon: Ruth Handler and The Fabulous Story of Barbie

“Barbie has always represented that a woman has choices. Even in her early years, Barbie did not have to settle for only being Ken’s girlfriend or an inveterate shopper. She had the clothes, for example, to launch a career as a nurse, a stewardess, a nightclub singer. I believe the choices Barbie represents helped the doll catch on initially, not just with daughters - who would one day make up the first major wave of women in management and professionals – but also with mothers.” - Ruth Handler

The First Barbie - Teen Age Fashion Doll (1959)

The story of Ruth Handler is one that few people know. Yet we know who Barbie is but we do not know the fabulous woman behind the fabulous doll. Without much effort one can assume that the doll, like most children's toys was a fantasy created by money hungry men. This is not the case in the creation of Barbie which in turn launched the spotlight onto a toy company, Mattel Creations that Ruth and Elliott handler co-founded 15 years earlier.

The idea of the fabulous Barbie doll came from an instance where Ruth was watching her daughter, Barbara and her friends playing with paper dolls. The girls played and imagined the dolls in a variety of roles such as career women, students, cheerleaders and athletes. It was in that instant that Ruth decided she wanted to make a doll that would be better choice for girls to play with.

Ruth Handler and Mattel Creations exhibited the first Barbie, the Teen-Age Fashion Model, Barbara Millicent Roberts, at the annual Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. Buyers where wary that this new doll would be successful as she was nothing like the typical popular baby and toddler dolls. Barbie was a doll with an adult body design based on the Bild Lilli doll Ruth Handler acquired in Switzerland. The first Ken Doll, Barbie Doll’s boyfriend, Ken Doll, made his debut in 1961, two years after Barbie.

To many Ruth Handler is a revolutionary woman and Style Icon responsible for creating one of the world's most significant icons, Barbie. Not only did she create a woman capable of doing the impossible for all girls to look up to she further went on to invent a breast prothesis, Nearly Me, which is still in use today. For any little girl that thinks that nothing can be accomplished, she should find inspiration in the idea that a woman created an empire with a single idea for a doll. That in itself is what makes the fabulous story of Ruth Handler and Barbie remarkable and inspiring.

Did you own a Barbie as a little girl or boy? Or as an adult? 

Barbie by Tyler Shields for The Dirty Side of Glamour c/o tylershields.com

Is this how you play with your dolls, Kens and Dolls? 

Enjoy, 

Kisses, m.

Highway

Backstreet Boys - Dead on the road c/o tylershields.com

Back from the Highway! How was everyone's weekend? Moi? I had a fabulous weekend filled with lots of interesting things to do... To my friends who came along and invited me to tag along, The Stylist in SF, The Photographer and The Muse in LA, it was a lot of fun! We will have to do it again! 

NOW,  I'm sorry if anyone's weekend was INAUTHENTIC! But you simply made mine more fabulous! Google tells me you've increased my ranking! Thanks for being so curious about Kierkegaard! And it definitely helps a lady out! kisses!





Hi again Honey! Sorry I was away but I didn't miss you! Looks like you missed me though... In the heart or in the head but you are always thinking of me. Well then? Are you ready to share the rest of your statement? I didn't think so. But from the looks of things you have been very busy and you've invited a couple of friends! Me thinks you don't have much of a life. TSK! TSK! You should get out of the house more often and away from your phones, electronic devices, etc! Those will kill you. HA!

So let me see... you are from Cincinnati, New Haven, Medina, and Joliet. but that's not right at all! Look, I'm sorry but I can't stop living just to please you. That would be Inauthentic! DEAL WITH IT! But thanks to you I do have a higher Google ranking and perhaps the attention of some people who don't like Internet Bully's! Please understand that you did start all of this. By all means feel free to be mature and leave a comment and finish it! Because Honey, you can mask your locale, IPs, and click posts to your heart's content but unless you leave a comment, I don't understand or speak your brand of JACKASS! Do you have an interpreter?

You might as well leave a comment now since you've left a trail to follow. I love roadrunner's don't you? Such beautiful creatures. It's really all in the details, Honey. Those are the little things that will catch up to you in the end. I have nothing to hide but it looks like you certainly do. It must be dreadful to have to pretend to be something you are not and be quite bad at it. 

*you are not invisible. OOPS! I'm so sorry to point that out and you have no idea! It's OK to have a panic attack. Brown paper bags help. Deep slow breath's. Inhale. Exhale.
  
Honey, once you calm down, do try to remember this: You don't have to just lay in the road, you can get up and walk away. As long as you are alive you can do anything and change anything! Thank you for all of the love. If it isn't love, please realize how much your hate is promoting me! Oh I love it either way since it benefits moi! Thanks again dolls! 

kisses, m. 

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT: I'm glad you love the PINK HOUSE Brazil and London! It's an adorable choice of dream house! kisses, m.