Barbie Takes the Catwalk

October 2, 2023
Costume historian Feder (The Folies Bergere in Las Vegas) takes a delightful jaunt through Barbie’s fashion history from the doll’s 1959 debut to 1999. From the start, Barbie creator Ruth Handler envisioned the doll’s wardrobe as central to the product, hoping consumers would be enticed by “the bounty of trendy and tiny fashionable garments” to make “continued ancillary purchases.” To that end, Mattel’s design team attended European couture runway shows, pored over fashion magazines, browsed designer boutiques, and analyzed street-level trends to dream up clothing that adapted “life-size styles and silhouettes” into easy-to-manufacture yet recognizable designs for the doll. For example, Cristóbal Balenciaga’s “radical architectural shapes” were translated into a 1963 design marketed as “Career Girl,” while former first lady Jackie Kennedy’s monochromatic, columnar silhouettes by Oleg Cassini inspired Barbie’s 1962 Bell Dress. Barbie’s ’60s and ’70s outfits are mod and fabulous, with nods to model Twiggy and designer Emilio Pucci, while the 1980s and ’90s saw the introduction of a black pleather jacket, patterned legwarmers, and hot pants. Accompanied by lush color sketches and photos, Feder’s chronicle amounts to a vibrant and loving history of Barbie as an avatar of evolving social rules (see the “hemline crisis” of the 1970s) and notions of femininity. Barbie fans and fashion aficionados will be engrossed. Photos.