Celebrate 50 years of Barbie doll with Katrina

So the latest news is that Katrina Kaif is the new Barbie girl. Actually before Katrina, Aishwarya Roy got the offer to become Barbie girl but she rejected the offer. This year Barbie is celebrating its 50th birthday. So it is a great achievement for Katrina to become face of Barbie. Katrina Kaif is one of the top bollywood actresses in terms of beauty and style. However, she is very happy to get into the image of Barbie. At the on-going Lakme Fashion week, Katrina flaunted the Barbie outfits designed by top designers of India and believe me she was looking stunning in almost all attire.

Katrina said, “It is so much fun to endorse a Barbie doll. “Almost every girl has grown up playing with the doll and so have I, so it feels great. My sisters would be really happy to know that I am endorsing this brand”

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Today I will tell you the history of Barbie. Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler (1916-2002) is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration. Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle. In recent years, Barbie has faced increasing competition from the Bratz range of dolls.

Ruth Handler observed her female child Barbara at play with paper dolls, and observed that she often relished giving them mature individual roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler proposed the concept of an adult-bodied doll to her married man Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the concept, as were Mattel’s directors.

During a visit to Europe in 1956 with her offspring Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came through German game doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured Lilli doll was accurately what Handler had in psyche, so she paid for three of them. She granted one to her girl child and took the other people back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was supported on a admired attribute showing in a comic band drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the broadsheet Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a toiling young woman who knew what she desired and was not atop employing men to get it. The Lilli doll was first marketed in Germany in 1955, and though it was at the start marketed to older people, it became admired with offspring who savoured getting dressed her up in outfits that were obtainable separately.

Upon her revisit to the United States, Handler reworked the create of the doll (with help from technical operator Jack Ryan) and the doll was bestowed a new label, Barbie, after Handler’s girl child Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959. This day of the year is regarded as Barbie’s official birthday.

Mattel acquired the rights towards the Bild Lilli doll in 1964 and production of Lilli was stopped. The former Barbie doll wore a black and white zebra striped swimsuit and signature topknot ponytail, and was available as either a blonde or brunette. The doll was sold as a “Teen-age Fashion Model,” with her clothing designed by Mattel designer Charlotte Johnson. The former Barbie dolls were manufactured within Japan, with their clothing hand-stitched via Japanese homeworkers. Around 350,000 Barbie dolls were sold during the first year of production.

Today Barbie is the most popular fashion doll ever introduced. This doll has 50 legendary years as a fashion icon, pop culture princess and inspiration to so many girls around the world. It is also the time for generations of girls to celebrate their Barbie memories and create new ones.