![]() She’s been accused of setting an impossible standard of beauty and encouraging eating disorders among young girls. And 300 people are on the waiting list.”īarbie’s 50-year reign over the toy world has not been without controversy. “It was sold out in 2 days, which was totally amazing,” said Nancy Parsons, organizer of the event. These Barbie conventions have grown from a mere 100 people in 1980 to more than 1,000 people today.īut this year the convention ticket is at its hottest. for a 50th-anniversary gala to be held during the 2009 National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention. This summer, 1,120 Barbie lovers from 12 different countries will gather in Washington, D.C. “Barbie’s birthday is a celebration of 50 legendary years as a fashion icon, pop culture princess and inspiration to so many girls around the world,” said Richard Dickson, general manager and senior vice president for Barbie at Mattel.Īmong the celebrations are a Malibu Dream House party in Malibu, Calif., Barbie fashion shows in major cities, the grand opening of the first retail store devoted to Barbie in Shanghai, and a holographic movie of Barbie in the UK on the largest projection screen the country has ever seen. And according to published reports, Barbie is worth $3 billion a year.Īnd so for the 50th birthday of the world’s most popular doll (Mais the date she debuted at New York’s annual Toy Fair), Barbie is getting nothing less than the royal treatment in the U.S. And every 3 seconds, a Barbie doll is sold somewhere around the world. She can wear a ball gown with the best of them, but also looks fabulous in leather on her Harley-Īccording to Mattel, the company responsible for the Barbie phenomenon, 90 percent of American girls ages 3 to 10 own at least one Barbie. She has represented 50 nationalities and collaborated with more than 70 different fashion designers, including Armani, Dior and Versace. She’s had more than 108 careers, including police officer, firefighter, astronaut and president. The 11 ½-inch doll has done big things in the past five decades. ![]() “The thing about Barbie is they are always reinventing her,” said Kristy Reynolds, Bruno associate professor of marketing at the University of Alabama. ![]() This is why Barbie is still popular after 50 years, experts say. Some 27 years later, Thorn would watch her two daughters acting out movies with their Barbies much like the ’80s Barbie movies on VHS they watched over and over.Īnd today Thorn watches her two granddaughters play with Barbie dolls and go online to check out Barbie fashions and play Barbie games.īarbie has fueled the imaginations of three generations of Thorn women, no matter how much technology and pop culture has changed during the past half century. She and her sister June would pretend their Barbies sang like the Shangri Las, the popular girl group of the 1960s. She took home a pony-tailed Barbie she named Amy. She was 4 years old, growing up in Mississippi in 1959, when her parents took her to the hardware store to pick out the newest doll everyone was buzzing about. ![]() Robin Thorn, of Northport, remembers her first Barbie doll like it was yesterday. ![]()
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