Barbie doll or most often just called Barbie, is a registered trademark of a toy doll from the American toy company Mattel. Since 1959 has been sold massive amounts of barbie dolls in a number of variations all over the world. The doll is made of plastic and have flexible body part. They are formed as a beautiful, slender young women or girls teens and sold as a fashion characterized the doll clothes. It has also been developed dolls in the same series of young women with other name, hair color and ethnic features. It also came early barbie dolls shaped like young, beautiful men, including Ken.
Background
The doll was invented by Ruth Handler (1916-2002), who was married to one of the two owners of the company Mattel. She was inspired by her daughter's interest for the attire of paper dolls and would create a three-dimensional version. She made a variation that imitated a German fashion doll, Bild-Lilli, which was based on a cartoon figure in the newspaper Bild that was produced from 1955 to 1964. Therefore, it was already from the start, produced a wide range of fashion clothes and accessories for doll was named after her daughter Barbara. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts, while the boyfriend Ken called Ken Carson.
The first car for the Barbie imagined an Austin Healey in the pink.
Popularity
It is sold over 100 million Barbie dukker all over the world, and Barbie is is still among the most well-known trademarks.
90% of girls aged 3-10 years in the United States own a Barbie, and the homepage for dolls was in 2007, visited by more than 50 million each month. Barbie and Barbie products is estimated to sell for around three billion dollars annually, while main competitor Bratz has a turnover of around two billion dollars. Bratz dolls are attire in a slightly more modern style, and came on the market in 2001. These dolls are made MGA Entertainment and is one of a number of Barbie-like product their target audience are girls. While there for the boys used more and more money on computer games and sports gear than on traditional children's toys, the girls any longer with the toys, like dolls in the social role-playing game. Even so, Barbie sales shown a certain decline in recent years.
Fulla is one of a number of competitive Barbie-like dolls attire. Fulla dolls, which came in 2003, among other things, equipped with the hijab and the most popular of such attire dolls that are intended for sale in the Middle East and to Muslim children.
Criticism
The popular Barbie dolls have for years been criticized for promoting the stereo type of gender roles patterns among young girls and give a false picture of the adults' seemingly glamorous and consumption oriented world.
