Barbie is a fashion doll created by American businesswoman Ruth Handler, manufactured by American toy and entertainment company Mattel and introduced on March 9, 1959. The toy was based on the German Bild Lilli doll which Handler had purchased while in Europe. The figurehead of an eponymous brand that includes a range of fashion dolls and accessories, Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for over six decades. Mattel has sold over a billion Barbie dolls, making it the company's largest and most profitable line. The brand has expanded into a multimedia franchise since 1984, including video games, animated films, television/web series, and a live-action film.
Kenneth Sean "Ken" Carson Jr. is a fashion doll introduced by American toy company Mattel in 1961 as the counterpart of Barbie, who had been introduced two years earlier.
Bratz is an American fashion doll and media franchise created by former Mattel employee Carter Bryant for MGA Entertainment, which debuted in 2001.
Since Barbie's introduction as a teenage fashion model in 1959, the doll has been portrayed with many careers. Dolls are sold with sets of clothes and accessories that fit the career being portrayed. For example, the Lifeguard Barbie playset includes a Barbie, an outfit with shoes, a lifeguard chair, a dolphin, and a life preserver, while the Spanish Teacher Barbie includes a Barbie, an outfit with shoes, flashcards, a Spanish quiz, an easel, a notebook, a key chain, and a hairbrush.
Barbie is a multi-platform video game developed by Imagineering for Hi Tech Expressions. It is based on Mattel Inc.'s doll of the same name and was created in an attempt to get more girls to play video games. As such, it is one of the few explicitly girl-oriented NES games. The game takes place in a dream where Barbie must travel through three different worlds to gather accessories before attending a ball to meet Ken. Despite it having been of little interest to typical gamers at the time of its release, critics including staff writers for Velikij Drakon and Allgame have praised it as "not bad" for a generic platformer. Others including Justine Cassell and Nathanael Ng of the Georgia Institute of Technology have advanced the view that its genre is not appropriate for its content.
Totally Hair Barbie is a fashion doll, in the Barbie line by Mattel, that was released in 1992. The doll's extra-long hair reached all the way to her toes and at the time, she had the longest hair ever for a Barbie doll at 11.5 inches in length. She is notable for being the highest selling Barbie doll in history, having racked up $100 million worldwide in 1992.
Flavas is an American line of fashion dolls created by Mattel in 2003. They are multi-ethnic and have an urban, hip hop style with "bling-bling" jewellery and stick-on tattoos, described as "ghetto-fabulous" by Newsweek. They were designed to appeal to tweens and compete with the widely successful Bratz dolls. They were marketed as "reality-based" and "authentic" and have more points of articulation than traditional fashion dolls for more expressive posing.
Sindy is a British fashion doll created by Pedigree Dolls & Toys in 1963. A rival to Barbie, Sindy's look and range of fashions and accessories made her the best-selling toy in the United Kingdom in 1968 and 1970. After Marx Toys' unsuccessful attempt to introduce Sindy in the United States in the late 1970s, Hasbro bought the rights to Sindy and remodelled the doll to look more American. As a result, the doll's popularity declined; in addition, Barbie manufacturer Mattel filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which was settled when Hasbro agreed to remodel Sindy's face. During the 1990s, Barbie's share of the doll market continued to grow while Sindy's diminished, which led to Sindy being delisted from major retailers in 1997. Hasbro returned the doll's licence to Pedigree, and the doll was relaunched in 1999, manufactured by Vivid Imaginations. Sindy's 40th anniversary in 2003 saw a new manufacturer, New Moons, and another relaunch and redesign. There were further relaunches in 2016 by Tesco and in 2021 by Kid Kreations. There is a 60th anniversary Sindy doll which was launched at the end of 2023 to celebrate 60 years of Sindy.
Diva Starz was a series of talking fashion dolls created and released by Mattel in October 2000. They are similar in design to MGA's Bratz and Tiger Electronics' Furby. Alexa, Nikki, Summer—later replaced by Miranda—and Tia were offered in the original debut. Originally produced as robotic dolls, Mattel would also release miniature and fashion doll versions in response to their initial success. The line was discontinued in 2004.
Purple Moon was an American developer of girls' video games based in Mountain View, California. Its games were targeted at girls between the ages of 8 and 14. The company was founded by Brenda Laurel and others, and supported by Interval Research. They debuted their first two games, Rockett's New School and Secret Paths in the Forest, in 1997. Both games were more or less visual novels and encouraged values like friendship and decision making. Purple Moon's games were part of a larger girl games movement in the 1990s, initiated largely by the surprise success of Mattel's 1996 CD-ROM game Barbie Fashion Designer.
Earring Magic Ken, also known as "Gay Ken" and "Fey Ken", is a model of the Ken doll introduced by Mattel in 1993 as a companion to its Earring Magic Barbie figure, one of five dolls in the Earring Magic Barbie line.
Barbie Shanghai was the first Mattel Barbie flagship store in the world. Located in Shanghai, China, this 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m2) store held the world's largest and most comprehensive collection of Barbie dolls and licensed Barbie products. It ceased activities in March 2011.
Monster High is an American multimedia-supported fashion doll franchise created by toy designer Garrett Sander and launched by Mattel in 2010. Aimed at children ages 7-14, the franchise features characters inspired by monster movies, sci-fi horror, thriller fiction, folklore, myths and popular culture, centering around the adventures of the teenage children of monsters and other mythical creatures attending a high school of the same name.
Mattel Interactive was a video game publisher and software distributor.
Girls' toys and games are toys and games specifically targeted at girls by the toy industry. They may be traditionally associated either exclusively or primarily with girls by adults and used by girls as an expression of identity. One commentator have argued that the market for girl's toys and games is more challenging than that for boys' toys and games.
The American Girls Premiere is an educational computer game developed and published by The Learning Company for American Girl. The game allows players to create theatrical productions featuring characters from American Girl's Historical collection, along with scenes and other elements unique to each of the girls' respective time periods.
Louvenia (Kitty) Black Perkins is an African American fashion designer. The majority of her career was spent designing clothing for Barbie dolls. She designed the first Black Barbie in the late 1970s; previous Black dolls in the line were marketed as Barbie's friends.
Madeline is a series of educational point-and-click adventure video games which were developed during the mid-1990s for Windows and Mac systems. The games are an extension of the Madeline series of children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans, which describe the adventures of a young French girl. The video-game series was produced concurrently with a TV series of the same name, with characters and voice actors from the show.
Magic Fairy Tales: Barbie as Rapunzel is a 1997 educational adventure game developed by Media Station and published by Mattel Media.
Adventures with Barbie: Ocean Discovery is a 1997 video game developed by Gorilla Systems Corporation and published by Mattel Media for Windows. A version for the Game Boy Color developed by Realtime Associates was released in 1999, simply titled Barbie: Ocean Discovery.
