Mattel’s Barbie celebrates 50th Birthday in 2009
Born Barbara Millicent Roberts aka Barbie on March 9, 1959, in Willows, Wisconsin, Barbie, the 11 ½-inch, has traveled the world and worked more than 100 different jobs over the past half century. Mattel, has estimated that more than one billion fashion items have been created for Barbie and her friends since 1959.
via: iht
With that kind of wardrobe available it comes as no surprise that Barbie was the earliest connection for some top-name fashion designers to dress making and design. Designer Giambattista Valli & and Anna Sui started dressing Barbies and at any early age before becoming a fashion professional. From Benetton and Burberry to Versace and Vera Wang, Barbie has been dressed by more than 70 designers, including Giorgio Armani, Christian Lacroix and Monique Lhuillier.
For Barbie’s 50th birthday Mattel decided to push the brand even further into the world of luxury and high-end design with a series of events and partnerships.
New York Fashion Week in February, Mattel is staging a full-scale Barbie fashion show with 50 designers creating life-size outfits inspired by the doll. Christian Louboutin has confirmed that he will be designing pumps in Barbie’s favorite shade of pink. Bloomingdale’s will dress up the windows of its New York flagship store during fashion week with Barbie dolls.
Mattel has also just signed a three-year partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America. It is the first toy company to partner with the CFDA,
“Barbie represents a confident and independent woman with an amazing ability to have fun while remaining glamorous,” said the designer Diane von Furstenberg, the CFDA president, in a statement. Mattel will bind itself even closer to the world of fashion when it begins a sponsorship of the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York with the upcoming shows.
This year will also see the launch of a line of beauty products under the Barbie label and Assouline has just published a $500 coffee-table book entitled “Barbie” with images of the doll dressed by designers like Miuccia Prada, Karl Lagerfield and Alexander McQueen.
And in Shanghai, Mattel will open this month the House of Barbie, an eight-story shop that will include a spa, Barbie museum, restaurants, clothing and dolls.
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