Posts
Stacey McBride-Irby, a member of the Barbie design team has created a new and innovative doll collection; a line completely dedicated to African-American dolls. Mcbride-Irby explains, "Barbie has been such a positive model for moms and their little girls, and I wanted to keep that connection", but instead of the usual Euro centric looking African-American barbie coined "black barbie", she has created new individual sculpts with personality and goals.
The So In Style barbies embrace authentic African-American features such as curly hair, wide noses, and full lips. In order to capture the versatility among African-American beauty, McBride-Irby designed each doll with skin tones ranging from fair to ebony. There is even a barbie with Afro textured hair!
I was quite ecstatic when I heard about this; I can clearly remember playing with my black barbie and wanting to be cheerleader barbie. I had to switch to my white barbie because there was no black cheerleader barbie. I could only be "black barbie" with no career, no personality, no different outfit...just plane jane black barbie. So I tended to not play too much with her, her hair got chopped, leg broken and she was tossed under the bed.
This line can only bring goodness to the African American community. Young black girls will have barbies that they can identify with and cherish. No more brainwashing and subliminal messages. Hopefully it will assure our girls that black is indeed beautiful!
I wish something like this were around when I played dollhouse. I would have loved me some Trichelle and Courtney!
I like this new line of dolls as well. I'm a collector but I also collect some playline dolls that I find particularly attractive or think might be worth something some day (such as dolls that were short-lived/not produced very long or the first editions of new doll lines). I came across your blog and found it interesting. I have read before how many black women are happy to have more accurate black Barbies for their girls to play with. However, in the modern day, it's not just black girls who feel pressure and get subliminal messages. I was a child with Barbies in the nineties, and this was when black culture started to become embraced and popular (more media focus and attention). By the way, I'm white - sorry I forgot to mention that. I have always found black qualities to be particularly attractive (dark skin, hair texture, fuller lips, fuller noses, dark eyes, etc.). When I was a young girl I had a lot of issues because of this and because all of the women I looked up to in the media and in my personal life were black. I remember I used to pray every night before I went to sleep that I would wake up black. I had this perception that I could not be beautiful unless I was black. Anyway, sorry, I have a tendency to get sidetracked. I only ever wanted black Barbies, and the Barbies I really wanted were the dolls that were made with curly hair. I remember when I was a little older I still wanted dolls with curly hair, because I wished my hair was like that. I would get white Barbies and strip her so that I could use the clothes on my black Barbies. I was just reminded of that when you mentioned ignoring the black Barbie in favor of the white Barbie. I think it's funny how it's opposite. :)
ReplyDelete