Barbie Mania is running rampant. Her movie launched the same weekend as the mega hit Oppenheimer, creating the phenomenon dubbed “Barbenheimer.” Their weekend sales set records. Barbie had the highest-grossing debut of 2023 during the fourth-largest U.S. box office weekend of all time. Mattel, Inc. officially debuted Barbie in 1959 at the American International Toy Fair in NYC. That was the year I entered high school, so I never owned a Barbie doll and I don’t plan to see the movie.
Five actresses graced a Time magazine cover in July; they share the Barbie role. They’re all tall and thin but only one looks anything like the iconic doll. My husband said the cover reminded him of the sixties British model, Twiggy. Other than the tall and thin of it, I didn’t see Twiggy at all. I made a gangly Twiggedy Ann doll for my broher-in-law’s niece when I was in college. The doll had short, yellow yarn hair and a pink button nose and looked more like Twiggy than the women on the Time cover.
The quintet of actresses on that cover were selected to represent incarnations of Barbie over the decades. She began in Palm Springs and evolved to the White House, reflecting changing ideas about girls. You can still find classic blonde Barbies, but there are also Black, LatinX, Asian and trans ones. She’s been said to have an ingratiating smile and impossible curves, not to mention ample boobs. I don’t know if the actresses meet all those criteria, but based on the Time photo, at least three have the boob thing covered.
It’s not just in theaters that the movie has caused Barbie Mania. Retailers have hopped on the Barbie bus, too. Their merchandise and store displays are drenched in pink and fuchsia. Medical techs are now padding around their facilities in fuchsia Crocs. Can pink hair be far behind?
The doll I remember most from my childhood is Ideal’s Toni. I have one in my collection. She pre-dated Barbie by about a decade. The original Toni had long blonde hair and long thin legs, but she wasn’t a fashion doll. Home hair perms appeared in the early 1950’s. The Toni brand was especially popular. It was promoted with the Toni doll and Tonette, a home perm kit for little girls, just like their mother's.
My mother permed her hair at home. When Tonette came out, she decided to perm mine, too. Have you ever smelled the curling solution from the fifties? If so, you’ll know that this was a “misery loves company” move on my mother’s part. More about that later. If the smell wasn’t bad enough, the kinky curls it left me with added injury to insult. I have a school picture to prove it.
The beautiful Toni doll made my experience with Tonette worthwhile. The Ideal Toy Company made the doll from 1949–1953. The other saving grace is that they also provided little paper dolls. I was very much into those. I searched for some on eBay, but the only ones available seemed to all be laser cut reproductions.
I have a real Toni doll in her original dress. I sold the blonde one, but I still have a brunette. Why would I settle for repro paper ones? The doll was one of the most popular ever made. They generally sell for up to $50 if they’re in good condition in nice dresses. Even without Barbie Mania, vintage Barbies fetched several thousand dollars, especially if they were very old or were in an unusual outfit. They’re probably worth more now.
Smelly home perms weren’t the only torture my mother subjected me to. She had a home beauty treatment to take care of the mustache that Brunettes have on their upper lip. Never mind that I was too young to have noticeable hair there. In another example of “misery loves company,” when my mother bleached her own mustache, she had me do mine. We made a paste probably with amonia and peroxide. I don’t recall exactly. It smelled terrible, burned like hell, and my mustache looked the same when I was done.
I’ll bet Barbie never had to bleach her mustache. Ken would probably have been too preoccupied staring at her boobs to notice a mustache anyway.
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