World's Favorite Doll Celebrates 40th Birthday

Though she doesn't have a single gray hair to show for it, a German-American icon just turned 40. Glimpsed of late sporting a metallic T-shirt and a fresh tattoo, the trend-conscious birthday girl, known by her countless fans simply as Barbie, made her first New York appearance at the beginning of March 1959. Although a U.S. native, Barbie has roots in the Federal Republic, where in 1956 the first “Bild-Lilly” doll appeared, based on a comic strip character from the magazine Bild. The U.S. toy manufacturer Mattel took over the patent rights for the doll shortly after its debut.
The original Barbie wore a striped bathing suit, heavy eye make-up and sunglasses and sold for three dollars. Collectors say with her original packaging she is now worth DM 15,000 (U.S. $8,300). More than a billion Barbies have been sold over the years, says Mattel, and about a million yards of fabric have been used to create her clothes. She has survived more than 500 make-overs, including four face lifts, the last in 1998. “It was about time,” Barbie collector Silke Knaak told the Frankfurter Rundschau. “That constant grin with the same old blond hair and blue eyes was getting boring.” Knaak owns more than 400 Barbies and runs a national “Barbie-Info-Forum” for collectors. To celebrate this year's anniversary, she has created a Barbie design of her own, a brunette garbed in a gold cocktail dress. The new doll will make her first public appearance during the International Barbie Convention scheduled to take place in May.

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