Barbie at 60: Beyond role play what is the point of dolls?

With more than a billion sold, there are probably more Barbies in the US than human beings. That’s an awful lot of plastic to recycle. As Barbie turns 60, Andy Martin wonders if she is past her sell-by date?

Value of the dolls: the first Barbie doll model was created in 1959 by Ruth Handler, president of Mattel (PA)

Happy 60^th birthday. You don’t look a day over 22.” How often do you get to say that with any degree of conviction? This could be one of those days, because Barbie is turning 60. She came into the world at the American Toy Fair of March 1959, the brainchild of Ruth Handler, president of Mattel, and designer Jack Ryan, based on a semi-pornographic German doll called Lilli and a Playboy fantasy of how girls ought to look.

Handler’s husband (co-founder of Mattel) described her as “anatomically perfect”. Now the makers have gone to meet their maker (Handler died of breast cancer, Ryan blew his brains out), but I know that their creation is still with us, because I dropped in at Hamleys on Regent Street with a notion of buying one. Not something I do every day. In fact, it’s a first, for me, at any rate. Or rather, it would have been.

Only two things deterred me, up on the 2^nd floor, populated by dolls of every stripe and colour. There are now too many Barbies to choose from. Did I prefer astronaut Barbie or Mermaid Barbie? Or News anchor Barbie? Talk about embarras de choix. Then there was the small matter of price. I finally zeroed in on a Barbie that bore more than a passing resemblance to model Gigi Hadid (can her hair really be that long?), dressed by Tommy Hilfiger. But that would have set me back a cool £120. Before buying, I opted to consult feedback from satisfied (or dissatisfied) customers. Barbie aficionados.