Designers continually worked to create new clothes for Barbie that reflected the changing fashions of the day. Over the next few years, an entire industry sprang up around Barbie. Barbie was so successful that she enabled Mattel to go public in 1960, and within five years, Mattel would join the ranks of the Fortune 500. Demand for the doll was so great that it took several years for the supply to keep up with the demand. Thanks to this innovative marketing approach, within three months of her debut, Barbie dolls were selling at a rate of 20,000 per week. Undaunted, Handler went directly to young girls with television ads that presented Barbie as a real person. When the doll was introduced at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York City, retailers had never before seen a doll so completely unlike the baby and toddler dolls that were popular at the time, and many refused to carry it. In early market research, it was revealed that mothers hated the doll, one reportedly saying, "Wow! That's really a daddy's doll, isn't it?" Toy retailers were also less than impressed with Barbie. According to legend, Barbie's face and figure were created from a combination of the best features of the day's most popular stars, including Audrey Hepburn's famous eyebrows.īy 1959, Barbie was a reality and ready to hit the stores. Handler's vision for the doll, which she called Barbie (her daughter's nickname), was that she be the "ideal" woman. She brought three of the dolls home and sent Mattel designers off to Japan telling them to "find us a manufacturer." While vacationing in Europe, Handler discovered a German doll named Lilli-a quasi-pornographic novelty gift for men. Mattel designers had their doubts, going as far as to say that making such a doll was impossible. In researching the market, she discovered a void and became determined to fill the niche with a 3-D doll. It instantly dawned on Handler that make-believe and pretending about the future is an important part of growing up. The girls liked to play adult or teenage make-believe with the dolls, imagining them as college students, cheerleaders and adults with careers. Handler got the inspiration for the Barbie doll while watching her young daughter, Barbara, and her friends playing with paper dolls. It was in 1956 that Ruth Handler hit upon the ingenious idea that would rocket Mattel to the forefront of the toy industry and fascinate four generations of young girls. The company did reasonably well, but was far from an industry powerhouse. Encouraged by the success of their doll furniture, the Handlers switched the company's emphasis to toys and began making a line of musical products, including a child-sized ukulele and a patented hand-crank music box, which generated much of the company's revenue in the '50s and '60s. Mattel's first product was picture frames, but Elliot developed a side business making dollhouse furniture from picture frame scraps.īelieving the company was doomed to fail, Matson sold out to his partner, and Handler's wife, Ruth, joined him as co-owner. The original founders, Harold Matson and Elliot Handler, dubbed the venture "Mattel," creating the name by combining letters of their first and last names. The company that would eventually become one of the world's leading toy manufacturers began rather inauspiciously in a garage in El Segundo, California. Barbie, as Ruth would name the 11 ½ -inch doll, was an instant hit, not only making Mattel an undisputed leader in toy manufacturing, but also creating a $1.9 billion per year industry. It was probably the best decision they ever made. It took her nearly three years, but Handler finally convinced the company to make the doll. But the budding business dynamo wasn't one to give up easily. And they were certain that adult women wouldn't want their children to have a doll with breasts. Little girls like playing with baby dolls, they proclaimed. When Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler first proposed that the company make a grown-up doll, the marketing staff at Mattel balked at the idea.
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