Hi Barbies! Get ready to meet a new gal entering the pink world. It has been one year since the Barbie movie took over the world, and Mattel’s selection of Barbie dolls has now become more inclusive than ever.
The toy company– who also created popular games like Uno and Apples to Apples– has expanded Barbie’s representation to include various job fields, body types, disabilities, and even a pregnant mother. Now, for the first time ever, Mattel has introduced a blind Barbie doll.
This new Barbie features tactile fabric and comes in packaging with braille writing. She has honey-colored hair, a pink top, a purple skirt resembling a tutu, matching heels, and glasses on her head. She holds a red and white cane to complete her look. Barbie shared the reasoning for their design on their socials, “textured fabrics enhance the sensory experience, making fashion elements more accessible with easy-to-open Braille packaging, and elbow articulation for comfortable cane use, facilitating accessibility to show that we are all Barbie.”
To learn more about the blind community, Mattel collaborated with charities such as the American Foundation for the Blind and the Royal National Institute of Blind People. In a statement released to CNN, director of customer advice Debbie Miller noted, “Barbie is all about joy – about discovering and understanding the world through play – and it’s wonderful to think that children with a vision impairment can now play with a Barbie that looks like them.”
Krista Berger, Senior Vice President of Barbie and Global Head of Dolls, emphasized the importance of representation. She stated, “We recognize that Barbie is much more than just a doll; she represents self-expression and can create a sense of belonging.”
Inclusivity has profoundly impacted people’s lives by allowing them to see doll versions of themselves. Lucy Edwards, a disability activist and blind broadcaster, shared on an Instagram story on Tuesday, July 23, “When I was growing up, I would have only dreamed for this moment to come…To be accepted so much that the most popular doll in the world now has a visual impairment and looks like me. I still can’t believe I’m typing this, but blind Barbie is here.”
Barbies and Kens can also look forward to welcoming a Black Barbie doll with Down syndrome to BarbieLand in the near future.