Barbie - Assouline Coffee Table Book

by Susan Shapiro

Celebrate the sixty-fifth anniversary of Barbie in a book dedicated to the fascinating history of the world’s most popular doll. Created by Mattel founder Ruth Handler, a game-changing feminist visionary, Barbie defied the conventions of the 1950s, establishing a role for women other than a wife and mother. With an identity outside of her family, Barbie represented an astounding modern departure, opening the imagination for what a doll—and a female—could be. Decade by decade, the title comprehensively explores the Barbie doll’s evolution from 1959 to today with fascinating facts, insights and never-before-seen imagery. From Marilyn Monroe to Margot Robbie, fashion designers to first responders, Barbie is the essential primer of an American phenomenon. Today, more than a billion Barbie dolls with over 250 careers have been purchased worldwide, offered in an array of different nationalities, ethnicities, and body types. In these pages, readers will discover not only Barbie’s rich history but her singular She is a doll through whom girls can project their own fantasies, whether it be doctor, rock star, paleontologist, Olympic gold medalist, Major League Baseball player, virologist, or ecologist.

Genres: Nonfiction

340 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2023

Reviews

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book may be labeled with “Coffee Table Book,” but there’s more to it than just a beautiful book to sit quietly on your coffee table in the hopes that someday someone will pick it up and leaf through its pages. Don’t get me wrong - it definitely is a book that you should be proud to display; it’s absolutely stunning, but there is actually a lot of interesting information in the book as well as its beautiful images, so it’s more than meets the eye. Maybe just like Barbie…

This big, beautiful book is very high quality, which may not be surprising given its also quite large price tag. At just over $100, this book is an investment, but with my recent high level of interest in all things Barbie, I decided to take the plunge. The book contains many full page pictures, and at its large size, these images really come to life. The book also includes the story of Barbie, from before she was born all the way to the recent 2023 film adaptation. The structure includes chapter breaks for the different decades in chronological order, and it was very fun to see Barbie’s changes from decade to decade. The book did a great job relating Barbie to different things in pop culture and society for each decade. This method explained both pop culture and society’s impact on Barbie, and, in some cases, Barbie’s and/or Mattel’s impact on pop culture and society. It’s actually very interesting to think about both perspectives as well as compare Barbie’s beginning to where she is now. I am by no means an expert (yet…I still have some books to read…), so some of this information may not be new for Barbie buffs, but I certainly found bits of information I hadn’t heard before.

This book is not meant as a collector’s guide, as it focuses more on Barbie’s evolution over time in terms of pop culture and society rather than details like different head molds or fashion packs. That said, there were definitely images that I recognized, either from my childhood or more recently!

My only criticism is that I wish they had edited all text to end at the end of a sentence from page to page simply because there were often lots of pages with images between the pages or text, and my brain didn’t like pausing in the middle of a sentence like that.

I definitely recommend this to fans of Barbie if you can get past the steep price tag. It was definitely an enjoyable read!

[Andrea Javor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this retrospective look at the many ways Barbie is an enduring feminist icon.