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Composite pictures of Barbie doll (left), Bild Lilli doll (right)
"The 'Lilli' doll was the embodiment of an idea I'd pitched to Elliot and our other Mattel toy designers some five years earlier," Handler wrote in her autobiography.

Frederic Neema/Sygma via Getty Images, Chesnot/Getty Images

  • Barbie likely wouldn't exist if Mattel's founder hadn't stumbled across Bild Lilli, a plastic doll based on a comic strip.
  • For years Ruth Handler had struggled to convince her colleagues to make an adult fashion doll.
  • The first Barbie doll, from 1959, had Lilli's bold red pout, blonde ponytail, and winged eyeliner.

If it weren't for a comic strip about a confident, blonde secretary published in a German newspaper in the 1950s, Barbie likely wouldn't be filling the shelves of toy stores around the world today.

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Retail, Barbie, mattel, Trending UK, Bild, Axel Springer, Dolls, toys, Ruth Handler
Source
Barbie owes her existence to a 1950s German comic strip