Barbara [Barbie]; Ken Carson and Valeria Lukyanova

Have you heard of the beautiful looking Valeria Lukyanova, a Russian as the name suggests ! Sure you know and most likely adore the beautiful doll which is even criticized as promoting an unrealistic idea of body image for  young women, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to emulate her becoming anorexic.  There is this ‘…….’ Syndrome ~ the desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle representative of the doll. It is most often associated with pre-teen and adolescent females but is applicable to any age group.

No prize for guessing – it is the famous World over ‘Barbie doll’. Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration. Barbie is the figurehead of a brand of Mattel dolls and accessories, including other family members and collectible dolls. Barbie has been an important part of the toy fashion doll market for fifty years, and has been the subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, often involving parody of the doll and her lifestyle.

It is stated that Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors ~ Barbie has come a longway since……..

Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents' names are given as George and Margaret Roberts from the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin. Barbie has had over 40 pets including cats and dogs, horses, a panda, a lion cub, and a zebra. She has owned a wide range of vehicles, including pink Corvette convertibles, trailers, and jeeps. She also holds a pilot's license, and operates commercial airliners in addition to serving as a flight attendant.

She has an on-off romantic relationship with her boyfriend Ken (Ken Carson) [not as popular as her] who first appeared in 1961. Mattel has created a range of companions for Barbie.  The mattel toy Ken also has fashionable line of clothing and accessories. In the Barbie mythos, Ken and Barbie met on the set of a TV commercial in 1961. Mattel has never specified the precise nature of their relationship. Since his debut, Ken has held at least forty occupations.

From 1961 to the debut of Superstar Ken in 1977, Ken had straight, non bendable arms and a head that could only turn left and right. Ken's hair was felt in his first year (known to collectors as the "flocked" hair Ken), but was replaced with a plastic, molded hairstyle when the felt hair was found to fall off when wet.

It has not stopped with Superstar Ken ~ he subsequently had his  best friend, Allan Sherwood, introduced in 1964. The first African-American male doll, Brad, was introduced in 1968, as the boyfriend of Barbie's African-American friend, Christie, who was introduced in 1967.

Valeria Lukyanova,  is a young woman from Ukraine whom media personality nicknamed the "Barbie alive. Media has and  she claims closer to the physical a Barbie doll size after many a surgeries. According to media reports, she possesses long thin legs, thin waist, chest high, ribs less, his face frozen often has also undergone several changes: big blue eyes with contact lenses  with eyelash extensions , heart-shaped mouth , reduced jaw, chin and nose refined ... all with a makeup.  Regularly people have questioned the reality of her photogenic appearance suspecting them to be computer edited software aided image.  

In life, many a times it is better to accept what you see as ‘real’ without really caring to know whether it actually is….

With regards – S. Sampathkumar - 13^th March 2013.