Barbies friends and relatives
"Barbie" is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc.; "Fashion Royalty" and "Candi" are registered trademarks of Integrity Toys, Inc.
Marcdolls are not affiliated in any way with the manufacturers of these dolls, or any other doll manufacturer.

The photos and text of the entire contents of this web site are copyright of Marcdolls, 2000-2013, in Watt / Switzerland, and may not be used without special written permission.
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Index:

Bild-Lilli, Barbie's predecessor

Barbie's Introduction

Barbie's early history

Barbie's biography

Barbie the doll

Barbie's Manufacturers Markings

Barbie's controversies

Ethnic Barbie's

Barbie's fashion

Barbie through the ages, 1959 - 2009

Barbie luxury doll to massproduction

Barbie as collectors object

Silkstone Barbie doll

How to care Barbie's head?

How to care Barbie's body?

How to care Barbie's clothes?

Barbie versus Bratz

Dolls of the My Scene-line

The five different collector types

Glossary of Abbreviations

Miscellaneous

 
The dolls success not only resulted due to her up to date trendy fashion.
The possibilities to play were increasingly enhance by adding other types
of doll to the line, The description on the boxes explained the relationship of
a said doll to Barbie or Ken ; like family or friends. This makes the big
difference when comparing with other fashion doll series, who generally
have only a male and/or a child doll version of a single product line. Mattel has
produced friends of Barbie with their own faces right from the start and
besides they also produced countless other different fashion doll lines and
practically all in the same scale as Barbie, ( in these cases the description on
the box top indicates that Barbies fashion would fit them too, in some cases
there could be a Barbie flyer found inside).
But nevertheless it all applies only to dolls that belong to Barbies world !

Generally this production range is confusing as many friends have been sold
with a variety of different faces, the ones remaining in production for a longer
period of time would be repeatedly be issued new faces depending on the
change of trends and tastes. On the other hand heads and faces that were
known for Years have been used also for dolls with new names.
Just like Barbie these head mold sizes were increased by 10% after 2005.

Below here is a short presentation of all the figures that have been in
production for more than one or two Years: Most sideline dolls in Barbie’s
world wer on sale for a maximum of one or two Years.
Becky in 1997 was remarkable, the only doll produced in a wheelchair.

Barbie’s sisters also had friends, who could wear the same size fashions
like herself. In the sixties some extra head molds had been created for
these dolls. Later the friends got their head molds from the actual sister
with dark hair and a different makeup.












 
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Relatives:

1965... The first figure from Barbie’s family had been Skipper the small sister with a kiddie face.
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1966... Followed shortly by Barbie’s cousin Francie it had also been the first doll of which there was a black-afro American version, unfortunately she was no success and disappeared soon again from the stores.
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1968... The brother and sister Tutti and Todd were twins of about six Years of age. Unlike the other dolls they were not made from Vinyl, but with a metal grid covered with rubber. Francie, Tutti and Todd have been sold until the seventies.
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1991... Later her eight Year old sister Stacie, and she was manufactured until the Year 2000.
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1996... Little sister Kelly appeared, in Europe she was named “Shelly“. This doll represents a 2-3 Year old child.
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1999... Finally, another baby-sister named Krissy appeared.
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2003... Kelly was the only kid of the family that remained in production after Mattel discontinued the manufacturing of Skipper.
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2007... In 2007 Stacie und Shelly have their own production line. Although these dolls do not match the Barbie line due to their larger scale size.
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Male Friends:
Barbie had Ken as a permanent boyfriend since 1961 (named after Ruth and Elliots son Kenneth). He was a bit larger than his girl friend and sported molded hair until 2000. More male dolls were named as Kens friends. Barbie’s boyfriend in 2005 to 2006 was Blaine, but 2007 Mattel returned to the name Ken for this purpose.
Big excitement about Barbie’s friend Ken

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Female Friends:
Barbie’s oldest friend, Midge (1963) incorporated a total different type of girl than the fashionable Barbie; she was just the nice girl next door. Also different to Barbie, Midge was allowed to marry (Ken’s friend Allan) and to found a family, the last one in 2003 with the trade mark: "Happy family".
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Christie (1968) became Barbie’s afro-american friend, she had been sold until 2006.
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P.J. (1970) was her British friend, and at that time she wore these highly trendy fashions from Carnaby Street. She had been the only doll that never got her own personal face mold, therefore the heads of the 1963 - Midge and Steffi dolls were used fort his line. The very last P.J. had been sold 84.
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Barbie’s friend Steffie (1972) has been produced only a few Years, but her specially developed head mold became the most used for many other dolls by Mattel. This same head mold also appeared with Afro-American and Hispanic dolls as well as the "Dolls of the World"-programme.

In1986 appeared Kira, the Asian friend of Barbie (in Europe this doll was named  Marina). Kira’s head mold has been used for all dolls of Asian origin, despite her face looks caucasian ( for instance, she lacks the Epicanthal fold along the inner eyeline).

From 2001 no more dolls were sold with this face.
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The only one of Barbie’s old frinds, that are still on sale today, is Teresa (1988). She is of a hispanic of Latino-American origin and she had her own specific head mold for a long time. From 2007 the dark haired dolls incorporating Barbie’s head mold are named Teresa.
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Barbie’s Afro-American friend Shani (1990) first had been the main figure in an own, independent line with multiple friends and plenty of fashions and then she has been integrated much more into Barbie’s World during the following Years. The last Shani appeared 1994. While her head molds and the ones of her friends had been used until 2006 further for Afro-American dolls.
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Kayla und Lea (2002) have a common heald mold, but they cannot be mistaken with each other due to their different face paint. Not to be mixed are that: Kayla is Latino-American (hispanic), and Lea is of Asian origin. Both of them were sold until 2006. This Year completely new friends appeared;
it remains to be seen if these will be produced for a longer period of time.
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