By Nadine Kam

Associated Press photos
Lining up for the runway.

Mattel’s Barbie turns 50 on March 9 and the fashion world celebrated early with a Valentine Feb. 14, a fashion show during New York Fashion Week, in which 50 designers showed designs made for the cultural icon.

There’s been a lot of flap over the years about the problem with Barbie and girls’ body image. Last night, “Nightline” tried to reignite the controversy, but I think that’s an old argument. Outside of the handful of women who plump themselves up with collagen and Botox, while vacuuming out fat, most girls today are too busy and too smart to aspire to becoming a real-life Barbie, instead opting to be the best they can be.

Besides, when I was a kid, I didn’t exactly relate to Barbie’s body. She was old. She looked like she was 25. The idea of boobs was not something I could identify with positively or negatively. All I knew was that they were troublesome to work around when making clothes (I also had yet to discover the magic of darts).

Barbie probably fueled many fashion ambitions, giving creative kids everywhere their first manikin and inspiration. Even so, they probably never mastered the boob thing either because most male designers seem to design for flat-chested women.

ThreeAsFour design for Barbie.

Kenneth Cole’s Barbie and Ken.

Loved Rachel Roy’s pairing of Barbie’s original swimsuit with a contemporary trench.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Pop, Fashion shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.