The Boobs of Barbie...

This???  I am on record for hating Barbies but Barbie Boobs objectified? Homage to the perfect boobs? Wear the Barbie body on your body.  Nothing like the perfect boob necklace.  A new iteration of the perfect body: Barbie jewelry. Jewelry designer Margaux Lange found a new way to keep Barbie in our lives, with her clever accessories made of various Barbie body parts. This remix makes sense, as it is adult women who would wear this and interact with the jewelry, not little girls growing up. 

Children's Toys That Changed the World should include Barbie as well as Lego, G.I. Joe, Fisher-Price Play Family Village and Nerf, but I didn't see Barbie on the list.  Barbie made women think there was an idea body for grown up women (and their body wasn't it).

Studies have already shown that media images of female models have a negative impact on how women view their own bodies, but it is interesting that images of female idealization have a similar impact on men. Magazines that are dominated by sexual images of women impact men's feelings about their own bodies;  men who viewed the layouts of objectified females reported more body self-consciousness.

One of my book clubs is reading about Gertrude Bell and I remember from earlier studies that she, when in Iraq, felt that wearing a burka was freeing (as compared to the Victorian dress of her peers).  She was under the fashion construct of tiny waists, bound tight by corsets (and still exemplified by the tiny-waisted Barbie years later).

update: An article in an anthropology magazine, Are Women Evolutionary Sex Objects (pdf) (via NeuroAnthropology) delves into this issue, which I found interesting in light of the fact that millions of U.S. women undergo plastic  surgery to have enhanced breasts.  The cultural underpinnings of the boobs of Barbie...

Comments

[Janet]

I can't decide if I'm fascinated or horrified.

[Lauri]

Same here. I don't think I could wear Barbie boobs. But the idea is intriguing.

[Kay Dennison]

In your dreams in your next life I'd wear that!!! I never had or wanted a Barbie -- I think I was too old for dolls when she was foisted upon little girls. I was a tomboy and at age 9, broke my mother's heart by telling her I didn't want a dolls anymore. My own daughter hated Barbie and preferred Cabbage Patch Kids -- much more appropriate for children.

[allison]

Maybe it's just the way it strikes me, but it seems wearing that jewelry would border on a fetish. I think it's creepy.

[naomi dagen bloom]

thanks, allison, i was looking for the right word and "creepy" is perfect.

[Kathy]

I agree with Janet. It's artistic, yet...so disturbing.

[Marianna Scheffer]

I see so many very slight and small young women sporting large fake breasts. This strikes me as very sad.
My grandkids don't have Barbies.