Re-released book joins box-office blockbuster, new fashion as summer turns pink

We really live in a Barbie World now: plastic, fantastic, relentlessly pink.

There’s a new “Barbie” movie, starring Margot Robbie as the iconic doll.

“Barbiecore” is now its own fashion category, including sweet gingham playsuits, neon bike shorts, and lots of pink bathing suits.

Even the haute-couture label Valentino can’t stop churning out bright bubblegum-hued confections.

Amid all this hoopla, Random House has rereleased Cindy Eagan’s “The Story of Barbie and the Woman Who Created Her,” from 2017.

This charming picture book, with illustrations by Amy June Bates, reminds us that Barbie isn’t just about outrageous pink outfits, tacky Dream Houses, and Malibu beach parties. 

Barbie contains multitudes. Ruth Handler created Barbie in 1959 as a teen fashion model.

At the time, the only dolls available for little girls to play with were baby dolls.

But Handler — who launched Mattel with her husband in 1949 as a doll-furniture company — noticed that her own daughter was more interested in paper dolls that looked like adults. 

She thought, Why not create a more sophisticated specimen with different clothes she can wear on her imaginary adventures?

Handler based Barbie’s bodacious body on a German sex doll named Lilli.

She looked to Paris couture for her wardrobe: a sleek black-and-white strapless swimsuit worthy of the Riviera, and tweed suits, shapely cocktail dresses, and fur-trimmed brocade coats inspired by Dior.

The other Mattel execs thought Handler was crazy.

Parents bemoaned the doll’s va-va-voom proportions (which would have measured a fantastical 36-18-38 in real life). But kids loved her: the company sold 300,000 in its first year.

Barbie was a ballerina, a nurse, an “executive career girl,” an astronaut, and even president.

Handler reluctantly gave her a boyfriend, the anodyne himbo Ken, in 1961.

But when customers begged her to make Barbie a mommy, she put her foot down.

She put out a “Barbie Babysits” set instead.

Eagan’s picture book elides Barbie’s more controversial aspects — no mention of her sex-doll origins here!

For that, adults can tune into LAist’s new podcast, “The Barbie Tapes.”

But it’s clear that kids will make Barbie into whoever they want, whether by cutting her hair or just using their imagination. “What will she be next?” Eagan writes in her book. “That’s up to YOU!”