I was just coming to the end of my time for playing with dolls when a new genre appeared, the teenage doll. Nothing along these lines ever entered my sight until I was about eleven or so.
The big two names were, of course, Barbie and Sindy. Barbie, with her impossible statistics, sophisticated face and hair-do seemed a far cry from the pretty, rounded Sindy. They each boasted family and friends. Who could forget Barbie’ s liason with Ken, or Sindy’ s friendship with Paul? Barbie’s long-haired sister, Skipper, shared her famous sibling’s slender waist, though not her buxom build. In keeping with their genetics, Sindy’s young sister, Patch, was of more robust dimensions.
Swept up by their status, I had to own each. Fashionable figures, they needed comprehensive wardrobes, which had no chance of being interchangeable. Barbie’ s generous endowment in a vital area ruled that out, as did her extraordinarily tiny waist!
In the end, Barbie won the day. The multitudes adored her, and still do. Sindy had her fans, but today, ask any doll collector: who is the icon? My guess is, the answer is Barbie!
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margaret lynette sharp 