We all have fantasied about our barbie dolls dresses. They have always been a bit ahead of their time and thanks to the 90-year-old Carol, who contributed in setting that trend right from the 90s.
I am a barbie girl in a barbie world…is one song several girls have grown up singing. We will be lying if we said that we never wanted to try on the dress that our Barbies wore. From polka dots to those swimwear and well those glazy and glamourous gowns. We have all been there. Even in contemporary times the Barbie core trend has painted the world pink with all its glam. Barbie- The Movie is one of the most anticipated of the year and the promotions have really taken the world. The lead actor Margaret Robbie who will be playing Barbie, showed in a few of the most iconic dresses of Barbie dolls and yes we totally loved it. But how many times have wondered who actually is the person behind the curation of the chic Barbie wardrobe? Not much. what started as a simple response to an advertisement in fashion, Carol Spencer today has Barbie to her name and fame both.
Carol Spencer, today a 90-year-old, is the fashion designer who has weaved some of the most iconic and cute Barbie doll dresses right from the 90s. The doll’s personal stylist held her league for nearly 36 years untill 1999. “When I joined the company, I worked with Ruth Handler (the inventor of Barbie) who was still at Mattel,” Spencer told CNN in an interview. “As soon as I started, I just truly fell in love with this little doll called Barbie and she became my passion.”
Meet Carol Spencer, the Lady Behind Our Barbie Dolls Wardrobe!
Spencer was born in 1932 and hailed from Minneapolis. She completed her high school in 1950. Later she got herself enrolled in a design program at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts, and during her final year in college applied for a month-long guest editor internship position in New York at Mademoiselle (a fashion magazine published from 1935-2001). In one of her interviews with Business Insider, Carol said that she graduated from high school in 1950 and at that time there were basically five jobs for women. You could be a teacher, nurse, secretary, clerk, or wife and mother.”
She had only applied for a job via an advertisement and cut to seven years later, it landed her in a job at Mattle. She worked there as Barbie’s personal stylist with two other designers from different parts of the country. When she retired in 1998, Mattle, a tribute to her and her work made a Barbie doll for her and one which also had her name.
Carol and Her Barbie World
While Spencer is the longest-standing member of the design team for Barbie, she notes that from the mid 70s to the early 90s, there were three designers for the doll. “I was from the Midwest and more-or-less the most conservative designer,” she says. “There was also Kitty Black Perkins, who was African American and from the Southeast and Janet Goldblum from New York. The company wanted designers from a variety of backgrounds and each of us had different strengths,” she said in an interview with CNN.
“Barbie’s clothing and style has to be understandable to a child,” she said. “So we always waited for fashions to become established before creating pieces for Barbie. She also had to be wholesome — we always had to put underpants on the Barbie, for instance — but also a fun toy.”
With changing times and evolving fashion industry, Spencer also had to change her game. Speaking of how she and her team worked on such miniature models, Spencer said that, “The team did everything by hand — from making patterns, cutting them, to sewing the miniature garments — and then we would make adjustments until it looked right on Barbie and in the box,” she said. “Barbie’s scale is roughly 1/6 the scale of a real person and everything needed to look right.”
Spencer herself has a huge barbie doll collection and very rightly so. But among those her favourite is red-haired 1992 Benefit Ball Barbie, clad in a chic gold and teal metallic gown and a Golden Jubilee Barbie doll from 1996, featuring Carol Spencer’s name on the back. And Spencer is the only designer to have this.
All excited for the movie, Carol is still waiting if any of her designs will feature!
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