BARBIELAND

Toy mania.

Journalist Hitt makes a lively book debut with a dive into the creation, marketing, and meaning of the iconic Barbie doll, Mattel’s huge moneymaker, launched in 1959. Finding the toy world to be “like the Pentagon,” “highly secretive, obsessed with the threat of espionage and the potential theft of secrets,” Hitt has mined archives and published sources to unravel the mystery of Barbie’s origins, the company’s internal machinations, and its battles against competitors. Barbie, she reveals, was based on a German newspaper cartoon figure called Lilli, who became fashioned into a plaything by a German toy maker. Lilli the figurine debuted in 1955, looking “like a plastic Marlene Dietrich—impossibly thin, synthetically perky, eyebrows angled over a sidelong gaze, already bored by her beholder.” Barbie’s American creator, the feisty Ruth Handler, bought several Lilli dolls on a European trip in 1956, probably having seen one first in a posh toy store on Rodeo Drive, a short distance from her Los Angeles home. Although toy mogul Louis Marx got an exclusive contract to sell Lilli in the U.S., Mattel prevailed after a lawsuit that went on for two years. From the first, the company understood Barbie not as “a terminal product that ends with the first sale, but something to collect, nurture, and feed with a constant supply of costumes and accessories.” Hitt follows Barbie’s fortunes decade by decade, as Mattel strived to change with the times: offering diverse dolls in the 1980s, a President Barbie in 1992, and a roster of niche Barbies later. At the same time, the company mounted relentless infringement suits. By 2023, though, when Greta Gerwig’s movie satirized its clueless male leadership, Mattel finally realized that parody could be a boon for its brand.

A shrewd take on cultural history.