Ken is finally catching up to Barbie as pop culture icons must stay in step with their diverse fans, be they aging, sage-ing or sagging, or not looking like a cookie-cutter white (then African American) jock that Ken traditionally was over the years.
The Mattel brand has expanded its Fashionistas line with 15 new Ken dolls featuring three body types – slim, broad and original—and a variety of skin tones, eye colors, hairstyles and fashion looks. The diversified Ken enhances what Mattel is calling “The New Crew” — its expanded line-up of male and female dolls that come in almost all shapes and sizes.
“By continuing to expand our product line, we are redefining what a Barbie or Ken doll looks like to this generation,” stated Lisa McKnight, SVP/GM. “Evolving Ken was a natural evolution for the brand and allows girls to further personalize the role they want him to play in Barbie’s world.”
Last year Mattel launched new Barbies, curvier, taller and more petite versions and the question that echoed across social media, “But what about #dadbod Ken?” a reference to her molded plastic Ken Carson longtime arm candy companion, led to the new versions. In addition to the new body types, Ken now sports six molded hairstyles including cornrows and a man bun, and skin-tones that would classify as pan-racial or mixed ethnicity.
MAN BUN KEN DOLL. pic.twitter.com/Wk9Z3aagFy
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 20, 2017
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The more diverse Barbie collection was credited with helping boost 2016 worldwide sales of the company’s Barbie division 7% over 2015.
Having the new crop of Ken dolls is “definitely going to help,” said Jim Silver, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of TTPM.com, a toy-review website. “I’m not going to say it’s a game-changer, but is it a piece of the puzzle? Yes. The play pattern is that for every six to eight Barbies [a child] has, they generally have one Ken. So if you have a Ken kids aren’t interested in, that could affect sales. What’s happening needed to be done. They needed to do this. It’s the next step.”
“Broad” Ken’s arms are wider at the pecs and wrist; “slim” Ken is smaller in both those areas, but its Ken’s coif that is arresting…as models with shaggy-on-top/faded-on-the-sides styles, fashionable cornrows and the quintessential hipster hairstyle, the man bun.
Stay tuned for more. “We want to do beards,” stated Robert Best, senior director of Barbie Design. “Facial hair is definitely a thing. There’s going to be changes that we keep pushing, but you have to launch with something. It’s progress, not perfection.”
The collection of 15 new Kens has one glaring omission. “We wanted to add a taller dude,” Best told the Los Angeles Times. “That’s one signifier where you’re really able to see a difference. Height adds variety in a very visual way. It’s actually a stupid packaging/manufacturing limitation. Currently, we have to fit into store shelving and shelving limits how tall we can go. That’s a real thing.”
The original Ken doll, introduced to the world in 1961, wore a skimpy lifeguard bathing suit and sandals and carried a towel. Evolution has been slow but did include Totally Hair Ken in the ’90s.
The new Ken dolls join 100+ diverse looks in the Barbie Fashionistas line making it the most diverse fashion doll line in the marketplace, earning it the accolade of “Doll of the Year” at the Toy Industry Association’s Annual T.O.T.Y. Awards.
Barbie joins American Girl, Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels, Monster High and Thomas & Friends, and a 32,000 strong global workforce selling products in more than 150 nations.
And now new generations of girls – and boys – can embrace slightly-less idealized versions of men and women in their eternal quest for play.
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