What do a Swiss file, Japanese design principles and Barbie have in common?
With all the hype and marketing surrounding Greta Gerwig¡¯s new ¡°Barbie¡± movie (), you might not have caught a rather amusing anecdote about Japan¡¯s role in creating the iconic doll by Mattel.
In the second season of the ¡°LA Made¡± podcast, hosts Antonia Cereijido and M.G. Lord uncover the story of toy designer Jack Ryan¡¯s experience producing the original Barbie dolls. When Ryan asked a Japanese toy company to create his modified version of a German Lilli doll (an anecdote also worth listening to the podcast for), he noticed an unexpected detail: The Japanese company added nipples onto Barbie¡¯s breasts.
Mattel¡¯s marketing team was reluctant to sell children toys with nipples, so Ryan had to come up with a solution on his own ¡ª he used a Swiss file, made for use with wristwatches, to effectively ¡°(file) the nipples off¡± the dolls. Cereijido jokes that the image of Ryan scraping off Barbie¡¯s nipples would be ¡°seared in (her) memory forever.¡±
Ryan would return the modified Barbies, but the dolls kept coming back with nipples until the process had repeated ¡°several times.¡± The Japanese company finally got the hint that they should remove that one risque detail.
Can you imagine the shock on the marketing team¡¯s face when they saw the first iterations of the dolls ¡ª specifically a marketing team in the 1950s?
Other episodes of ¡°LA Made: The Barbie Tapes¡± delve more into the history of the doll, with one episode even discussing the dilemma that Mattel faced about whether or not Barbie¡¯s male companion Ken should be given certain ¡°faculties.¡±
¡°The Barbie Tapes¡± season of ¡°LA Made¡± began earlier this July, and there are three episodes out so far. There are some fascinating archived audio files of Ryan, Barbie inventor Ruth Handler and plenty of other people involved with the creation of the doll. Co-host M.G. Lord is the author of ¡°Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll,¡± and brings a fascinating depth of knowledge to the discussions.
Barbie is set for release in Japanese cinemas on Aug. 11. For more information on ¡°LA Made,¡± visit .
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