Barbie Wears Hijab For The First Time Ever

At Glamour’s Women of the Year summit Mattel, company that makes Barbie, announced a new doll in “Shero” collection modeled after Olympic fencer and bronze medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad. The doll will go on sale in 2018.

In 2016, Muhammad became the first American to compete in the games while wearing a hijab.

“I’m proud to know that little girls everywhere can now play with a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab! This is a childhood dream come true,” Muhammad responded on Twitter.

Thank you @Mattel for announcing me as the newest member of the @Barbie #Shero family! I’m proud to know that little girls everywhere can now play with a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab! This is a childhood dream come true ?? #shero pic.twitter.com/py7nbtb2KD

— Ibtihaj Muhammad (@IbtihajMuhammad) November 13, 2017

Barbie’s diversified

From the very beginning, Barbie was hardly criticized for the unnatural proportions that are far from how an average woman looks. A standard Barbie doll is 11.5in tall, equating to 5ft 9in at 1/6 ‘playscale’.

Mattel has been working hard to make its collection of dolls more diverse in an effort to broaden the brand’s appeal. Therefore, in 2015 the Barbie “Shero” line appeared that honors women who break boundaries.

In 2016, the Misty Copeland Barbie honored the ballet dancer’s request that the doll should “really reflect a dancer’s body and also not shy away from the fact that I have muscular calves, hips, a bust, and brown skin.”

Mattel also made a Barbie of the plus-size fashion model Ashley Graham, which, following Graham’s instructions, featured belly fat, round arms, and touching thighs. “There’s no such thing as a thigh gap on my body,” Graham said. “I wanted it to have cellulite, but they said it would look like a mistake.”

Millennial moms rules

Also in 2016 Barbie presented tall, petite and curvy versions of the dolls with 30 different hair colors in 24 styles. The updated dolls are intended to better reflect the diversity of the product’s audience and appeal to the shifting expectations of what Mattel called “millennial moms”.

“We were seeing that Millennials are driven by social justice and attracted to brands with purpose and values, and they didn’t see Barbie in this category,” Tania Missad, Mattel’s director of global brand insights.

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