I wouldn’t have believed it either….
had Elinor not provided proof. (At this writing, there were no bidders.)
A side note — Elinor brought this up while blogging about how she enjoys designing and sewing fashion doll clothes. I am not much of a seamstress, but I learned a lot from sewing Barbie clothes (I remember being especially proud of a little frock with darts.) Some people get very upset about how Barbie and her friends (and rivals) warp young girls’ body image because of their unrealistic shape. Oh puh-leeze — she’s a DOLL! I don’t think girls ever think “Oh, I want to be shaped like Barbie, and I’ll develop an eating disorder if I have to!” any more than they think, “Oh, I want to have knees that click if they bend too quickly, and a detachable head, and a button in my back that makes me move my arms, and fingers fused together!”
Anyway, the exaggerated curves on a fashion doll have nothing to do with the wicked patriarchy imposing unrealistic expectations on our daughters’ fragile egos. They have to do with making the clothes look right. Since fashion dolls are so small, fabric won’t drape the same way on their tiny plastic bodies in the same way it drapes on ours. The exaggerated figure helps correct for that. (This factoid courtesy of Faith and Family magazine.)