| Ruth Handler noticed that her daughter Barbara loved playing with dolls as if they were real-life girls. This was in the late 1950s, when the available dolls only resembled babies. It struck Ruth Handler as to why she couldn’t introduce a new line of dolls resembling young girls. This led to the emergence of a range of Barbie dolls that, very soon, became a rage amongst small girls and continues to be so today. Barbie would probably been one of the luckiest girls ever on this earth to have had the privilege of wearing designer clothes — all the time. Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Perry Ellis, Oscar de la Renta, and Bob Mackie have been designing over 100 outfits for Barbie each year. One of the vintage collections of the Barbie range is the Holiday Barbie Series that debuted in 1988. The series became a super hit overnight and continued to remain the happening thing for the next eleven years. Every holiday season witnessed the launch of a new range of Barbie fashion products. The Holiday Barbie is a craze for Barbie collectors today. Even today, the first Happy Holiday Barbie is the most sought after for every Barbie collector. The Happy Holiday Series was never introduced with a pre-plan of making it a collector’s item. But the resultant quick sales and the fan-fare made the manufacturers change their minds and make the Happy Holiday Series a collector’s item. Overall, only 300,000 dolls were manufactured in the Happy Holiday Series. |
