28 they will be sold alongside the original busty, thin-waisted form on. Three new bodies, actually: petite, tall and curvy, in Mattel’s exhaustively debated lexicon, and beginning Jan. Her plump bottom gets stuck in the same spot. “Try going feet first,” the lead designer suggests, and I do. I try to tug it over her head, but the waistline gets stuck at her shoulders, her blond mane peeking out from the neckline. It’s a blue summery frock, cinched tightly at the waist with a black ribbon. Like every girl who has ever played with the most popular toy in history, I yank her clothes off and try to put on a new dress. Her creation has been kept so secret that the designers code-named the endeavor Project Dawn so that even their spouses wouldn’t be tipped off to her existence.
I’m sitting in a bright pink room at Mattel’s headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., playing with a Barbie that only 20 people in the world know exists.
