BARBIE

azteca

ceramics, jewellery, weavings, masks, music and other folk crafts from Mexico, Central & South America.

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Over 10 years direct trade with dozensot tamilies in Latin America. > 16 VICIOI'Id Street Wt. GlaSS"la’kCI, Edinburgh) lei 0312266695 Wholesale and Reta-é

Ubiquitou: Chip Wine Shop

Advocaat, Benedictine, Claret, Drambuie, Eiswien, Fino, Glenlivet, Hock, Italian, Jura, Kahlua, Laphroaig, Madeira, Nuit SfGeorges, Ouzo, Port, Quaich, Rioja, Sparkly, Talisker, Ubiqunous Vouvray, Whisky, X0 Brandy, YQuem, Zinfandel . . . and there’s more!

8 nthton lone,GlmgowGl2

04l-554 5001

f" , SECRET. .

@ Restaurant

finer,

‘Best vegetarian restaurant in Scot/and' THE SCOTSMAN Opening Hours: Mon—Fri 12—2pm, 530—1 1 pm; Sat 530—1 1 pm

2—3 St Patrick Square. Edinburgh EH8 9E2 Telephone: 031 667 9890

£243,000,000 IS THE I _ ESTIMATED ANNUAL DISPOSABLE INCOME or THE LIST READERS Manufacturers have been WHY NOT pITCH IN Egying witlllgendejr roles ears. enne FOR SOME OF IT Wilson assesses the bimbo’s role model.

i Kites for Everyone... ; WIND THINGS

Scotland's only Kite Shop

11 Cowgatehead, Grassmarket, Edinburgh EH1 NY. (031) 220 6336

Barbie has turned thirty. When she was launched at the New York Toy

L’ “'1‘? Kites Fair in 1959 retailers were sceptical Big Kites that this ‘teenage fashion doll‘ would

Huge Kites ever catch on. Well, they couldn’t

Stunt Kites have been more wrong. Barbie

Super-fast High-tech Stunt Kites Custom-made Kites

became the most popular toy in history despite the fact that she was

Frisbees never really fashionable and never Flying Birds really teenage. Boomerang; Barbie‘s tastes were always Parachuting Teddy Dare.Bea,.s suburban: she preferred to drink

soda p0p and listen to Sinatra on her Dansette rather than rock ’n‘ roll to Chuck Berry.

Barbie was made in the image of the Great American Consumer. Her fetishistic acquisitiveness went far beyond ballgowns and lingerie sets. Her dune buggy, swimming pool,

...and other things

if?:Kfi‘hWEllWElGHT? our or. SHAPE?

...COULD WORK FOR

YOU!

sports car (first a pink Corvette, now a red Ferrari). camper. palomino pony and shopping mall (the Perfume Pretty Plaza) have kept her in the Californian manner to which she was born.

Ever since she sprang fully permed and perfectly formed from the drawing board of Ruth Handler of the Mattel Toy Company (yes, Barbie was designed by a woman) she has tried to keep up with changing tastes.

In the Sixties it was Francie, Barbie’s ‘mod' cousin, who wore minis and PVC raincoats. Trapped by her out-dated bouffant and full g cleavage, Barbie resorted to I cosmetic surgery and changed from

Bardot to Julie Christie.

Little girls were invited to trade in their old Barbie for the face-lifted model, allowing Alvin Toffler to write in Future Shock, ‘The little girl oftoday, citizen of tomorrow‘s super industrial world, [learned] a fundamental lesson about the new society; that man‘s relationship to things is increasingly temporary.‘

Ken, Barbie's boyfriend, arrived in 1961 and was followed by a host of female friends in significantly different stages of bust and hips development so that their clothes didn‘t fit each other. Black, Hispanic and Japanese clan members J

78 The List 22 December 1989— 11 January 1990