Meet Lammily: the “normal” Barbie style doll. She has the body dimensions of an “average” 19 year old, and can also have tattoos, cuts, bruises, spots, cellulite and even stretch marks – all in the form of stickers which come complete with the dolls.
CREDIT: Nickolay Lamm
Doll designer Nickolay Lamm, who struggled with his own body image as a teenger, wanted to create a more realistic doll with all the unexpected imperfections teenagers may have to deal with. However, is this promoting a healthy body image, or creating a whole new problem entirely?
Imperfectly perfect? Lamily complete with stretch marks. CREDIT: Nickolay Lamm
“normal” Barbie is the same dimensions as an average 19 year old girl. CREDIT: lamily.com
It is of course, extremely subjective to propose there is an “average” size for 19 year old girls, or anyone in general. People come in all shapes and sizes. It may also be problematic to assume that Barbies are responsible for body image problems in girls, and it can be argued there is an element of skinny shaming going on here.
However, if you strip things down to basics; Lamily is a toy. Toys are played with for the amusement and joy of children, their creative juices can go wild here. I for one would have loved to put some tattoos on my dolls, or show some evidence that my poor Barbie fell off her bike by putting a bruise sticker on her leg. What’s more, I would’ve welcomed a bit of choice in my doll collection, considering I had a big box of about 200 identical dolls!
A video of how some children reacted to the doll has surfaced the interweb, and as controversial as it may be, the kids seem to love Lamily!
There are valid points for and against this doll, but I personally am all for it! From what I can tell, many kids these days are open to the view that there are many types of beautiful, and that nobody is the same; judging from some comments I’ve seen on Facebook and other sites – us adults can learn a lot from children.
Let me know what your thoughts are on this.
Until next time, farewell xx
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