Before Barbie, children played with Lilli. Its prototype was a German prostitute

is the highest-grossing doll of all time, on which Mattel has built its international success. From the very beginning, the toy scandalized with its oversexualized appearance and grinding unrealistic fantasies about women in the minds of the youngest. On the other hand, she was the first doll that showed the lives of plastic ladies outside the home, as emphasized by the creators of the Netflix series “The Toys Made Us”. She emphasized that a woman should have space for her passions and professional development – not only for household duties and raising children. The fact that in the history of Barbie dolls her partner – Ken was considered a nice addition to life, and the creators deprived the plastic long-legged blonde’s partner of personality for years is a separate issue.

Barbie wasn’t an original idea. The first doll was created on the basis of a toy for adults

Controversies related to the Barbie doll, however, go not only to the final effect of the work on the toy, but even to the source of inspiration. The doll is not a visualization of an averaged vision of female beauty, but a reference to a comic book character popularized by the German tabloid Bild.

Lilli, because we are talking about her, is the work of Reinhard Beuthien. The heroine of the erotic stories appeared in the newspaper from 1952 to 1961. The target of the comics was to be adult readers, fans of crude humour, hence the characteristic appearance of the cartoon woman. Legs to the sky, long blond hair, large breasts, narrow waist, buttocks and juicy lips perfectly emphasized her frivolous character. Lilli, known from the tabloids, was an escort, willingly exposed herself in public and used her beauty to extort valuables from men.

One of the frames of the comic quotes the portal Time: “We had a fight, and he took away all the gifts he once gave me,” the woman lamented. She held the phone with one hand and covered her naked body with a newspaper with the other. In another comic, Lilli flirts with a police officer. When the uniform points out to her that she shouldn’t wear a two-piece bathing suit, she swashbucklingly replies “Oh, and what do you think I should take off?”

Lilli’s popularity grew, and “Bild” sensed a good deal in the interest of readers. In 1955, adult dolls inspired by the controversial character were released. The toy looked almost the same as on paper, but its characteristic features were even more emphasized. She gained heavy make-up, clear eyelashes and painted nails. Interestingly, the doll was a breakthrough product not only because of its controversial appearance, but also because of the method of its creation. Instead of a single piece of plastic, the body parts of the toy were connected in such a way that they could be bent freely. The head was able to move in all directions for the first time because it was not directly fused with the neck.

As Barbie and Ruth author Robin Gerber recalls, “Lilli dolls could be bought at cigarette kiosks, bars and adult toy stores. Men got them as prank gifts at bachelor parties, placed them on car dashboards, hung them on the mirror or gave them to girls as a suggestive gift.” When summing up sales, it turned out that as many as 130,000 toys, which were supposed to be just an innocent joke, disappeared from the shelves.

Lilli was bought not only by adults. The toy quickly fell into the hands of kids who were unaware of its history. Soon, in addition to Lilli, special dollhouses, room furnishings, furniture and other accessories for dolls began to be produced. Clothes for a plastic girl, mostly designed by Maar, were also sold separately. Among the clothes, dresses dominated, but Lilli could also be dressed in tracksuits, pajamas or bathing suits.

Before Barbie, children played with Lilli. Her prototype was a German prostitute

After the success of Bild-Lilli in Germany, the doll also made its way to the foreign market. It was available in Switzerland, Great Britain and Italy. It was in 1956 that Ruth Handel and her daughter Barbara went on holiday to Switzerland. The 15-year-old was delighted with the dolls and brought three of them with her to California. Ruth Handel, a businesswoman with Polish roots, did not spare money for toys for her daughter for a reason. She herself was a co-owner of a company that produced accessories for dolls and had been planning to create her own prototype of a similar product for some time.

Three years after the memorable vacation, Ruth presented a new product at the American International Toy Fair in New York. On March 9, 1959, the world saw the first Barbie doll, named after Handler’s daughter. The toy was almost indistinguishable from the German Lilli. Hard plastic replaced vinyl, the wig was replaced with tight-fitting hair that held on to the head, shoes and earrings were removable, and Barbie got bare feet with toe outlines instead of the molded plastic pumps she couldn’t part with.

Despite the great similarity of the dolls, the owners of the rights to Bild-Lilli failed to win a court battle with Mattel. Eventually, the parties came to an agreement, and in 1964 the American company bought the rights to the toy. Today, little remembers that the prototype of Barbie, loved by children all over the world, was a German sex worker.