Happy Birthday Barbie! #Barbie60 Today, many around the world are celebrating Barbie’s Birthday. Did you know Barbie was introduced on March 9, 1959 at the New York Toy Fair? She sold for $3. In 1963, Life Magazine declared five-year-old Barbie – The Most Popular Doll in Town. I was born that year into the Barbie...
Barbie debuted in 1959 as a “Teenage Fashion Model.” In 1963, I was born into the Barbie Generation – a group of women who never knew life without Barbie. On my third birthday, my mother baked an angel food cake, stood Barbie in the center, and with fluffy pink frosting created a prom-esque gown. My...
Are You in Great Shape? As opposed to Great Shape Barbie? I’m the Not So Great Shape Grandma Barbie – but I’m overcoming my struggles with body image. Do you want to know why? As a teenage-fashion model, I worked in an industry with beauty standards few could attain and even fewer could keep. During...
I’m much more positive about aging in my fifties than I was in my thirties, when I first began to experience the second law of thermodynamics – and noticed that my body was indeed degenerating into a more disordered state. When I turned 30, I dug through a box of my modeling pictures and came...
“Sexual Harassment was an everyday occurrence when I was modeling,” I said to my husband as I watched the news reports about Harvey Weinstein. “He is just like so many of the agents and photographers I encountered as a fashion model.” I thought back to the fall of 1979… One humid August day, soon after...
Modeling is a tough business for anyone and especially a teenager. Two On The Town, a Los Angeles television show, did a feature on modeling. The introduction stated that it is not enough just to be beautiful—that height, weight and bone structure alone will not make you a model. They posed the question, “What does...
When I see my fifty-something self in pictures, I cringe and my inner voice says, “Yikes, who is the chubby lady?” The ironic thing is that I use to be a teenage-fashion model. When I was very young, thin and FABULOUS, I looked at pictures of myself, cringed, and my inner voice said, “Yikes!” I’ve...
During my childhood, my mother loved taking me outside. She often sang along with John Denver’s song, “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy, sunshine in my eyes can make me cry…” She was a fan of picnics, days at the beach, and gardening. As a young teen, I foolishly slathered my body with Hawaiian...
In October of 1979, I went on a “go-see” for a magazine named Jours De France. Upon arrival, I was ushered into a room with a wall of windows and sunlight streaming through. A rack of clothes was in the center of the room, and models were in various states of undress as the stylist...