New dolls created by a Victorian mum show girls a more realistic body image
A MELBOURNE mum has created dolls to show a more realistic body image after her daughter spoke about how beautiful she thought Barbie dolls were.
VIC News
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NEW dolls offering girls more realistic body shapes are the brainchild of a Melbourne mother of three.
Amanda Stokes, 43, a former teacher from Mornington, was prompted to design Positive Body Image Dolls after she overheard her two daughters, Lily, 7, and Charli, 5, talking in the bath.
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“I heard my seven-year-old say how beautiful she thought Barbie dolls were to her younger sister,” Ms Stokes said.
“Afterwards I sat her down and showed her what Barbie would look like if she was life-size and told her people can’t ever look like that.
“I told my husband Simon that I had to run with the idea of body-positive dolls and make it happen.”
Ms Stokes is hoping to raise $45,000 through a Kickstarter campaign beginning tomorrow to get the first two dolls, Abby Apple and Penelope Pear, into production.
Abby has a larger upper body and Penelope has a smaller upper body and wider hips.
Ms Stokes has an overseas manufacturer and if she raises twice as much money, she will be able to produce two more dolls — Georgia Grape and Brittany Banana.
“You can’t have a fruit salad with only one fruit and you can’t have a society with only one body size,” she said.
The dolls, which will be made in soft vinyl, are designed to be professional women who exercise regularly.
“Abby Apple is a teacher by day who loves Zumba dancing and plays soccer on the weekends,” Ms Stokes said.
The real dolls will have more natural faces than the prototypes, she said.
“Ultimately, I would love for these dolls to come in a diverse range of ethnicities as a true reflection of the diversity in our world. When we don’t see ourselves reflected in the world we think we’re the only ones,” she said.
Ms Stokes is founder of the Mirror Movement, which specialises in working with mothers and their pre-teen daughters to promote positive body image. She has spoken out about her decades-long battle with bulimia.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bodyimagedolls/1731996267?ref=cx2jyr&token=f90d6309
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