Barbie x Izzy Wheels by Hattie Stewart ©
The most diverse doll line in the world, this year Barbie evolved the Fashionistas line to include dolls with physical disabilities, including a doll with a wheelchair and a doll with a prosthetic limb. The new collection is a celebration of championing diversity and self-expression through fashion. The line includes four designs that can be sized to fit any manual wheelchair and miniature versions in Barbie scale that are designed to fit the Barbie with Wheelchair doll.
The Barbie x Izzy Wheels collaboration presents four limited-edition wheelchair wheel cover designs, created by some of Barbie’s favourite U.K. based artists and designers; including London-based inclusive fashion label ART SCHOOL, and graphic artists Malika Favre, Hattie Stewart and Annu Kilpeläinen, who were invited to reimagine Barbie in her 60th year. The wheel covers will be sold on IzzyWheels.com from Wednesday 28th August.
To create the wheel covers, Barbie has collaborated with Izzy Wheels, a Dublin-based brand founded by two Irish sisters Ailbhe and Izzy Keane. Initially a college project, the idea was inspired by Izzy who was born with Spina Bifida and is paralysed from her waist down. Ailbhe saw that her sister’s chair was the first thing people noticed about her, but it wasn’t a reflection of her bright and bubbly personality. Ailbhe began designing a range of stylish wheel covers that expressed wheelchair users individuality and personality, transforming a medical device into a piece of fashion and self-expression.
Barbie x Izzy Wheels by Malika Favre design Doll ©
Izzy Keane says,”Having a Barbie in a wheelchair meant so much to be as a little girl, and I love that a whole new generation of kids with disabilities can play with a Barbie that represents them.”
Since 1959, Barbie has inspired girls to be anything. From pilot to the president, astronaut to zoologist, there isn’t a plastic ceiling Barbie hasn’t broken. Today, with over 200 careers and counting, she continues to inspire the limitless potential in every girl. As the #1 fashion doll in the world, Barbie represents a broader view of society for the next generation of girls and in 2019 Barbie continues to offer evolved diversity through body types, hair colours, hair textures, ethnicities, introducing 100+ different looks in Fashionistas since 2015 alone. The AW19 line of Barbie dolls include a Barbie with a wheelchair and a ramp, and a Barbie with a prosthetic limb. These are the first Barbie dolls with disabilities since the much-loved 1997 Share a Smile Becky doll – which has been a mascot in the Izzy Wheels office since the brand began.
