The One Piece Of Clothing Barbie Always Got Right
Works equally well on apple waists, big butts, thick thighs, and boobs not impervious to gravity.
by Carolyn Firestone
I was never the sort of girl who wanted to match her doll. Not even when Samantha’s gorgeous green velvet dress appeared in the American Girl catalogue.
I wanted those tiny perfect clothes for my tiny perfect doll. Especially for Barbie.
Even at age 9, I had a good sense that I wouldn’t grow up to look like Barbie in clothes. Not to mention most of Barbie’s frilly pastel tops and miniest of mini skirts were really only meant to be ogled by the bedazzle-and-bubblegum-loving eyes of a child.
But there is one piece in Barbie’s wardrobe that most of us have loooong coveted and desperately wanted for ourselves well into our 40s. And beyond really.
That piece is, of course, her swimsuit.
And it’s for good reason. Barbie’s swimsuits always looked like they were made for real adult women of non-39-18-33 proportions.
Maybe because Barbie herself originated in the in the hourglass-obsessed 50s, her suits were flawlessly designed to look good on curves. And they’ve stayed that way.
Take a skim through the decades of full coverage bottoms, supportive-seeming tops (not that Barbie needed that feature), pretty prints and colors, and chic, endlessly flattering cuts.
They’re all so lust-worthy, we actually went out and found gorgeous dupes for our 7 favorite Barbie swimsuits of all time.
Starting, naturally, with the most iconic…
THE ORiGINAL STRIPED SUIT
2. THE SMOOTH, STRIKING-SILHOUETTE SUIT
3. The FLATTERING SUIT YOU CAN FREELY MOVE ABOUT IN
4. THE MOST WEARABLE BIKINI
5. THE CUT-OUT SUIT THAT LOOKS EXCELLENT ON CURVES
6. THE ONLY DEEP-V SUIT WE DEEPLY ENJOY WEARING
7. THE ONE-SHOULDER SUIT
…AND JUST THE PINK SARONG, PLEASE
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