When we toured Mattel’s booth at Toy Fair this past weekend, there was one thing missing in the Barbie area – technology. In recent years, Mattel has made headlines by incorporating fun and even cutting edge tech in Barbie. Remember the Siri inspired Hello Barbie?
But for 2018, the WSJ has confirmed that Mattel has returned Barbie back to her roots, and that means focusing on fashion, her career, and other elements of traditional Barbie play over tech.
At the show, Mattel introduced new Barbies like Bee Keeper, Vet and, Farmer Barbie, all of which are definitely fun and inspiring for little kids – but they lack any sort of electronic components. Fortunately, the lack of electronics doesn’t mean that Barbie will be any less geeky in 2018, because she’ll certainly be dressing very geeky.
To that effect, Barbie has a whole bunch of new outfits that will make geeks jealous. Super Mario, SpongeBob SquarePants, Hello Kitty, and Care Bears are just some of the geek-tastic franchises that Barbie will be strutting this year as tops, dresses and more. Oh, and then there are the cat dresses and cat themed clothing.
That’s not to say that Barbie play will be completely devoid of technology in 2018. The Barbie Fashion Closet app offers digital interactivity for kids while dressing up Barbie. However, it is clear that for now, the company wants Barbie to focus on returning to her roots.
Now if we could only get that Hello Kitty bow skirt in a human size.
