Barbie attempts to be relevant by “living” a hashtagged life centering on fashion. That means keeping up with the trends like flat shoes. These shoes have been having their moments in the runway since 2013 and Barbie, being a fashion icon that she is, caught up with the trend late last year. Blame Mattel’s rumored lengthy design process for the delay.
If you’re within Mattel’s favored distribution area, you probably have seen Barbie dolls with flat feet on the toy shelves. Along with the dolls, fashion packs and accessories were also made available. The curious thing is that the fashion pack never came with any flat footwear. A separate accessory pack can be bought but each pack only has a pair of flats.
fashion packs without flats
It seems like designing dresses that can go with flat shoes is way beyond the skill of any Mattel doll designer/stylist. (I'm exaggerating, of course.) It just feels like that Mattel is halfhearted in promoting the flat feet design. If there are minimal clothing options, who will buy these flat footed dolls? After the poor sales of these dolls, people will conclude that the consumers don’t want to deviate from high heel formula.
accessory packs with one pair of flats each
They could have packed the clothes with both heels and flats. I have shown in my previous posts that some dresses can work with flats. Instead of the lousy plastic bags the dresses came with, a flat footwear option should have been provided. More flat footwear design (shoe mold) should also be made available.
a flat shoe for Raquelle
I know consumers like me sound like whining brats sometimes. It’s just sad to see a toy line we have grown to love die. The new Fashionista dolls have lost their articulation. It would be sad to have them loose their fashion versatility. With the low sales of Barbie dolls recently, the next thing we’ll know is that we have totally lost them for good.
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