The New Barbie: Meet the Doll with an Average Woman’s Proportions

Pittsburgh artist Nickolay Lamm, launched a crowdfunding campaign to manufacture Barbie-inspired dolls with average measurements as an alternative to the Mattel original.

Lammily is the forthcoming plastic doll whose motto is, “Average is beautiful.” Her body shape is based on averages of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that is more often used to track the American obesity epidemic. She is not affiliated with Mattel’s Barbie.

Last year, graphic designer Nickolay Lamm created some concept images of the “Normal Barbie” that became very popular around the Internet. (If you didn’t see them, one is to the right.) Today Lamm is launching a project to put the design into production and make the dolls a reality. It’s crowd-sourced, it “promotes realistic standards of beauty,” and it can be under your holiday tree by late 2014 if enough people support the project.

Just like Barbie, Lammily has articulated elbows and likes horses and fast cars and rodeos, but she also likes slow cars, or whatever, it’s even fine if you just have a bike and use a car-sharing service. Who owns a car anymore? Lammily isn’t here to judge you, or leave you for a better-looking, closeted gay man with perfect sweaters and a nice car.

Credits: The Atlantic