A legendary fashion designer for Barbie shares the story of her adventures working behind-the-scenes at Mattel, and spotlights the creations that transformed the world’s most famous doll into a style icon in this beautifully designed book—published in commemoration of Barbie’s sixtieth anniversary—illustrated with 100 full-color photographs, including many never-before-seen images of rare and one-of-a-kind pieces from the author’s private archive. Dressing Barbie is a dazzling celebration of the clothes that made America’s favorite doll, and the incredible woman behind them. For thirty-five years, Carol Spencer enjoyed an unparalleled reign as a Barbie fashion designer, creating some of Barbie’s most iconic looks from the early 1960s until the late 1990s. Barbie’s wide-ranging wardrobe—including princess gowns and daisy-print rompers, flirty sundresses and smart pantsuits— combined fashion trends and haute couture with a liberal dose of fantasy. In Dressing Barbie, the successful and prolific designer reminisces about her time at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie designer, and talks about her best and most beloved clothing designs from each decade. But Carol’s most impressive creation is her own life. As Handler famously said, “Barbie always represented the fact that a girl has choices”—a credo Carol epitomized. In Dressing Barbie, she talks candidly about how she broke free of the constraints of the late 1950s to pursue a dazzling career and an independent life for herself. Over the course of her successful and prolific career, Carol won many accolades. She was the first designer to have her signature on the doll, the first to go on a signing tour, the first to design a limited-edition Barbie Doll for collectors, and the designer of the biggest selling Barbie of all time. Now, Carol is the first member of the inner circle to take fans behind the pink curtain, revealing the fashion world of Barbie, the quintessential California girl, as never before.

The subjects of the essays in this book range from looking at the ever changing means of specific garments and clothing practices of subcultural groups to examining dress as a reflection of changing life styles in American culture. The essays also examine fashions, fads, and popular images. Dress and Popular Culture hopes to shed new light on popular culture through a study of the associations of dress to culture.

This book discusses the history of the Barbie doll and at the cultural reappropriations of Barbie by artists, collectors and especially lesbians and gay men.

This book uses one of the most popular accessories of childhood, the Barbie doll, to explain key aspects of cultural meaning. Some readings would see Barbie as reproducing ethnicity and gender in a particularly coarse and damaging way - a cultural icon of racism and sexism. Rogers develops a broader, more challenging picture. She shows how the cultural meaning of Barbie is more ambiguous than the narrow, appearance-dominated model that is attributed to the doll. For a start, Barbie’s sexual identity is not clear-cut. Similarly her class situation is ambiguous. But all interpretations agree that, with her enormous range of lifestyle `accessories', Barbie exists to consume. Her body is the perfect metaphor of modern times: plastic, st

After two years, Shula still cant believe her husband, Seth, is gone. In an effort to live again and to feel again, she accepts an offer to counsel women about marriage, love and fulfillment at Namaans, a Christian spa and retreat center designed to meet the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical needs of women. It all begins with Shulas first week-long retreat, Naked and Unashamed, where she leads four women on a journey, exploring the ins and outs of the big S. Barbaras husband just retired and has finally joined her at home. Shes dreamed of this moment but so far nothings changed. Barb reasons there must be passion after sixty, and shes hoping shell discover ways to spice things up in more ways than adding cayenne pepper to her chicken tetrazzini. Lindsey hopes to boost her confidence as her wedding draws near. Shes done it rightvirgin til I doyet the man she loves took an alternate route. How will Lindsey measure up to Gabriela, the mother of her fiancs son, and how on earth will she fare as a stepmother and new wife? Then theres Savannah, who believes she has the perfect marriage. So why did her husband, Reed, suggest she attend this retreat? Savannahs hoping some new moves in the kitchen and bedroom will solve her problems. But Shulas hoping she can help Savannah uncover the root of her struggles and do what it takes to penetrate the wall that guards her heart. And finally theres Alex. Shes already determined divorce is the answer. She makes six figures, six figures more than her husband, and runs her home single handedly. Shes convinced she really has no need for a husband and wonders why she married him in the first place. This week is her last-ditch effort to salvage her marriage, or at least give the illusion that she gave it her all before giving the loafer the boot. These four very different women united by Shulas unusual therapeutic tactics as well as the amazing staff, services and food at Naamans, make unexpected discoveries about marriage, love, and more importantly, themselves. Surprising truths are revealed, past wounds are healed, and precious relationships are made, all while learning to live freefree of guilt, pain, fear, sorrow, shame, and the lies of the enemyfree to live naked and unashamed.

Barbie is a strong, independent doll. But is she a feminist icon? It’s complicated. Since her introduction in 1959, Barbie’s impact has been revolutionary. Far from being a toy designed by men to oppress women, she was a toy invented by women to teach women what was expected of them, for better or for worse. Whether tarred-and-glittered as antifeminist puffery or celebrated as a feminist icon (or, at any rate, an important cultural touchstone in understanding feminism) Barbie has undeniably influenced generations of girls. In Forever Barbie, cultural critic, investigative journalist, and first-generation Barbie owner M. G. Lord uncovers the surprising story behind Barbie’s smash success. Revealing her low origins as “Bild Lilli,” a risqué doll for adults sold as a gag gift in postwar Germany, Forever Barbie traces Barbie’s development and transformation, through countless makeovers and career changes, into an international pop culture icon and now “traditional toy.” Though not every doll in the line has been a hit—with pregnant Midge and Growing up Skipper among the more intriguing disasters—Barbie’s endurance, Lord writes, speaks as much to Mattel’s successful marketing as it does to our society’s overall ambivalence toward femininity. With new accessories, including a preface on the latest developments in the Barbieverse, Forever Barbie “will make you think of America’s most celebrated plastic doll in ways you never have before” (Susan Faludi).

Sometimes a student’s best teacher is another student If ever there were a book to respond to the pressure to increase students’ test scores, this is it. You see, Gretchen Bernabei and Judi Reimer have had amazing success using mentor texts by students to teach writing well in any genre. Now, they “hand over their file drawers” and pair 101 student essays with one-page lessons on topics such as how to: Choose a structure across genres Extract thesis statement and main points Support points with details Use rhetorical devices and grammatical constructions Write from the point of view of a fictional character

Art Teaching speaks to a new generation of art teachers in a changing society and fresh art world. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it presents fundamental theories, principles, creative approaches, and resources for art teaching in elementary through middle-school. Key sections focus on how children make art, why they make art, the unique qualities of children’s art, and how artistic development can be encouraged in school and at home. Important aspects of curriculum development, integration, evaluation, art room management, and professional development are covered. A wide range of art media with sample art activities is included. Taking the reader to the heart of the classroom, this practical guide describes the realities, challenges, and joys of teaching art, discusses the art room as a zone for creativity, and illustrates how to navigate in a school setting in order to create rich art experiences for students. Many textbooks provide information; this book also provides inspiration. Future and practicing teachers are challenged to think about every aspect of art teaching and to begin formulating independent views and opinions.

Cloud-Beam Medley is Barbara Hantmans fifth book of verse. It is divided into seven chapters that capture diverse thematic categories: Mosaic Memories, Hats Off: In Tribute, From Burden to Bliss, Earths Glow, Nesting, Chuckle and Whimsy and The World So Much With Us! Spanish and Hebrew are represented with a smattering of bilingual poems. The author has tapped her Jewish roots, outstanding men and women (both famous and in her personal circle), awareness of obstacle and triumph, and the beauty and comforts of nature, family life and humor. The book concludes on a serious note, with what Unamuno dubbed the tragic sense of life.

Deeper than African Soil captures the romantic, pores-open wonder of a child raised among worlds. It unveils the adventure and suffering of revolution, disease, boarding school trauma, wrenching farewells and losses deeper than most people endure in a lifetime. It explores the nature of memory itself, why we repress it and how to call it forth, all five senses open. Daughter of Canadian Mennonites, Faith Eidse was separated from family at the scariest moments of her life. Amid postcolonial tensions in Congo, Canada and the U.S., Faith and her sisters—Hope, Charity and Grace—lived vivid lives, bridging cultures from their home (Dutch Mennonite) to their host villages in southern Manitoba, the American Midwest and southwestern Congo. Yet home was always changing—sometimes drastically. Faith seldom felt she truly belonged to the places they lived. In the United States, Faith was an immigrant. In her parents’ passport country, Canada, she was a visitor. In Congo, she claimed friendship, longing and memories. She related to all cultures yet owned none, formed identity from bits of home (first culture) and host (second or third) cultures to create a unique third culture. “Third culture kids” each have their own enriched, complicated story but share a diaspora of the heart and longing for home. (352pp. illus. Masthof Press, 2023.)