Back in 1959, Ruth Handler presented a teen-aged fashion model to the annual Toy Fair in New York City, after being inspired by her daughter. Barbara "Barbie" Handler would play for hours with these little paper dolls, pretending they were adults. Ruth wanted to make a doll that inspired young girls to chase their dreams.

Barbie Millicent Roberts was first released wearing a black and white bathing suit, rocking a sporty up-do. Her beauty was inspired by Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. For only $3.00, girls could have their own doll and dress her up however they wanted! In it's first year, Barbie sold 300,000 dolls.

In 2010, polls asked young girls to pick out Barbie's next career. With over a half a million votes, Barbie became a news anchor and a computer engineer!

Almost every girl grew up playing with the iconic Barbie doll, and almost every girl wanted to grow up and be just like her. She was the princess, the mermaid, the pretty girl. Barbie's looks were something that has been controversial for a long time.

In reality, if we would've had Barbie's looks and dimensions, we'd look like this:

via: (gq.com)

I don't know about you, but I don't find this "Human Barbie" attractive in any way.

Now, Mattel has redesigned the Barbie doll to encourage young girls to be who they want to be. Mattel poses the question: What happens when girls are free to imagine they can be anything?

They just released a Barbie ad entitled "Imagine The Possibilities", and all I can say is that I wish I had these Barbie dolls when I grew up. Take a look at the ad below:

Pretty inspiring, huh? In an age when people's appearance is more important than their personality, Mattel has taken the typical Barbie and transformed her into a doctor, a lawyer, a vet -- the kind of people that girls dream to be.

"My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” -- Ruth Handler (http://www.barbiemedia.com/about-barbie/history.ht...).