By Allen Voivod
Dr. Jane Goodall’s fascination with wildlife and her unorthodox method of field study led to her ground-breaking research and heroic achievements as a conservationist, animal behavior expert, and humanitarian. Barbie honors the renowned ethologist and activist, and her brilliant discoveries and decades of dedication, with her addition to the Barbie Inspiring Women Collection . And in a first for the series, this doll is created with sustainable materials, including recycled plastic* for the doll body.
The Barbie Inspiring Women Collection pays tribute to incredible heroines of their time; courageous women who took risks, changed rules and paved the way for generations of girls to dream bigger than ever before. This certainly applies to Dr. Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. Over her more than 60-year career, she has changed our perceptions of great apes, people, and the relationship between all life on Earth.
She also launched the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, a leading global organization for groundbreaking science, community-led conservation, advocacy, and youth empowerment, with nearly 30 chapters worldwide. As a part of that, Jane’s global youth program, Roots and Shoots , works to empower young people to affect positive change in their communities. From what started with a group of students in Tanzania in 1991, the program has grown to include thousands of groups in more than 60 countries.
For the creation of this landmark doll in partnership with the Jane Goodall Institute, honoring one of the most remarkable humans of our time, we turned to Barbie Signature Lead Designer Carlyle Nuera. He’s designed a number of dolls in our Inspiring Women Collection, and we wanted to know what he thinks about that opportunity. “For me, it’s how can I be of service? How can I use my skills and decade of experience as a designer to honor these women in the highest way possible?” Carlyle reveals. “The Inspiring Women line reaches admirers of how these women blazed trails and broke barriers, and also reaches children who are just starting to learn about these women in history.”
In a beautiful bit of serendipity, the timing of this project coincided with another Dr. Jane Goodall project. “When I was working on the Jane Goodall Barbie, my niece was learning about Jane in school,” Carlyle shares. “She saw my sketch on my computer screen at home and said ‘I know her, that’s Jane Goodall!’, then proceeded to tell me everything she knew about Jane. So when I received my first production sample of the doll, I showed my niece and went over all the details we put into it. My niece and I both learned a lot!”
The outfit worn by our Inspiring Women version of Dr. Jane Goodall is meant to reflect the kind of field attire she would have worn in the 1960s, when she made her first major breakthroughs in the study of chimpanzees. The comparative simplicity of that uniform allowed for complexity in other areas of the design. As Carlyle explains, they were able to “put detail into the accessories the doll comes with, further telling Jane’s story. The Jane Barbie comes with a watch, notebook, and binoculars – items that the real Jane Goodall used in her research in the Gombe forest in Tanzania.”
Of course, the story of Dr. Jane can’t be told without including one very important participant: David Graybeard. He was the first chimpanzee to trust Jane in the early 1960s, and now, David Graybeard is a part of Barbie Signature, which was more than a little unexpected. “What was most fascinating to me was getting the opportunity to learn so much about chimpanzees. Never in my Barbie design career would I have ever thought I’d know so much about chimpanzees!” Carlyle says.
But here we are, and it turned out to be one of the coolest parts of the collaboration. According to Carlyle, “I worked with Bill Wallauer, a Wildlife Cinematographer and Scientific Advisor for the Jane Goodall Institute. He was crucial in getting the chimpanzee figure right, directing us to model it after a specific actual chimpanzee, named David Greybeard. Jane observed that the chimps created and used tools, stripping leaves off of branches to stick into termite nests and catch termites to eat, so that’s why the David Greybeard figure comes with a stick,” Carlyle continues. “Bill also broke down chimpanzee stereotypes for us - like how when we see chimpanzees in movies smiling and showing their teeth. They’re being trained to do that! In nature, showing teeth for chimps is actually an expression of fear or intimidation. So it was important for us to sculpt the chimp figure’s face and body in a relaxed natural state.”
Meanwhile, our packaging team got to work on creating a sustainable doll box, made from 100% FSC certified material, for this latest addition to the Inspiring Women Collection. The sustainability piece for the packaging was just as necessary as it was for the doll and chimpanzee, and encouraged by Dr. Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute as part of this partnership. It’s also aligned with Mattel’s own sustainability goals.
“The Barbie Team is always looking for new ways to create and elevate sustainable packaging,” says Senior Packaging Designer Diana Leto. “With Dr. Jane Goodall, I wanted to explore new possibilities in environmentally friendly packaging. I researched and developed several concepts based on different materials and fell in love with the sleeve design you can see in the final packaging. I was thrilled that I could compliment Dr. Jane and David by designing a jungle on the package with both photography and ‘cut paper’ styled jungle leaves, symbolic of the product and the package's sustainable nature.”
All of packaging for the previous dolls in the Inspiring Women Collection are complementary to each other, but this one would also need to be bigger, to accommodate both Dr. Jane Goodall and David Graybeard. “I love that the Dr. Jane Goodall doll comes with the chimpanzee companion David Greybeard!” Diana says. “David and Jane had an extraordinary relationship. The package had to be designed for both Jane and the chimpanzee, to represent her research in Gombe as well as her respect for all living creatures.”
Here’s how Diana made it work. “When you look at the Inspiring Women series together with Jane, you’ll see the signature design elements of the series: sepia-inspired backgrounds, professional titles, and photographs. These design elements are there to give the well-deserved respect to each woman’s career,” Diana reveals. Specific to Dr. Goodall, she says, “I carefully considered Jane's incredible observations and adventures in Gombe, Tanzania and her commitment to preserving life and the environment, while designing every graphic detail. Both Dr. Goodall and David Greybeard are intentionally placed in the forest, surrounded by pages of Jane’s research journal.”
The Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie Inspiring Women Doll is a Black Label doll, available right now for $35.00 in the Mattel Creations shop. This creation pays tribute to one of the foremost living legends in the world of science, nature, and humanitarianism, and does so by breaking new ground in sustainability and recycled materials for the series. Get inspired and add her to your collection today, and give the gift of inspiration by sharing her with a loved one in your life.
Excerpt from Jane Goodall’s original 1961 Field Notebooks. Courtesy of Jane Goodall Institute.
*Plastic parts made from 90% recycled plastic, doll head and hair excluded.
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