Notably, the designer for the 40th anniversary collectible Black Barbie was white. Since the blockbuster’s release, Mattel announced that Perkins will return to help design a 45th anniversary doll.

Black Barbie celebrates the momentous impact three Black women at Mattel had on the evolution of the Barbie brand as we know it," read a description from Netflix attached to the trailer.

The Netflix documentary's writer-director, producer, and stars talk about how the first Black Barbie came to be, why she needed her own movie, and the impact of representation. News.

BLACK BARBIE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? The Gist: Depicting everything from the creation of the original Barbie doll to the Black Barbie and all the way to her 40th anniversary in 2020, Netflix’s ...

Now, Barbie is celebrating the 45th anniversary of their first-ever Black Barbie doll with a collectible doll of creator Black Perkins, who worked at the brand as a pioneering designer until 2004.

The first Black Barbie, which debuted in 1980, featured a doll fully immersed in her identity. Designed by Kitty Black Perkins, the doll had an Afro to complement her red dress and gold jewelry.

For more than four decades, Lagueria Davis’s aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, worked at Mattel. Davis, the director of the new Netflix documentary “Black Barbie,” was not a fan of dolls, but was ...

Perkins designed Mattel's first Black Barbie, which debuted in 1980 after demand from collectors. "Everything Barbie was, I wanted Black Barbie to be the opposite," Perkins, now 76, told CBS News.

The newly released documentary takes a deeper look at the story behind the first Black Barbie and its impact on representation in the toy business, and culture more broadly.

Mattel did introduce Black fashion dolls in the late 1960s, but they were not named Barbie, and they were marketed as Barbie's friends. So the arrival of a true Black Barbie was an important moment.