Kitty Perkins: Toy Designer

As a little girl in a family of seven children, Kitty Black Perkins’ parents couldn’t afford to buy her a Barbie doll. Instead, she played with dolls that her mother, a housekeeper, received from her employers. It wasn’t until she was an adult, applying for a job as a clothes designer at Mattel that Perkins bought her first Barbie in preparation for an interview. That Barbie changed her life and in return, Perkins changed Barbie for generations of girls of color.

Perkins was born and grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Her family was far from wealthy, but her parents encouraged her creativity. In school, Perkins excelled at art. At home, she made her own clothes, starting with a jumpsuit, quite a complicated outfit for a beginning project. She was in love with color and fabric and learned to sew, cutting dress patterns out of old newspapers.

She was also a good student and in 1966, Perkins graduated from Carver High School with a scholarship to Claflin College, a historically Black college in nearby Orangeburg.

That summer after graduation she visited her aunt In Los Angeles, a big trip for a teenager who had never left her small town in the South. The trip opened her eyes to another world and before the summer was over, she wanted to stay in California. If she could get into a college and get a job, her aunt told her, she would happily let Perkins live with her.

Even though it was too late to apply for the fall semester, Perkins put herself on the wait list to attend commercial art classes at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College. While she waited to hear about acceptance, she took a fashion design course, getting some formal skills to add to her home sewing knowledge. Once enrolled at the L. A. Trade Technical College, Perkins thrived, winning awards and getting noticed for her student fashion designs. After graduation, she launched her career with jobs to design children’s clothing and sportswear for retailers including J. C. Penney, Bloomingdale’s and Sears.

Then in 1976, she saw a “blind” ad for a fashion designer not knowing who the employer might be. The recruiter told her Mattel was looking for a clothing designer for the Barbie line. Her audition for the interview would be a new wardrobe for iconic doll, which was turning 17 years old. Perkins had no problem making outfits for adults and children, but an 11 ½ inch doll was a challenge. Still she went all out, sparing no expense to make a hand-sewed floral print jumpsuit made of voile with puffy sleeves, tiered legs and a matching wide brimmed hat.

A Mattel hiring director rejected her design, saying it was “too elaborate and too expensive” for mass production. But another director, sensing her creative flair might be what the company was looking for, gave Perkins a second chance, telling her to come back with cheaper but stylish looks. She returned with six outfits, including a tunic with a bulls-eye pattern on the front, matching shorts and high boots and a white flared dress with black patent leather trim, a hat and sandals. The director took all the designs to a vice president and Perkins was hired on the spot. Later that year, to her amazement, all six designs were on the shelves. It was a dream debut for a rookie toy designer and it would evolve into a 28-year career of groundbreaking designs that reshaped the doll industry.

Years later, recalling that during her first week working for Mattel, Perkins said she started by simply “sitting and brushing Barbie’s hair,” trying to experience the doll from a child’s perspective. It was her thinking process, she said. Her first designs were classic and couture styles, but in 1979 she was given an assignment to create an outfit for the first Black Barbie.

For twenty years, through the social turmoil of the 1960s and ‘70s, Barbie had always been white and mostly blonde. Responding to critics who wanted toys to better reflect the diversity in the population, Mattel produced three dolls in an effort to broaden Barbie’s world. In 1967, they introduced Francie, Barbie’s “mod” cousin from England. Although her skin was darker, all of her features were identical to Barbie because she was made from the same Barbie mold. A year later, in 1968, Christie, Barbie’s friend arrived. Although she had a dark complexion and more identifiable African American features, her character was limited and she lived in Barbie’s shadow until she was discontinued. In 1969, the Celebrity Barbie line added Julia, based on the character from the highly acclaimed television series of the time. “Julia,” starred Diahann Carroll as an African American widow with a son and a career as a nurse.

But none of these dolls had the appeal of Barbie. In creating Black Barbie, Perkins deliberately remade the doll’s image to be more authentic. “My whole intent was the make Black Barbie look like us,” Perkins also said, explaining why she gave her a short natural Afro haircut, complete with a pick. Influenced by black cultural icons she admired, including Diana Ross and the Supremes, Perkins dressed Black Barbie in a red bodysuit, disco skirt, dangly earrings and trendy necklace. She said, “when I design something, I imagine that it would be something that I would wear if I was in that particular situation. Because if it’s not something that I would wear, then I don’t think it would be something the children would like and something the Afro-American parents would embrace.”

In 1980, when Black Barbie launched, she was the first black doll with the Barbie name and Perkins wanted this new version to reflect confidence, sophistication and a little glamour. At a time when the Black power movement was proclaiming, “black is beautiful,” the slogan on the box for the doll clearly made the point: “She’s black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite.”

For Perkins, the most gratifying part of creating Black Barbie was seeing and hearing the reactions of girls: “‘Oh Mommy, look at the doll, she looks just like me.’ Or ‘She has pretty skin.’ That reaction…was very rewarding to me.”

Perkins would go on to have a legendary career at Mattel, becoming Barbie’s designer of fashions and doll concepts. On average, she created more than 100 new designs a year for Barbie. In addition, she created the Shani and Friends doll collection as well as the MC Hammer doll. Multiple company and industry awards, including Doll of the Year recognized her talent.

Kitty Perkins broke barriers when she became the first African American toy designer at Mattel. Black Barbie impacted millions of children and changed the toy industry, giving companies like Mattel the freedom to create dolls of all ethnicities, shapes, colors and in an array of realistic situations. Today, Mattel has more than 170 Barbies in its catalogue.

©2023 Alice Look
Co-founder, Remarkable Women Project.org
Executive Producer, Remarkable Women Project