She’s a Barbie Girl: Singer Stevie Nicks Unveils Her Pretty Plastic Likeness at Madison Square Garden Concert
The Rumours are true…Stevie Nicks is a doll.
More precisely, the Fleetwood Mac and solo chanteuse has been rendered in doll form by Mattel, the company behind everyone’s favorite fashion model figure, Barbie. Nicks is known not only for her iconic look, but for singing hits like “Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Sara,” and “Stop Dragging My Heart Around.”
The singer unveiled the doll made in her honor at her Madison Square Garden show in New York City on Sunday, calling it “Stevie Barbie.” The doll is dressed in a flowing black dress and cape, black platform heel boots and clutches a tambourine adorned with streamers, looking very much like Nicks in her cover pose for Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 mega-mulitplatinum album Rumours.
“We wanted to wish Stevie Nicks a happy 75th birthday in the best way possible. So we created a Barbie doll to capture her iconic style,” Mattel said in a statement on Monday. Nicks’ birthday was in May.
“Stevie Nicks actually loaned us her signature black dress and boots for us to use as reference for the doll,” designer Bill Greening added.
In an interview with USA Today, Nicks recounted how she helped Mattel recreate her signature look.
“Mattel gave me a lot of platform to be creative and I jumped right on that platform. I said, ‘I’ll send you my original Rumours outfit, which is packed away, and we’ll dig it out and I’m going to get out the boots from the Italian shoemaker who is amazing and made all of my boots until he passed away.’ And I sent it off to Mattel.”
Mattel posted a tribute to Nicks on their Instagram Monday, praising Nicks. “Soulful stage presence. Spellbinding style. With a career that’s touched generations of music lovers, @StevieNicks is the latest legend to be celebrated as part of the Barbie Music Series, bringing her inspiring story and chart-topping career to artists and audiences of all ages. #Barbie #YouCanBeAnything.”
They also shared a post with animation showing the doll in action, tambourine and all.
After some minor adjustments, Nicks was pleased with her doll. “When Mattel first sent her to me, I told them her eyebrows are a little too arched and my eye makeup, if you go back to the ‘70s, it was very Twiggy with lots of eyelashes and that doe-eyed look. So I said you need to raise that dark eyeshadow above the fold in her eye and that will fix it. And I said we need to see a little bit of teeth. And then when I got her on June 22nd, I opened her up and I went, “She’s just perfect.” This little Barbie is so precious and they helped her have my soul. If nobody else in the world got her but me, I’d almost be OK with that,” she told USA Today.
Nicks joins fellow luminaries like Cher, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Jennifer Lopez, Reba McEntire, Joan Jett and Debbie Harry (to name a few), who have all had their likenesses cast into the Barbie mold.
Doll collectors and fans of Ms. Nicks, who sang many of Fleetwood Mac’s most memorable songs before striking out on own for a successful solo career, might be a little disappointed, at least temporarily: though Mattell made the doll available for preorder for $55 on Monday, it has already sold out of the quantity alloted for pre-sale.