Little girls, big business - Telegraph The recession has been kind to Barbie, as anxious retailers and parents look to a familiar face in troubled times. Last year, her sales increased by 23 per cent in the UK, part of a 36 per cent rise in sales of fashion dolls overall. A decade ago, things were looking less than rosy for the perennially youthful 53 year-old, with the introduction into the market of the brash, provocative Bratz brand in 2001. Perhaps it was the stress of their arrival that led to the break-up of Barbie and Ken's relationship in 2004 (they have since reconciled). The spat with Bratz had the advantage of making Barbie appear positively statesmanlike. But let us not forget that Barbie has long been the subject of opprobrium from feminists and academics, who have suggested that exposure to Barbie could lead to girls becoming dissatisfied with their body shape. There is disagreement over what her body size would be if she were a real woman; using the average height of a British woman, 5ft 4½in, 28-18-30 seems a reasonable estimate. And that's putting aside the controversies around 2009"s Totally Tattoo Barbie, which came with stickable tattoos for Barbie and her owner; the pregnancy of Barbie's friend, Midge, which so shocked Wal-Mart customers that she was pulled from the shelves in 2002; and the expanding breasts of her sister, Skipper, which could be inflated by spinning her arm forwards (Growing Up Skipper, 1975). Although Barbie's stock was down in the last quarter, she'd previously recorded 10 quarters of growth, and global sales were up by 12 per cent last year. A woman for tough times, a great survivor, it's fitting that Barbie is standing for president in 2012 for the fifth time, outfitted in red, white and blue - and her signature pink, Pantone no. 219, rights to which Mattel, her manufacturer, own. Barbie's own political leanings remain obscure, though 75 per cent of the most recent donations from the Mattel Political Action Committee went to the Democrats. Lego Friends: new kids on the block It took four years for Lego to work out what kind of toys girls might like. They interviewed thousands of little girls around the world, spending millions of dollars doing so, and finally launched the pastel-hued Lego Friends range, which features slightly taller and curvier mini figurines than the blocky boys" version, in December last year. It took two weeks after the toys appeared on shelves for a petition asking the company to "stop selling out girls" to gather 36,000 signatures. Lego has been here before: at least five other attempts to crack the girl market - involving buildable jewellery, or simplified, princessy construction sets - have ended in failure. Currently, though, Lego is on a roll: earlier this year it posted its eighth year of growth, and while the UK toy market grew by only three per cent in 2011, Lego sales increased by 21 per cent. Critics of the new line complained that it crudely stereotypes girls" interests - the Friends" suburban setting, Heartlake City, is stuffed with beauty shops, cafés, hot tubs and bakeries - and offers much less challenging building tasks than traditional Lego. Where dolls encourage nurturing behaviour and role play, Lego traditionally develops motor and spatial skills and mathematical awareness. None the less, sales have so far been brisk. Bratz: bad girls made good When they were launched in 2001, the Bratz girls, skimpily attired, caked in make-up and gripped by a "passion for fashion," made Barbie look like a prissy old maid; within two years Barbie's market share had fallen from 75 per cent to 60 per cent, and by 2004, Bratz were selling better than Barbie in the UK. And it's round about then that the litigation started. MGA Entertainment, the company behind Bratz, sued Mattel for "serial copycatting" (Mattel had brought out a much derided line of "urban" dolls, the Flavas), claiming that the company had also tried to intimidate retailers and restrict the supply of doll hair. Mattel sued the designer of Bratz, Carter Bryant, for designing and selling the dolls to MGA while he was still working for Mattel. MGA sued Mattel for stealing trade secrets (a case they recently won, with Mattel being ordered to pay $172million in damages and $137million in legal fees). Earlier this year, MGA announced it would be bringing out a line of bald Bratz in solidarity with cancer sufferers; within weeks, Mattel was offering its own version, complete with wigs and headscarves. The game goes on. Monster High: be very afraid There is a time to put aside childish things, and over the past two decades this moment has arrived earlier and earlier in little girls" lives. By the Bratz era, they were leaving the toy market at the age of eight or nine, and moving on to shopping for clothes or music. The rocketing success of Mattel's Monster High, which was launched in 2010 and was the second bestselling fashion doll franchise in the UK last year, may partly be explained by its ability to reverse that trend. The dolls of Monster High - all the children of famous monsters - combine the "edgy" look of Bratz with the post-Twilight interest in vampires, werewolves and ghouls. It speaks of Mattel's confidence in the brand that they rolled it out with dolls, books, clothes, online webisodes and DVDs simultaneously. The emphasis, says Mattel, is on the dolls" "Freaky Flaws": Ghoulia Yelps can only speak in grunts, while Frankie Stein's stitches have a habit of coming loose. Fulla: the Muslim Barbie Earlier this year, Iranian authorities began closing down toyshops that were selling Barbie. Saudi Arabia, too, chose to ban Barbie in 2003. This is where Fulla, the brainchild of a Syrian toy company, comes in. Her face and proportions are almost identical to Barbie's (though she's smaller in the bust, and wears less make-up) and she shares a penchant for pink (a Fulla with two pink prayer rugs - a miniature one for her and a full-size one for her owner - was a bestseller). Like Barbie, she's a consummate self-promoter: her name and likeness appears on breakfast cereals, watches, bicycles and umbrellas, and her advertisements are on heavy rotation on Middle Eastern children's channels. But she's also conservative. When she's not wearing an abaya and headscarf, she favours modest outfits, and moulded onto her plastic body are a vest and shorts, so she's never naked. Her makers claim to have sold 1.5million dolls, 90 per cent of them in the Gulf region. Sindy: the faded beauty Sindy's is a story of Eighties excess gone wrong. Starting life in 1963 as a shy, youthful and neatly dressed girl next door, complete with a dull boyfriend, Paul, Sindy was the fuller-figured and faced British alternative to the leggy queen bee, Barbie. For 20 years the two vied for the position of market leader in Britain and on the Continent. With a wardrobe filled with Mary Quant and Oscar de la Renta dresses, Sindy held her own. But in 1986, the giant American toy firm Hasbro bought Sindy and, like a controlling sugar daddy, insisted on making her over. Sindy was reborn as a pneumatic blonde with a deep tan and what turned out to be a fatal resemblance to her main rival. From 1989 to 1992, Hasbro and the ever-litigious Mattel were locked in legal disputes that resulted in Sindy being binned by French and German retailers. Ultimately, Hasbro was forced to concede defeat and redesign Sindy's face, just as Mattel released their bestselling doll of all time, Totally Hair Barbie, she of the irresistible ankle-length blonde perm. By the end of the Nineties, Hasbro had stopped spending money on advertising, and eventually sold Sindy back to her original British owners, Pedigree. She's been relaunched numerous times since - notably in 1999, 2003 and 2006 - often in guises intended to hark back to her original innocent incarnation, but the domination of Bratz and Barbie has precluded a return to mass production. Next year Sindy celebrates her 50th anniversary (with more than 100million dolls sold to date), the only "fashion" doll around the world to equal Barbie's longevity, and there are plans afoot to reintroduce her to the UK.