Barbie, the iconic fashion doll with the top-heavy figure and high-heel arches, turns 50 tomorrow, with no need for Botox and no threat of hot flashes. Mattel has kicked off global events to celebrate the middle-age status of the much-beloved and often controversial 11½-inch doll that has held the imagination of generations since 1959.

Barbie fans hook up through clubs, collectors’ societies, online sites, newsletters and annual conventions to swap, sell, buy and reminisce.

Barbie’s 50th birthday is being marked around the world with numerous pink-carpet events. But the most meaningful celebration of her milestone is in the stories shared by baby boomers who loved her as youngsters and collect her as adults.

. . . Stephanie Shareck Werner’s Barbie family had an enviable life - a dream house, airplane, convertible and eternal youth. But those once-cherished playthings - like so many of their brethren - have been vanquished to a dull and dusty retirement in her mother’s attic.

Everyone, it seems, has a Barbie memory. We asked readers to submit their favorite stories of the fashion doll as she celebrates her 50th year. In the 1970s, I had two nieces living in B.C., Canada. They lived out in the country on a ranch-type place—just the right age to love Barbie dolls. Their parents were not able to buy outfits for their dolls. I was asked to make them some outfits as they knew I love to sew.

Mattel sold 300,000 Barbie dolls in 1959, her inaugural year.
Barbie is from Willows, Wis., and attended Willows High School.
Barbie has four sisters: Skipper (1964), Stacie (1992), Kelly (1995) and Krissy (1995).
The first Barbie with the blond or brunette ponytail and black-and-white striped bathing suit sold for $3. A mint-condition 1959 Barbie is worth an estimated $27,450 today.

SHANGHAI What better way for a fashion icon to mark her 50th birthday but with a bash in China’s city of chic—Shanghai? A half-century after Barbie’s first appearance in a demure black-and-white striped swimsuit, a six-story, pink and sparkling Barbie Shanghai flagship store opens today to a Chinese public that less than a decade ago couldn’t even buy the iconic doll in local stores.