>>8450229>the senior designer of Barbie looks like thisApparently the work culture for toy designers at Mattel is rife with favoritism and a lot of designers say MGA's work environment are much more favourable from what I can dig around. Plus Mattel seems intent on hiring designers who happen to live in California rather than anyone outside of that state so it's very much insular and culturally homogenous.
Mga and Hasbro doll designers seem to cast a wider net than California so while their dolls may have misses, they're always willing to be a bit more different. (I could go into what I hear about Hasbro's higher ups fucking over their doll designers but yall can see the current state of the Disney Princess dolls lmao, believe me it kills the designers as much as it kills us to look at the dolls).
Also asides from like, Bill Greening and Carlyle Fatassa, most of Barbie's other designers aren't doll collectors, they either come in with illustration degrees (like Garrett Sander who didn't study toy design he just happened to collect dolls), fashion degrees, product design or marketing. On the other hand, a lot more Hasbro and MGA doll designers do collect toys, and were often picked up for their toy fluency.
Mattel's issue rn is that their designers aren't passionate about toys but rather they approach it from a corporate, marketable perspective and one of the only designers who DOES know dolls has the ugliest fucking taste in fashion.
