The highest-selling Barbie doll in Mattel's history, Totally Hair Barbie (known as "Ultra Hair Barbie" outside the US), was released in 1992.

The majority of Barbie dolls and related accessories are manufactured to approximately 1/6th scale.

In the 1950s Ruth Handler, "creator" of the Barbie doll, noticed that her daughter, Barbara, preferred to play with dolls that resembled adults rather than infants. At that time, most three-dimensional dolls were made to look like babies or small children; however, Barbara preferred playing with paper dolls that looked like adults. Realizing that there was a hole in the marketplace, Handler suggested the idea of a three-dimensional adult-bodied doll to her husband, Elliot Handler, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company, but the idea was scoffed at. Mattel's directors told her that it would be impossible to create such a doll.

However, during a trip to Germany with her daughter, Handler discovered a German doll named Lilli in a shop window. The adult-figured Lilli doll was exactly what Handler had had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel.

The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a newspaper comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a fashionable "society girl" who knew what she wanted and wasn't above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955. Although the doll was initially marketed to adult men in bars and tobacco shops, it eventually became popular with children, who enjoyed dressing Lilli in outfits that were available separately. The doll was so popular, she was even exported to other countries, including the United States.