Barbie’s Feet Have Become Less Arched Over Time, According to a New Study by Podiatrists
By the 2020s, only 40 percent of Barbie dolls were designed with permanently arched feet for wearing high heels
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In the 2023 movie Barbie, the title character, played by Margot Robbie, has a crisis over the arch of her feet. Early in the film, Barbie effortlessly steps out of her heels and onto the ground, and her feet stay arched, just like the plastic doll’s. But later, as she becomes more conscious of the world around her, Barbie’s feet suddenly turn flat—causing her and the other Barbies to scream in horror.
Those scenes sparked a series of texts among a group of podiatrists in Australia, and their conversation led to an entire research project. “When we were kids, Barbie only wore high heels,” says Cylie Williams, a podiatrist at Australia’s Monash University who led the research, to Ian Sample at the Guardian. “Did Barbie really get flat feet? Did the actual toy get flat feet?”
Luckily, one of the members of the research team, an occupational therapist named Suzanne Wakefield, had an extensive collection of 800 Barbie dolls. That helped guide the group’s search through online catalogues to trace Barbie’s foot position over time, as some of the researchers write in the Conversation.
They examined the feet of 2,750 dolls released between 1959 and 2024 with a custom-made angle-measuring tool to categorize their feet as either arched or flat. They also looked at the diversity of each doll, whether she was employed and when the doll was made.
The researchers found that, like in the movie, the doll’s feet have gotten flatter over time. In Barbie’s early years, her feet were always arched. But as the doll evolved to take on more varied roles, her feet became more flat. By the 2020s, only 40 percent of Barbie dolls had arched feet. The research team’s findings were published last week in the journal PLOS One.
Overall, the study demonstrates how Barbie has long reflected expectations for women in society. Women are now not only a part of the workforce, but social norms around what women can wear to work have also changed over time. Barbie dolls designed to be in the workforce were more likely to have flat feet than dolls designed for fashion, the team found.
Wakefield, the Barbie collector, tells Alisha Haridasani Gupta at the New York Times that Barbie’s leisure choices have also expanded over time—and in turn, her shoe wardrobe has grown, too.
“She was originally designed as a fashion doll and so, if you look at a lot of her choices of leisure, it was going to the opera, or it was having tea parties or going to a ball,” she says. “Now we see Barbie going skiing. I’ve got scuba diving Barbie—she does a whole lot of other things that are not high heel-oriented at all.”
To maintain independence, the researchers didn’t contact Mattel over the course of their study to ask whether the arch of the doll’s feet was connected to these factors. However, in a statement to the New York Times, the company confirmed that Barbie’s foot design has evolved over time, “with reimagined footwear options to support Barbie’s bold steps forward.”
“This is such an oddly fitting metaphor for the rigid expectations placed on women, including in workplace dress codes that demanded heels,” says Dao Tunprasert, a podiatrist at the University of Brighton in England who was not involved in the study, to the Guardian.
“This study cleverly highlights how even fashion dolls reflect shifting societal norms. Most importantly, it reminds us that women should have the freedom to choose their footwear, heels or not, without judgment, particularly from health professionals,” Tunprasert adds.
Despite the often negative reputation of high heels for health, the researchers write that women should be allowed to select their own footwear “based on task demands,” slipping their feet into whatever shoe they like best.
