Who will this year's "It Girl" be?

Hola, compadres, it's RagingMoon1987 with one of her famous "just for the heckuvit" posts.  As y'all probably know by now Barbie has steadily grown more and more diverse, with new skin tones, body shapes, hairstyles, and head molds being mixed into the Fashionista world, and 2019 will be no different.  This year will see Barbie with...do I say "handicaps"?  Maybe I'd better be politically correct for once and just say "differently abled," because that's what one Barbie is.  Or three, rather; two of the new girls utilize a wheelchair...

  

...and the third has a prosthetic leg.

I'm particularly excited for the girl with the prosthesis, though her face and outfit don't do much for me.  She's pretty, no question, but she just looks...very ordinary in the face.  She does make me stop to think, though, about the first time I saw a person with a prosthetic leg.  He came the summer that we had siding put on the house, and he was the sweetest guy I ever met.  He'd had and beaten bone cancer, if my memory serves me right, and he had no problem with talking to two small children who had never before seen a prosthetic leg.  His leg was flesh-colored, unlike the doll's.  I'm excited about this doll, though, especially since I'm hearing scuttlebutt that the leg can be removed.

As delighted as I am about the dolls with different abilities, my eyes have been dazzled by two other new girls, neither of whom sport a prosthesis or a wheelchair.  One has this bizarre green pompadour...

...and the other is this beautiful violet-haired dame with very dark skin.

I always have a hard time photographing very dark dolls, as past photographs of Duckie and Deb will show, but that purple hair...oh wow, do I love that!  The unusual hair is one thing I miss the most about the Monster High dolls, and I'm glad to see that Mattel is kicking it up a notch with hair colors.  It does make me wonder, though:  which of these dolls will be the one everyone has to have???  In past years the Fashionistas have had at least one doll that everyone was gnashing at the bit to own, and usually the doll in question had some sort of physical attribute to help her stand out.  One year it was Kenzie (left), with her exuberant blonde curls and her head that was usually reserved for dolls of color.  Another year it was Elizabeth, a.k.a. "L.A. Girl," with her partial buzz cut and pink streaks.

Jova was popular too, since she was the first one to sport a huge Afro.

The first, but not the last, as Dandelion captured my heart with her huge blonde 'fro (and her freckles).  Last year was the first year that I can remember there being two "It Girls," as Duckie was popular with her dark skin and brightly colored dress.  Notice how poorly Duckie photographed in this shot.  She is underexposed and Dandy is overexposed.

I apologize for the spate of reused pictures from past blogs, as every single one of the dolls pictured above has since been redressed.  Indeed, Duckie and Dandy will be making an appearance later on this week.  But folks, that's quite a visually striking group!  Brightly dressed, happy faces, interesting hair, different skin tones and heights, I can see why everyone loved them.  Well okay, not everyone, but these girls were popular.  Since they ARE visually interesting it makes me wonder:  will the visually striking dolls prevail this year as well, or will the more bland dolls with prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs prevail this year?  Or...will a dark horse steal the show?  Someone like this young lady with the Blorange face and a bumper crop of freckles, with no hair streaks OR prosthetic limbs?

Oh Lordy, my poor pocketbook!  I know for certain that the girl with green hair and the girl with purple hair will be coming home with me, and I may go for the girl with the prosthetic leg too since I don't know when I'll see another doll like that.  I like the freckle-faced doll too, for that matter.

Who will your It Girls be???  One of these that I showed above, or someone else?

Much love, 

RagingMoon1987