Bessie Coleman is the latest addition to the Inspiring Women collection

Three days ago, Barbie Signature members had the opportunity to add the next inspirational woman doll to their collections, without knowing who the doll actually was. But this series of dolls, which represent brave women of their time, are so popular that collectors want to get their hands on them before they are available to the general public.

We promised this doll would be amazing, and so would the real-life person who inspired it, and now we can finally reveal it: Bessie Coleman, the first Black and Native American aviator and the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license. .

“She had to travel all the way to France to get her pilot's license, because at the time there were no pilot training opportunities for black women in the US,” says doll designer Carlyle Nuera. “One of my favorite aspects of designing for the Inspiring Women line is the research. So while
“I had heard of Bessie Coleman, I learned a lot about her in the process.”

There are many online resources to learn about Coleman, but due to the time period, one type of asset in particular was in short supply and had a direct impact on Carlyle's design process. “I went looking for old pictures of Bessie Coleman. There weren’t that many online and they were all in black and white,” she says. “So I also looked for other representations of her: book illustrations, tribute art, and even how children dress like her for school projects. “That gave me an idea of how society characterizes it, and I was able to design the doll to match that.”

For her outfit, Carlyle created a traditional olive green aviator suit inspired by what pilots used to wear in the 1920s, with high lace-up boots. She also comes with a cap adorned with her initials. "My favorite detail on the doll is the golden eagle insignia on her hat, with 'BC' below it," reveals Carlyle. “One of Mattel's sculptors, George Georgy, did an amazing job sculpting the soft folds and texture as if it were a real leather hat. There is a portrait of Bessie where she is smiling and wearing that hat, so that is what I wanted to recreate for the doll.”

That winning smile also affected Carlyle's selection of the facial sculpt for the doll. “I chose the Desiree/Adria sculpture because she has the same smile and similar features as Bessie,” he says. “We painted her face based on that portrait of her, capturing the shape of her eyes and eyebrows, and the natural, makeup-free appearance that she had in the portrait of her.”

Carlyle has had a lot of experience designing the Inspirational Women dolls, but when it came to the doll's box, it was a first for packaging designer Priscila Bara. “It's actually my first Inspiring Women packaging design! It was great to learn more about such a bold and wonderful woman who was ahead of her time,” says Priscila. “I think everything came together very well and true to her profession and time.”

If you've seen several boxes of Inspiring Women dolls side by side, you know that they are all similar in some way. However, Priscila points out that “there are some details that change from one doll to another. That is the opportunity you have to show something particular about that doll. In the case of Bessie, the wing-inspired pattern was created to accompany the theme.”

Priscila also went on the hunt for photos from the time, but from another angle, so to speak. “I think my favorite detail about the packaging design, because I wanted to stay true to the era, is that I made sure to find a photo from the early 1920s that showed one of the model airplanes I used to fly.”

Now that you know more about what went into creating this high-flying doll, it's time to head over to the online store and add it to your collection, or gift it to someone special! Get your Barbie Inspiring Women Bessie Coleman doll today.