The musical series celebrates the queen of rock and roll: Tina Turner

She went from singing as a child in her rural church choir in Nutbush, Tennessee, to becoming a legendary artist hailed as the undisputed "Queen of Rock 'n Roll." This is Tina Turner, Grammy-winning music icon and one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. In fact, she's the first female artist to have chart hits in seven consecutive decades!

Barbie celebrates Tina's unprecedented musical journey and her professional achievements with the new Tina Turner Doll musical series. This Black Label doll is available for $55 right now in our online store, with no purchase limit. That way you can get one that you can keep in the box and another that you can unpack for posable displays.

To create this tribute to Tina Turner, we introduced a "new" designer to the series: Barbie lead designer Bill Greening. "This is my first doll in the current collection, although I worked on a series called 'Ladies of the 80s' in 2010," Bill recalls. “Let's just say Tina has been on my wish list for a long time. We got off to a good start the moment she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

This wasn't the only dream come true for Bill on this project, as he was also able to work directly with Tina. “She was very involved in the design process,” Bill reveals. "And the 'What's Love' style was the choice from the beginning." Of course, he's referring to her outfit in the music video for her chart-topping smash, "What's Love Got to Do With It." It is also an outfit that he was well familiar with.

“As a member of Generation X, MTV was a huge influence in my pre-teen and teenage years. 'What's Love Got to Do With It' and 'Let's Stay Together' were our introduction to Tina, for kids of my generation. 'What's Love' was a huge hit - the video was on MTV constantly! The song and the iconic look really defined Tina's '80s comeback for me."

Take three minutes and 46 seconds to watch the official music video, then see how well Bill and the rest of the Barbie Signature design team recreated her look. Our doll is wearing an almost identical outfit: black leather minidress, jean jacket, sheer black stockings, and black heels. “I think the costume is very authentic to the video, and there are a lot of nice details on the jean jacket,” Bill says. "The 'leather' skirt, black top, stockings and black '80s heels really complete the 'tough' look."

But perhaps the most challenging aspect of creating the doll, and the most impressive result, is the replica of Tina's signature hairstyle. How they did it? “We used a lot of screenshots [from the music video] to see her hair from all angles,” Bill explains. “The hair team did a lot of testing to get the perfect style and color. A lot of teasing and hairspray were involved!”

For an artist who is also known for her dynamic live performances, we also give her a good reason to take her out of our specially designed Music Series packaging. “The doll's body is jointed, so you can get lots of rock and roll poses if you decide to unbox Tina,” says Bill. “She has a lot of cool dance moves on stage, so an articulated body was very important.”

There is one final element of the doll to mention, and that is the ring painted on her thumb. It's meant to evoke the gold thumb ring she's worn for decades. (You can read the story of the ring at https://tina-turner.rocks/).

Bill is very pleased with the outcome of the doll - "I think this doll pays a great tribute to such an iconic artist," he concludes - but final approval, naturally, was in Tina's hands. And she turned out as well as anyone could have hoped. “I was pleased to know that this doll made Tina cry with joy when she received the sample from it,” Bill tells us.

It's a doll that has been on Bill's wish list as a designer and collector for a long time, and that passion is overwhelmingly evident in the final design. The same can be said for packaging designer Diana Leto, who recalled that “I had just bought my first CD player, and the album “What’s Love Got To Do With It” by Tina Turner was the first CD I bought. I loved her music video and loved watching her iconic walk. I admired her whole look. Tina was very empowering to me and I leaned into that feeling when I designed this packaging.”

To create something that fits in with the rest of the music series, but stands out in its own right, Diana worked with senior packaging engineer Kambiz Betaharon to create a spotlight-inspired structure and packaging design. “I wanted to capture the emotion of Tina's live performances and was inspired by the warm spotlights that illuminate Tina on stage,” explains Diana. “To recreate the experience, I created the depth effect of a large stage with a golden background dotted with spotlights illuminated by the stage lights. The end result was an elegant gold and black design to beautifully frame this music legend on stage!”