Pittsburgh-based artist to launch 'normal-sized' Barbie doll

An artist from Pittsburgh launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at creating "Normal Barbie" dolls, according to reports.

The artist, Nickolay Lamm, told the International Business Times in an email that "the design... is the statement itself: average is beautiful."

The dolls will be called "Lammily" dolls and they will have realistic body proportions, feature natural makeup and sport more casual clothing like jeans, shorts, sneakers and workout apparel.

Last year, Lamm launched two other viral campaigns that were also focused on Barbie. The first was focused on stripping the doll of her makeup in hopes of inspiring Mattel to rethink the doll's all-too-glammed up look.

At the time, Lamm told Today: "I think it's a little bit too hypersexualized and I think people don't say anything because makeup has been on dolls for so long."

His second viral campaign used government data on measurements of an average 19-year-old American woman to create a 3-D model of what a normal Barbie ought to look like.

Back then, he told The Huffington Post: "If there's even a small chance of Barbie in its present form negatively influencing girls, and if Barbie looks good as an average-sized woman in America, what's stopping Mattel from making one?"

His most recent campaign, he said, was inspired by his two previous ones.

Lamm aims to raise $95,000 to actually create the Lammy dolls and hopes to be able to eventually sell them in retail stores within the price range of other existing dolls.

He said he has already tested the designs on his cousins, whose reactions were all positive.

"My cousins like the Lammily designs I showed them," he told The Christian Science Monitor. "The general consensus was that the doll looks more like them and that she looks friendly and inviting."

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