The Women Who Became Human Barbies — And a Plastic Surgeon Who Wants to Make More of Them

Two women who have transformed themselves to look like the Mattel doll feel empowered but talk about coping with hostility, as the head of a medical group warns that these "series of surgical procedures...walk an ethical tightrope"

Created and marketed in 1959 as a teenage fashion doll alternative to baby dolls — and the star, of course, of the critically acclaimed box office blockbuster — Barbie has not only driven a cultural conversation on gender and feminism but also a desire to look like the doll itself. And now that’s more possible than ever (if not controversial), in almost every way except making human feet permanently arched.

Rachel Evans, a well-known Barbie lookalike in the U.K., has achieved her self-stated goal of being “a human doll … now I am Barbie 24/7,” as she states on her website, rachelevanstv.com, through 35 facial injection procedures. Wearing a pink and white plaid dress and hat akin to Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) traveling look in the movie, Evans explains her fixation in a Zoom interview with The Hollywood Reporter, saying that she was bullied as a child, resulting in a broken nose: “I knew I would feel happier if it was more Barbie-like,” she says. Over nearly a decade, starting with Botox, Evans strove to achieve her goal look of Barbie: “I’ve had every inch of my face injected. People say I look dramatically different. It’s been a very long process … to reshape my face and to use the Barbie face as the aesthetic ideal for what I wanted to achieve.”