Barbie play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors. During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli. The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she
Elliot Philipp Elliot Philipp Elliot Philipp (July 20, 1915 – September 27, 2010) was a British gynaecologist and obstetrician who worked with Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in developing in-vitro fertilisation and authored "The Technique of Sex" (1939) with the assistance of Sigmund Freud. Phillip was born to a Jewish family in Stoke Newington, the son of Clarisse (née Weil) and Oscar Philipp. His father - who was a cousin to Martha Bernays, the wife of Sigmund Freud - immigrated in 1908 to London from Hamburg to set up the metal trading firm Philipp Brothers. In 1939, he married Lucie Ruth Hackenbroch;