Barbie has teamed up with Izzy Wheels, tapping into fashion designers and artists to create a capsule collection of expressive wheelchair wheel covers for adults and children.
The most diverse doll line in the world, this year Barbie evolved the Fashionistas line to include dolls with physical disabilities, including a doll with a wheelchair and a doll with a prosthetic limb. The new collection is a celebration of championing diversity and self-expression through fashion.
The line includes four designs that can be sized to fit any manual wheel chair, and miniature versions in Barbie scale that are designed to fit the Barbie with Wheelchair doll.
Barbie Launches New Limited-edition Wheelchair Accessories
The Barbie x Izzy Wheels collaboration presents four limited-edition wheelchair wheel cover designs, created by some of Barbie’s favorite U.K. based artists and designers; including London-based inclusive fashion label ART SCHOOL. Graphic artists Malika Favre, Hattie Stewart and Annu Kilpeläinen, who were invited to reimagine Barbie in her 60th year. The wheel covers will be sold on IzzyWheels.com from Wednesday 28th August.
To create the wheel covers, Barbie has collaborated with Izzy Wheels, a Dublin-based brand founded by two Irish sisters Ailbhe and Izzy Keane. Initially a college project, the idea was inspired by Izzy who was born with Spina Bifida and is paralysed from her waist down.
Ailbhe saw that her sister’s chair was the first thing people noticed about her, but it wasn’t a reflection of her bright and bubbly personality. Ailbhe began designing a range of stylish wheel covers that expressed wheelchair users individuality and personality, transforming a medical device into a piece of fashion and self-expression.
Barbie Launches New Limited-edition Wheelchair Accessories
Izzy Keane says, “Having a Barbie in a wheelchair meant so much to be as a little girl, and I love that a whole new generation of kids with disabilities can play with a Barbie that represents them.”
