01/13/2022
This is Ruby. ❤️
She is an awesome representation of the activism at the root of all things The Body Shop.
This is what Founder Dame Anita Roddick wrote of Ruby in 2001:
"In 1998, The Body Shop debuted its self-esteem campaign, featuring the generously proportioned doll we dubbed “Ruby.”
Ruby was a fun idea, but she carried a serious message.
She was intended to challenge stereotypes of beauty and counter the pervasive influence of the cosmetics industry, of which we understood we were a part.
Perhaps more than we had even hoped, Ruby kick-started a worldwide debate about body image and self-esteem.
But Ruby was not universally loved.
In the United States, the toy company Mattel sent us a cease-and-desist order, demanding we pull the images of Ruby from American shop windows.
Their reason: Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller (Barbie dolls sell at a rate of two per second; it’s hard to see how our Ruby could have done any meaningful damage.)
I was ecstatic that Mattel thought Ruby was insulting to Barbie — the idea of one inanimate piece of molded plastic hurting another’s feelings was absolutely mind-blowing."
Ruby was Anita's ‘middle finger’ to the society’s standards of beauty.
Join me in celebrating her by embracing the spirit of Ruby in us all. ❤️ if you love this!!
