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Ruth Handler was one of the founders of the American toy manufacturer Mattel. During a trip to Europe, her daughter Barbara became enamored with the German doll "Lilly". Lilly was based on the comic strip "Bild Lilly" in the German morning newspaper Bild Zeitung, created by Reinhard Beuthien. In the early 1950s, celluloid was replaced by new plastic materials and a doll of the comic strip was made in the new material. However, since the target audience of the comic strip was a "mature" male audience, the doll version of Bild Lilly was never a success.

Instead, Lilly unexpectedly became popular with a younger audience with completely different frames of reference. Ruth Handler saw a business opportunity and bought the rights. Back in the USA, she adapted Lilly to a younger American target group and thus the most famous plastic doll of our time, Barbie, was born. In 1963, Barbie came to Sweden for the first time and it was a great success.

Apart from the well-known porcelain manufacturers Rörstrand and Gustafsberg, who have had doll heads in their range since the latter part of the 19th century, Sweden has never had any major production of dolls of its own. During World War II, the Mars tin foundry produced some dolls from celluloid, and in the 1950s, Magda Boalt made cloth dolls reminiscent of Käthe Kruse's dolls. Boalt's dolls are made from moulded cloth with painted faces and stuffed bodies. Each doll takes about 3 months to make. They are both expensive and difficult to obtain because demand always exceeds supply.