At 43, she retains her youthful, if somewhat improbable, appearance. She has had a number of careers including astronaut, presidential candidate, fashion model and surgeon. She has had a close friendship with Ken for many years but there is no sign of marriage or children.
If this were your daughter, you would probably be proud of her achievements. You might also worry whether she would ever settle down. But this is Barbie, the world's most valuable plastic doll, who seems destined for an unsettled life if she is to survive.
Recently the Barbie powerhouse has faltered. Sales of the doll grew steadily during the 1990s and peaked at $1.8 billion (€1.9 million) in 1997 but fell back to $1.5 billion last year. But Barbie is still thought to account for about 30 per cent of the sales of Mattel, her parent company.
The wider industry is also under pressure. In the US, the traditional toy market grew just 2 per cent to $24.9 billion in 2001, according to NPD Group, the toy industry researchers.
But analysts say that Barbie, whose creator Ruth Handler died last month, aged 85, may be destined for a comeback this year. Mattel is pinning its hopes on Rapunzel, a new doll and film based on the fairytale character with the long golden hair. The film, Barbie's second film, will be out in October and the doll will launch in August.
Melissa Williams, analyst at Gerard Klauer Mattison in New York, says: "Mattel sales of Barbie to retailers in the US have been fairly weak but we feel she is poised for a rebound. I think Rapunzel is likely to be a hit and we are likely to see a resurgence in the domestic market."
Rapunzel has shades of Totally Hair Barbie, which was launched in 1992 and remains the best-selling Barbie doll. Her endless gelling, brushing and hair-styling possibilities capture girls' imaginations.
The challenge of keeping Barbie fresh and interesting has fallen to Adrienne Fontanella, a skinny, die-hard New Yorker with cropped black hair. Ms Fontanella came to Mattel's attention when she launched a pond- green fragrance called Amphibia, based on Kermit the Frog, which became a Christmas hit. She had previously worked in the cosmetics and perfume industry for Elizabeth Arden and Sanofi Beauty.
Ms Fontanella, who is the same age as Barbie, has been with Mattel for six years, the last three as president of the girls' division. She follows in the footsteps of Jill Barad, the controversial former chief executive who made her name turning Barbie into a powerhouse brand during the 1980s and early 1990s. Ms Barad resigned two years ago after the ill-fated $3.5 billion acquisition of The Learning Company, the software company.
David Leibowitz, analyst with Burnham Securities in New York, says: "Ms Fontanella has one of the most pressure-packed positions in the entire industry. It is difficult to keep adding sales when the strength of the dollar clearly hurts overseas markets."
Ms Fontanella identifies other challenges. "Clearly, keeping the brand relevant is our major challenge, especially with a brand that is 43-years-old. We need to make sure we are meeting the needs of girls at every age."
As well as the difficulty of appealing to a diverse market, Ms Fontanella has to counter the trend of "age compression", where children are losing interest in toys that their predecessors of the same age still found fascinating.
To keep on top of current interests, Ms Fontanella looks in on Mattel's imagination centre, where 20 girls regularly come to play. "We want to know how girls spend their time - how much TV they watch, what they're watching, how long they spend on the computer, what clothes they are wearing, what food they are eating, what music they are listening to."
Ms Fontanella has also overseen a diversification programme applying the Barbie brand to clothing, perfume, cosmetics, accessories, music and publishing.
Making Barbie into a film star is the latest extension of that plan. Last year she appeared in her first film, the computer-animated Barbie in the Nutcracker. The Nutcracker film and doll brought in sales of more than $150 million - but Ms Fontanella acknowledges that expanding into untested areas is a challenge.
There is another challenge. At present, less than a third of Barbie sales comes from international markets. Given that these are less saturated, growth prospects should be much better than in the US - but Mattel's experiments with different management structures to tackle international opportunities have been hit-and-miss.
"You have to be fresh and new - this business is now pretty much like a fashion business and we are having to produce new products all the time," says Ms Fontanella. And it is testimony to Barbie's enduring success. Despite her current difficulties, she is still an exceptional brand in a world where few toys last beyond two Christmas seasons.
