In honour of International Day of the Girl (October 11), Barbie have revealed their Team Barbie - four new dolls modelled after four powerful, professional women rugby players and role models from across the world.
Who makes up Team Barbie?
Team Barbie is made up of four athletes, who all shone at the recent Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025.
From England, who won the competition, full back Ellie Kildunne now has a miniature version of herself, complete with Red Roses ball.
Les Bleue’s Nassira Konde also features in the release, as well as fellow woman of colour and Black Ferns veteran Portia Woodman-Wycliffe.
The final member of Team Barbie is Ilona Maher, USA’s centre and the most followed rugby player in the world.
These four women make up the collection and are perfect choices to represent a campaign centred around empowering and inspiring the next generation of female athletes.
Two of the figurines - Ilona Maher and Portia Woodman-Wycliffe - also feature Barbie’s brand-new body sculpt, which features a more athletic torso and visible body definition throughout, a further huge step to helping young girls feel sense of belonging and community in sport.
The women who inspired these dolls met their miniatures at the Allianz Stadium, with Kildunne saying that “I thought nothing could come close to the feeling of lifting that trophy, but having my own one-of-a-kind Barbie doll is a very close second!”.
What is the Barbie Dream Gap project?
This release comes alongside Mattel donating £20,000 to the RFU as part of their Barbie Dream Gap project, aimed at helping their aim of increasing the number of female players worldwide.
Krista Berger, the Senior Vice-President of Barbie, explained that “by showcasing the stories of incredible role models, whose confidence has unlocked ground-breaking success, we’re showing girls that the future of sports - or wherever their passion lies - is theirs to claim, with Team Barbie cheering them on”.
This release comes alongside a range of clothing that was unveiled just before the beginning of the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. The collection, which was modelled by Red Roses Zoe Aldcroft, Sarah Bern and Sadia Kabeya, features t-shirts and jumpers with slogans like ‘Strong Girls Play Rugby’ and ‘Barbie Rugby’ as a further method of empowering young girls.
Rugby news and related content
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- A new stratosphere: how big really was the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025