Interview

Apparently Barbie thinks she needs to solicit our help to become a supermodel, when she really should only ask Jason Wu. The Taipei-born Parsons graduate has created enough captivating characters in his Fashion Royalty line of collectable dolls for Integrity Toys to populate an entire fashion week of catwalks. Unlike Barbie's beaming catalogue-girl smile, these dolls have appropriately smoldering haughty expressions, and intimidating style. And unlike Barbie's earnest attempts at diversity (e.g., Barbie made from a different shade of plastic), Wu's collection includes characters like Adèle Makéda, the daughter of a prominent African diplomat grown top model and socialite extradonaire, and the scandalous Kyori Sato—"Once Véronique and Adèle's best friend, Japanese-born Kyori Sato simply went bad." Forget about Barbie; these dolls have more fleshed out personalities than many full-blooded real-life models—although this one kind of looks like Daphne Guinness, and it's hard to match that.