17-07-2025
Barbie's British rival is finally getting her own movie – and I can't wait
This week it was announced by the London-based production company A2R2 that a new film about Sindy is in development. There is something very apt about this flagrant act of cinematic catch-up. Poor Sindy has always played second fiddle to the vampy, bubble-gum aesthetic of Barbie.
Launched four years after Barbie, in 1963 by the British company Pedigree, she is the equivalent of Barbie's plainer younger sister. She has flatter feet, a flatter chest and a thicker waist. It is typical of her fate that when she hit 60, in 2023, no one noticed. They were all too busy trying to sing along to What Was I Made For while watching Greta Gerwig's smash hit movie Barbie for the umpteenth time.
Yet as the British women who grew up with Sindy as children know deep in their hearts, the Barbieverse was never really 'us'. It's always been Sindy – the biggest selling toy in Britain in 1968 and 1970 – who has represented the achievable version of our better selves. Relatability was built into her DNA: from the outset Pedigree deliberately favoured a 'girl next door' look over Barbie's alarming pneumatic glamour.
Sindy clearly spent a lot of time riding her bike in the street and her eyes and boobs were a normal size. She tended to be dressed for the British weather rather than the Californian sunshine and during her first few years wore sensible knitwear, buttoned up coats and flat boots, because no one can run in high heels. Admittedly she also had quite a lot of kitchen appliances and a frying pan with startlingly realistic eggs. She was definitely more suburban housewife than go-getting career girl. But that didn't matter to me at the age of four, because my mum was a housewife too, so it all felt reassuringly familiar.
Like many parents, mine bought me a Sindy because they thought Barbie was too vulgar and too American, the doll equivalent of McDonalds, which they also hated. Sindy was a plastic form of political soft power, promoting kindness and decency and wholesome values over brash American excess. As such she is an integral part of a cultural war that has been playing out for decades – Malory Towers versus Sweet Valley High; The Beano versus Superman. Sindy's superpower was that she was just like us, and almost certainly very plucky if she needed to be. She wasn't remotely flash. She may have had a boyfriend, Paul, but no one remembers him. Sindy was definitely the sort of girl to be tucked up in bed with hot cocoa by 8pm.
Yet in the 1980s Hasbro bought the rights to Sindy and launched a botched attempt to ramp up her appeal in America. Sindy's face and body underwent a few tweakments and her wardrobe was vamped up. So similar did she now look to Barbie that Barbie's owners Mattel sued for copyright infringement and Sindy never really recovered. She was retired in the late 1990s but has been relaunched several times since. Today she is back to a normal body size, her face is averagely attractive and her hair has been straightened. Gone is the wannabe-Barbie high heels and Instagram-friendly fakery. These days Sindy hangs out in sensible pre-tween, high-street athleisure.
Nations tend to get the dolls they deserve. These days Barbie is virtually Lauren Sanchez incarnate. By comparison, Sindy is the equivalent of Catherine, Princess of Wales. Regardless of what she is wearing she still looks demure, capable and kind. Her website, aimed at three to six year olds, promises 'good old-fashioned Sindy fun' in a pointed antidote to today's algorithmic-driven screen based entertainment.
Meanwhile the film promises a 'bold, feel-good live-action musical that mixes heart, humour and high fashion'. One wonders what they have in mind. Perhaps something akin to Nativity! in which the underdogs win out over the hoity-toity posh lot up the road. Perhaps One Day-star Leo Woodall will play Paul, emerging Darcy-style from a freezing lake instead of the Pacific ocean. And perhaps Sindy, dressed in John Lewis, will save the day while remaining true to her friends. Either way I doubt it will involve Sindy having an identity crisis. She knows who she is. And so do we.
