The Barbie doll is an iconic toy that many young girls around the world grow up playing with. Some girls will even try and match the features of the unrealistically proportioned toy. But like with most things children will grow out of this idea rather quickly when they realize the doll’s features are basically impossible to obtain and will quite rightly abandon the manufacturers version of the “perfection.”
However, there is one women, Valeria Lukyanova who has decided that the “Barbie” look and its unattainable beauty is what she wants. Read on to hear her incredible story.
1. Growing Up
It’s no wonder that we might expect the person in search of becoming the real-life Barbie doll had a hard childhood. Maybe as a result of mental or physical stress, she searches for compensation in that of unachievable beauty. However, in the case of Valeria Lukyanova, that simply was not the case.
She enjoyed a happy childhood with two loving parents. One thing was clear however, Valeria loved her dolls. Fascinated with not only playing, naming and imagining scenarios in which the dolls were married off, Valeria also was more interested in the surreal symmetry of their bodies. This fascination never faded and instead just grew and grew.
2. Who Was She Before Becoming Barbie
Her mother worked hard in the army and her father as a builder by day and a DJ in local clubs by night, to make sure their daughter had everything she needed. It didn’t take much to keep Valeria happy. All she wanted was her dolls to play with.
As a child, no one at any point suspected Valeria of anything extraordinary. She was as normal as it gets. She played with her dolls the same as any other child and grew up the way she was expected to. Making friends in school who also played and enjoyed their own little toys.
3. Her Parents Life Was Not For Her
As she grew up she watched her father work tirelessly at his two jobs to provide their family with a better standard of living. But this did not interest her. All it showed to her as if one could work two jobs one could live two lives.
She wasn’t interested in living the life her parents were living and decided she wanted something else. She decided there were bigger and more adventurous things to be done so begin thinking of what to do and settled first on seeing the world. She decided one place, in particular, took her interest and that was South America.
4. New Surroundings
While travelling in Mexico, Valeria really had an epiphany of what possibilities life could bring and felt even stronger against settling into the jobs and work her parents had to endure to make a decent standard of living. Although she never went without, there were far more possibilities to explore.
Valeria refused to get a normal job and instead began to think of alternative and exciting ways to make her money. Even before her transformation, the young woman was a good looking individual and as a result, decided to try her hand at modelling. It had to be more exciting than construction or working in the army.
5. Before Barbie
Yes, Valeria Lukyanova was obsessed with her dolls as a child, their proportions and their unattainable beauty, but she never thought she herself could reach the incredible aesthetics of her toys. The idea of such symmetry as a human didn’t even seem like a possibility, so Valeria didn’t think about.
And regardless of these obsessions, she began modelling. Mainly due to the fact that even before she began to transform herself into the human Barbie she was already catching peoples eyes as a result of her own beauty. However, her work in modelling only increased her desire for perfection.
6. The Barbie Transformation Begins
Valeria had a vision in mind at the start of her transformation and decided she wanted to achieve this goal with no surgical alterations. However, we all understand that the impossible proportions present on the Barbie doll are in no way achievable by real women naturally. Humans are simply not born in these dimensions.
As her journey began to develop Valeria began to understand that if she was to achieve her dream of having a doll-like figure, she would need to undergo some form of surgery, if not a huge amount. This was to become a process and a life-changing experience.
7. Pursuit Of Doll-Like Symmetry
Valeria Lukyanova worked hard at her dimensions and with the help of surgery, she managed to achieve the begging of her dream-like proportions. In a short space of time, she managed to have a waistline of 48.26 centimetres or 19 inches. Plus with surgery for breast implants, her bust was now also in the realm of Barbies.
However, man people argue that she had also had surgery on her waistline. To have such a small waist at her height was next to impossible. There are multiple supermodels who have a wider waist than that of Valeria. But she continues to have denied any other surgeries than on those for her breast implants. “My mother’s waist is as tiny as mine – I inherited it from her”. If that is the case how has she achieved such a small waist?
8. Impossible Dimensions
As Valeria began to become more and more known, sceptics to her “natural” transformation began to voice their criticisms. They believed she had gone under far more surgery than she had previously admitted to. And it didn’t take long for them to find proof on the models own Instagram where an almost “inhuman like beauty” was being broadcasted to the world.
One particular claim of her critics was that of her ribs. In people as thin as Valeria, usually, the ribs would be seen protruding around the stomach area. So she must of either had them removed in order to create a flat looking stomach, or she was using a form of photographic editing to make herself look thinner. Either way, she was creating an unnatural appearance and claiming it was natural, encouraging an unhealthy standard of beauty.
9. Day To Day Life with Barbie
The day to day life of a real Barbie doll is not the most pleasant. Valeria has explained in multiple interviews that to achieve her stick-like figure she simply does not eat enough. “I prefer liquid foods,” she explained to The Daily Beast. “The biggest secret is the amount of food I have.” As you can imagine this restrictive diet is also paired with a ridiculously intensive exercise regimen to ensure the least amount of fat is stored on her body at any one time.
For the average person, this level of commitment to maintaining a slight figure might seem extreme but for Valeria, it was simply just the start and she even wanted something more extreme.
10. Air And Sunlight
This information that Valeria was on a strict diet was nothing new. Many models, movie stars and people in the public eye following a strict and at times eccentric diet to maintain their skinny figure but it was the lengths that Valeria went to that people were shocked by.
Valeria Lukyanova decided she wanted to try to become a “breatharian.” And yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. She wanted to try and survive on nothing but sunlight and fresh air, like a plant. This bizarre attempt to exist on no calories whatsoever is as dangerous as you think and many doctors would classify this is as an eating disorder. Luckily she changed her mind and reverted back to eating.
11. What Is Barbie Like Without Make Up?
Now that we’ve discussed the food aspect of being a real Barbie, we can move onto the makeup. As you can imagine a flawless skin tone, perfect colouring and making your eyes stand out doesn’t happen on its own. From the young women’s Instagram it’s apparent she wears a huge amount of makeup, spending a lot of time in front of the mirror perfecting her look.
However, Valeria will go without makeup from time to time and also has no issues revealing her true and natural beauty to the world. Posting images of her without and mascara, toner or lipstick. She’s very proud of how she looks without her makeup saying she simply doesn’t “understand people who are ashamed of not wearing makeup.”
12. Where Does It Stop
For the majority of us, in one way or another, we have learned that no one is perfect. However, Valeria has stated on many occasions that she believes that “perfection has no limits” and will pursue her dream of looking perfect regardless of what others say.
The problem with this obsession in perfection is often that one can feel unfulfilled with life as a result of constant comparison to what it could be like if you were “perfect.” She receives compliments constantly from her fans and admirers for her impeccable makeup and mannequin-like appearance. But it’s never enough and as we can all imagine, it’s exhausting. There is a high price to pay in the chase for perfection.
13. How Fake Is Fake?
Valeria has learned to have a tough skin when it comes to criticisms about her transformation. Not everyone agrees with her techniques or even her end goal of “perfection.” She faces a lot of backlash against her so-called dream.
And criticisms aren’t only aimed at her looks and bodily alterations but the way in which she does them. She is not only accused of having fake hair, boobs and denying her surgeries, but many people also believe she has a shallow heart. That she is fake and is only pursuing these extremes for attention and money. As you can imagine the real Barbie has an easy answer for these attackers.
14. The Media
Like all of those in the limelight and those with critics, Valeria has managed to put on a brave face and ignore the comments. But it’s not easy. “I noticed that the media are only interested in the negative,” said Lukyanova in an interview. “Show someone in a bad light, show someone’s mistakes.”
As tough as she is, the negative comments and press did have an effect on the young women. She has been going on this journey for quite a while and throughout the process has experienced many opinions about her unique transformation. But she has simply put them to the side and stayed focussed on her goals.
15. Strange Pastimes
Many people have expressed her symmetry to appear, at times, almost creepy. The natural world does not have symmetry like this. Not only this but Valeria has also described herself as an energy vampire. If you are like most and don’t understand what this means, we can explain.
Valeria has used this term to explain how she motivates herself off negative energy, using almost like fuel to continue her transformation and development into the real human Barbie. The human Barbie says that every attention or energy, positive or negative, keeps her moving forward. However, this is not the only strange ritual she has.
16. The Surgery Ends
Despite the constant criticism by the public and opinions by specialists, Valeria Lukyanova continued to argue passionately that her transformation was completely natural. She argued that she had nothing to hide and no secret scars.
However, we think everyone was of the understanding that such a figure was not possible naturally despite what Valeria said. So eventually the truth did come out. She began to give details of her increasingly dangerous, complicated and in many cases crazy surgeries, still in a slightly indirect way. This has now come to an end, luckily for both her and the influence she may have on young girls. What hasn’t stopped is her strange spiritual teachings.
17. No Hard Feelings
Valeria has had huge criticism for how she has decided to transform her body into a human Barbie. Some of these critics have gone so far as to say they despise her. However, she herself has said she holds no resentment, anger or hatred to those who are not in favour of what she has done to herself.
In fact, she has said in interview after interview that she wants everyone, fans of hers or not, to be happy in their own skin. Not the craziest thing for a self-proclaimed spiritual leader to have said, but the message is a true one. Whether you like her and what she has done or not, we just hope she too is now happy in her own skin.
