Barbie ad features a boy for the first time (+video)

Global fashion house Moschino has made a Barbie, but that's not what sparked interest in the ad announcing her arrival.

Rather, it's the first time a boy has been featured in a Barbie campaign.

In the ad, a sassy, fauxhawked boy exclaims, "Moschino Barbie is so fierce!" before draping a black purse with gold chain over the doll's arm.

Appearing alongside two girls, he closes the commercial too. As Barbie's tiny cell phone rings, he says, "It's for you Moschino Barbie!" and winks at the camera.

A collaboration of Moschino's creative director Jeremy Scott with the toy's label, Mattel, the eight-piece mini-Moschino collection sold out in less than an hour.

Scott has said it was Barbie who first inspired his current career: "The thing I love about Barbie is that she is the ultimate muse and inspired me to become a designer," Scott told People StyleWatch.

"Moschino style is all about humour coupled with high fashion and Barbie allows us to play out these looks in whole new way."

The gender-inclusive ad is the latest in a string of moves by toy manufacturers and retailers to do away with gender labelling on products.

In August, Target announced it would stop making 'girl' or 'boy' distinctions for toys instead labelling all items for 'kids'.

In June Disney stopped using gender labels on the costumes on its website after a girl complained that a Darth Vader outfit should be marked 'for kids' rather than 'for boys'.

After Target changed their labelling, author of Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue, and psychology professor at the University of Kentucky told Yahoo Parenting the move was important.

"It really corresponds with what a lot of research shows is good for kids," Brown said.

"Research overwhelmingly shows that when we segregate toys and label them explicitly for boys or girls, kids only gravitate to the toys labelled for their group. Even if it's the same toy, if you label it 'girls' or make it pink, only girls want it. If you take the same toys and label it for boys, boys want it. So it's not the toy itself; it's the labelling that drives attention."

She says directing boys away from 'girls' dolls can have a long-lasting effect.

"For boys, if they are encouraged away from dolls, they don't get the chance to learn nurturing and care-taking, all the things we want them to do as parents," she said. "And then we are surprised when men grow up and aren't comfortable changing diapers, when we clearly have steered them away from it all their lives."

- nzherald.co.nz