Rowena Liangru Lu

Rebel Barby consists of two lines: Rowena and Rebel Barby

It unveils that: “Seemingly inconspicuous objects shape our society unconsciously, especially when we give them to our next generation.”

Chapter 1: Rowena

The creation of Rowena line started from my intention of healing my body anxiety issues by re-creating the realistic image of my body into my favourite childhood toy.

I grew up playing Barbie dolls. In my mind, Barbie is the ideal beauty standard. I internalised at a young age, that as I didn't look skinny and pale, then I wasn't beautiful.

I wish I have grown up playing Rowena doll instead of Barbie doll. So I designed this collection for the little-girl-Rowena.

Chapter 2: Rebel Barby 

Rebel Barby takes world famous Barbie doll as an inspiration, a medium and a subject of story telling, delivers a collection of “rebellious Barbies” in boxes. It uses the product itself as a language to create a conversation with the product, to reflect different aspects of the interaction between the product and our society.

Rebel Barby are pre-Barbie dolls. I wish my mom showed me this collection and told me these stories before buying me Barbie dolls to play with when I was a little girl. So I designed this collection for our future daughters. 

Hello you,

I'm a Rowena.

I'm a human being still trying to understand myself.

I‘m an artist lurking in the design world.

I Make Art About Design By Product.