Barbie’s Now Rocking A Lite-Brite Digital Dress

Barbie’s always been on the cutting edge of fashion, but now she’s on the bleeding edge of technology too with a new light-up dress that lets kids completely customise its design. It’s almost like she’s wearing a Lite-Brite, but instead of impaling her with coloured plastic pegs, kids simply tap on the LEDs to turn them on and change their colour.

Understandably, this particular Barbie will never be able to don a different outfit, since the 11.4cm touch panel and 114 tri-colour LEDs that make up the designs are embedded in her abdomen, while the mode button necklace is permanently fused to her neck. But that’s a small price to pay when kids can create their own custom designs and animations using an included stylus, or just their fingers.

The $US40 doll can even store up to 40 unique designs in its built-in memory, which means Barbie’s just a few button presses away from being perfectly dressed for any event. [Mattel]