Hello Kitty and Barbie

Hello Kitty is taking on Barbie for the title of most fashionable plaything. There is not a designer worth his polyester who hasn’t spent a little too much time obsessing over dolls, so it is perhaps less surprising than tasteless to find fashion folk falling all over themselves to dress Barbie and Ms. Kitty for Fashion Week events.

Barbie, who turns 50 next month, is having a runway show on Feb. 14 in Bryant Park, with Barbie-inspired clothes by one group of designers.

Hello Kitty was set to show off looks by another group at a party Thursday night given by MAC, which has also created a new Hello Kitty cosmetics collection.

Marketing ploys, indeed, but they do raise the question: Who’s the bigger fashionista? Let’s put it this way: Barbie is to Cindy Crawford what Hello Kitty is to Naomi Campbell. One is the conscientious workhorse of her oeuvre, with a heart of gold (or plastic) and an improbably perfect body; the other is more difficult to read, with a sinister streak lurking behind that sweet, beautiful facade.Michael Graves coffee maker, Madoff Client List, Etta James Beyonce