Carlyle Nuera is the lead designer for Barbie Signature at Mattel. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County says he was born and raised in Granada Hills, California, by Filipino parents, and that he played with Barbie and Ken dolls as a boy, designed clothes and staged mini fashion shoots. In an interview with In the Heart Stories, published June 18, 2020, he said that he studied product design at Otis College of Art and Design and that, soon after he graduated, an email went to new graduates saying Mattel was looking for an entry level designer on the Barbie design team. He applied with his resume and portfolio.

His first Barbie was Mutya Barbie. NBC News reported on February 25, 2015 that Mattel had released the doll as part of the Global Glamour Collection, and described it as his debut Barbie doll. Nuera said “Mutya” means pearl, beauty or muse, that it is a girl’s name used in Philippine beauty pageant titles, and that his mother, Ruby, was Miss Tacloban in 1976. The doll wears an organza terno with the classic butterfly sleeves. Its print refers to the textiles of different tribes in the Philippines and to the…