Though a lot of people were shocked when Destiny's Child announced their breakup recently, somewhere near the top of that list was Mattel, which had spent the better part of a year designing a set of Destiny's Child dolls that have yet to hit shelves.

(Click for photos of the dolls.)

"We're still excited to release the dolls in August as planned. It's the ultimate way to immortalize the group," Elizabeth Grampp, senior marketing manager for Barbie Collector Dolls, said. "The announcement helps, because it highlights the fact that they're beautiful keepsake dolls. I mean, we did put a lot of work into them. We have a place called the design center, where we have a whole team of people — doll artists, sculptors, hair designers — who design the dolls, so we wanted them to be special. And this just makes them more special."

The dolls will retail for $20 each and come decked out in dresses inspired by the girls' wardrobe at last year's Fashion Rocks concert in New York. Mattel also received guidance — lots of it — from Destiny's Child's notoriously hands-on wardrobe designer (and Beyoncé's mom), Tina Knowles.

"I met with Tina last September," Grampp said. "We've had Destiny's Child on our wish list for longer than that. We approached them to do the doll deal, and they were gracious enough to accept. We worked with photos of them and had several meetings with Tina Knowles about their costumes."

And while Barbie might have had her Ken — until the two split last year after 43 years together, anyway — there are no plans for a doll version of Beyoncé's boo, Jay-Z. Turns out Jigga doesn't rate too high with Barbie's target audience: young girls.

"Jay-Z's popular, but not as popular as Usher is to our audience," Grampp said. "So we could make an Usher doll. Imagine the abs on that one."

And despite there not actually being a Destiny's Child in the near future (see "Destiny's Child Announce Split"), Grampp said she's not worried about the dolls fading from prominence. After all, Mattel's done tons of research on the stuff, and through more than 40 years of making celebrity dolls, they've had only one (not so) memorable clunker.

"Our first celebrity doll was in the 1960s; it was [groovy female model] Twiggy. In the early '90s we did MC Hammer and the '90210' dolls, so we go with celebrities that are hot but will also last," she said. "And we're usually right. But once, many years ago, like in '99, we came out with a Vitamin C doll, and while her contemporaries like Britney and Christina got really popular, she really didn't. So while everyone else had Britney and Christina dolls, we had Vitamin C."