18 June 2023, Mumbai: Apart from pretty much everything else, the design of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie embraces the retro-classic camp of Barbie’s chintzy aesthetic; nothing in the movie’s version of Barbie’s world feels real, but Barbie and her fellow Barbies (and the occasional Ken) have to live there. An updated tour video now demonstrates how well the movie achieves that balance.
In order to give us a glimpse and an understanding of how Gerwig and her production designers envisioned bringing the playset to life, Margot Robbie herself led Architectural Digest on a quick tour inside Barbie’s iconic Dreamhouse, the hottest movie location of the year.
It’s delightful—all the little details like capturing the progression of the Barbie toyline’s design aesthetics from the 1950s to the present, the decision to create props that combine real objects and stickers in the same way that the toys do, and the many, many shades of pink that give it a visual texture while still being an amazing assault on the eyes. It’s a fascinating piece of design work for something that could initially appear to be “simple,” in fact.
Additionally, this film is chock full of the craziest quotes you’d want to hear in a Barbie movie trailer, such “There is no water in Barbie Land. “There are no elements, no water, no fire,” or “All the writing in Barbie Land is actually just gibberish, just scribbled the way kids write endless amounts of nothing… but it’s all very beautiful.”
Just know that the entire video is worth watching, possibly repeatedly, until July 21 when we can spend some time with Barbie in Barbie Land as well.
By Khushboo Singh