Currently in theaters, “Barbie” required 11 weeks of work for the costume designer and her team to make the many outfits for the film and the 40 costumes of Margot Robbie.
After months of anticipation and intense promotion, Barbie is in theaters. In Greta Gerwig’s film, the heroine played by Margot Robbie wears no less than 40 different costumes: iconic outfits for the multiple Mattel dolls created in 1959 by Ruth Handler, as well as specific creations for the film.
A titanic work led by the film’s costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, winner of the Oscar for best costume design for Anna Karenina in 2013 and for Les Filles du Docteur March by Greta Gerwig in 2020. Barbie is the second collaboration between the director and the costume designer who has worked on The Batman, 1917, Spencer and Beauty and the Beast.
The costume designer explains to the magazine vogue : “Barbie is truly inseparable from fashion, since to play with her is essentially to dress her up. Her clothes are a way of expressing herself.” She adds : “We don’t treat Barbie like a normal person. His way of dressing does not belong to him, it is entirely conditioned by his environment.“
Indeed, each Barbie wears the outfit linked to her name: Barbie gymnast is in a leotard, Barbie doctor wears a white coat or in her time. Each look is therefore studied and emblematic of the doll who wears it.
Warner Bros. Barbie
But beyond recreating, life-size, all the iconic outfits of the famous doll (like the black & white swimsuit from the opening scene, which is the outfit of the very first doll or the neon outfits of Barbie and Ken in the roller-skating scene), Jacqueline Durran also drew inspiration from looks from the 50s and 60s to create the film’s costumes.
60’s inspired
She thus declares to magazine to be inspired by “the idea of a beach on the Côte d’Azur in the early 1960s”. Like Greta Gerwig, who had a palette of different pinks allowed to feature at Barbie Land, the costume designer gave her team a precise array of pastel color combinations. They have scoured vintage shops to find outfits and get inspired.
Because it’s not just the character of Margot Robbie that had to be dressed but all the Barbies and all the Kens present in the film. From Barbie foreman, to Barbie president, Barbie astrophysicist and Barbie journalist.
Warner Bros.
Barbie
Jacqueline Durran adds: “Greta writes at a fast pace, often with four scenes per screenplay page… There were a lot of costume changes.”
Regarding Ken, the costume designer and her team drew on the 80s.”We thoroughly explored the field of retro sportswear for Ken, we did a lot of shopping. He’s an athlete. This is his main focus. We have buyers in the United States who were constantly going to find us new parts and send them to us, because we needed them in very large quantities..”
The team thus had 11 weeks to prepare the numerous costumes for the film.
Margot Robbie, the Barbie of the real world
And the promotion of Barbie has not been easy for Margot Robbie either since the actress wears the emblematic costumes of the doll on the various red carpets. Note that these were created by major fashion houses and not by the film crew.
Thus each look of the actress during the promotion of the film, which ended on July 13 due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, is linked to the outfit of a Barbie: from the pink dress with white polka dots of the 2015 doll “pink and fabulous”, passing by the hippy dress of the 1992 doll, the black mermaid dress of Barbie “Solo under the spotlight”, the evening dress of the 1985 doll, the look of the collector Barbie “the Enchanted Evening” from 1960 or even the fuchsia pencil skirt suit from the Barbie from 1985.
Barbie is currently in theaters.