Oscars 2024: Barbiecore, An Origin Story

British costume designer Jacqueline Durran says she’d jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with director Greta Gerwig in Barbie (2023). The two had previously worked together in Little Women (2019), for which Durran developed costume design that was true to 19th-century America and she won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. For Barbie, Durran got to play with all the possible pinks and dived deep into the Mattel archives to source information, inspiration and prints from actual Barbie doll sets. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Durran said, “I decided that I wanted to tie it very closely to the history of Mattel and to reference past Barbie costumes and tie it together with memories people have of Barbies over time...” To develop Barbiecore, Durran created a plan that went beyond mere aesthetics. 

In The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable with actresses, Margot Robbie talked about Barbie’s transformation in the film, which she starred in and produced. The wigs started off as extremely voluminous and then got smaller, and thinner, till the hair started looking (relatively) normal. Robbie spoke to Durran to craft a wardrobe that not only captures the audience’s attention, but also intricately mirrors Barbie's journey into the real world. A nuanced aspect of the costume design was the subtle transformation mirroring Barbie's own evolution from a plastic ideal to a more humanised character.

In the fantastical Barbie-land, Barbie wears costumes that are structured, with solid block patterns, geometric shapes, and bold, glitzy colours. Early in the film, there’s a block party where Durran used every white and gold dress she could find in Mattel’s archives. For the Kens, Durran found an old photo of a Ken from around 1976 in a one-piece, and thought that it was a great look on a man, and one that we hadn't seen for a long time. She decided to get all the Kens to wear the same thing since nobody seems to care about the Kens. The Barbies, on the other hand, got a great range of things to wear. 

To create a credible but doll-like Barbie-land, Durran worked with each individual actor to execute their vision for their characters and how they would want to represent themselves. For Ana Cruz Kayne, Durran found a way to reference her Filipino heritage to construct a Filipino sleeve. Durran added, “We made a dress that she was really pleased with and that she felt would make her mother cry.”

Over time, as Robbie’s Barbie experiences a profound shift, the vibrant patterns make way for a more subdued, pastel-infused collection. The stiletto heels make way for Birkenstocks to support her now flat feet (the loss of Barbie’s trademark arch is a key, dramatic moment in the film). The colours still pop, but the patterns evolve, offering a visual metaphor for Barbie's evolution into the complexities of being a real, human woman.

“We come back at the end to the Barbies having regained control of their world,” said Durran in her interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “At that point in the movie, what was appropriate for the Barbies was that each of the actors/actresses would choose to wear…something that would be expressive of their character…how they wanted to interpret their Barbie.”