New “Barbie” E-book Attracts Die-Hards to Manhattan Bookstore
Some 200 Barbie followers braved a tough rain on Wednesday night as they made their strategy to the Rizzoli bookstore in Manhattan for the discharge of a coffee-table guide celebrating the doll’s trend historical past.
Inside, some took off their raincoats to disclose pink skirts, scarves, sweaters and blazers. Earlier than a panel dialogue started, they helped themselves to pink velvet cupcakes and rosé.
Two mates within the crowd, Carol Torre and Anahy Antara, mirrored on their fandom.
“I don’t actually know a lot concerning the guide,” Ms. Torre, an accountant, mentioned. “I’m simply right here as a result of I really like Barbie.”
“I’ve been hitting thrift outlets to attempt to pull off Barbie’s type ever because the film got here out,” Ms. Antara, a college administrator, added. “The reality is, plenty of us nonetheless wish to be Barbie. Certain, I’m all for bra-burning and feminism, however I nonetheless wish to be like her.”
Revealed by Rizzoli and authored by Margot Robbie and her stylist, Andrew Mukamal, “Barbie: The World Tour” explores the Mattel doll as a mode icon. Its pages are stuffed with portraits of Ms. Robbie, the star of Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster movie, sporting outfits together with a Givenchy costume impressed by Homosexual Parisienne Barbie, and a Miu Miu ensemble recalling Night Splendor Barbie.
Fabien Baron art-directed the challenge, and the style spreads have been photographed by Craig McDean. The guide additionally consists of handwritten tributes on Barbie’s cultural affect from designers like Donatella Versace and Manolo Blahnik.
The night’s discuss, moderated by the journalist Esther Zuckerman, featured Mr. Mukamal, Mr. Baron and Mr. McDean.
Mr. Mukamal mentioned the guide was conceived as a strategy to showcase appears to be like that by no means made it to pink carpets, due to the monthslong actors’ strike that minimize into Ms. Robbie’s international press tour for “Barbie.”
“That lit the fireplace beneath Margot and I to say, ‘OK, effectively, we have now all these appears to be like that we’ve ready, all these designers and types which have lent their genius to our imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Mukamal mentioned. “How can we do one thing to ensure that that is all seen and commemorated someplace?”
After reminiscing about slicing the hair of Barbie dolls along with his sister as a boy, Mr. Baron mentioned that he had included archival snippets of the doll’s historical past within the guide as a strategy to give it a “collage vibe.” “Fairly than simply having footage of Margot,” he mentioned, “I wished it to really feel like a diary, one thing that she may have penned herself. That’s why there’s handwriting in every single place.”
In the course of the Q. and A. session, one fan requested why the guide didn’t embrace outfits from the “Dolls of the World” Barbie assortment.
“There’s plenty of room for misinterpretation if, say, Margot is sporting a kimono or one thing,” Mr. Mukamal mentioned. “Barbie is transformative sufficient, however there’s individuals on the market who may interpret that slightly bit incorrectly.”
Then the three panelists — who all wore black — sat at a desk coated in pink sequins to signal books.
Within the crowd was Sally Singer, a former Vogue editor and the newly minted president of Artwork + Commerce at William Morris Endeavor’s trend division.
“A few of the most eccentric individuals I do know are Barbie followers, and many individuals on the fringes of trend have at all times used Barbie as an incubator for his or her creativity,” Ms. Singer mentioned. “I’ve at all times seen her as a sort of companion to self-creative, singular and avant-garde individuals.”
Michelle Mackliff, a trend guide, had introduced alongside a Barbie doll from her personal assortment that was nonetheless in its field: a 1995 Donna Karan New York restricted version Bloomingdale’s Barbie. As she waited in line to have her guide signed, different followers gathered to ogle the chicly outfitted doll, which held a miniature Large Brown Bag from the Manhattan division retailer.
“I’ve been considering heaps not too long ago about why I really like Barbie a lot,” Ms. Mackliff mentioned. “I suppose it’s as a result of I first began dreaming about what was doable with my life due to her. She was my first feminist image.”
“I nonetheless keep in mind getting my first Barbie as a lady for Christmas once I was rising up in Ecuador,” she added. “And you realize what? I nonetheless have that doll to this present day.”
