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Outfits from the Barbie x Balmain collection. (Rob Rusling via The New York Times)
It is the first week of the year, but the competition has already begun to win the game of collaboration with fashion brands 2022 edition, that increasingly intense race to achieve the most striking and surprising pairing of brands.
The first to play: Balmain, the French haute couture house and Barbie, the quintessential plastic doll. Perhaps it is an official sign that the new great frontier in fashion is being crossed: towards the world of toys. Although the marriage of Mattel iconography with material iconography is not exactly what one would expect.
There won’t be any dolls – rather it’s a 50-piece Barbie-inspired adult fashion collection. It is modeled by avatars of various races and will include three non-expendable tokens (NFTs) of unique “looks” to be auctioned online, each of which comes with a physical doll-sized design, extending Barbie’s reach into the digital collectibles space.
But most significantly, both the collection and the NFT outfits are unisex – clothing for Barbie that eliminates the separation between Ken and Barbie.
After all, even in the era of the first female vice president, when Barbie and all the old-fashioned female stereotypes seem irrelevant, the collection is so attractive that nothing can be faulted. It was designed with a hint of irony filtered by pink glasses and the huge smile of a child who once felt he should not play with dolls and has now been given free rein to reinvent the most popular of them all.
“Having Barbie in my Balmain army, making a collection inspired by her where there is no men’s or women’s clothing, is my little revenge,” said Olivier Rousteing, Balmain’s creative director. “I think Barbie represents a dream world. There is nothing wrong with dreaming, but let’s take the dream further and dream not of the fifties or sixties, but of 2022. For me it is much more than just a commercial project. It is something very emotional ”.
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An NFT from the Barbie x Balmain collaboration, which also displays clothing and accessories that will be for sale in adult sizes. (Mattel via The New York Times)
He says he was speaking from his experience – “as a child I did play with Barbies and I did feel some rejection for it” – which was the reason why he was interested in taking his relationship with Mattel beyond the phase of “dressing up. the doll”.
Rousteing had previously created outfits for Barbie Claudia Schiffer, and in 2021, she invited a computer-generated Barbie and Ken to the Balmain digital show. Furthermore, he is just one of a long line of designers who have created clothes for the doll, including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Michael Kors, Donatella Versace, Diane von Furstenberg and Karl Lagerfeld.
In 2009, for its 50th anniversary, there was a special “Barbie Fashion Show” at New York Fashion Week, and in 2019, Barbie received the Board of Directors Tribute, an award from the Designers Council of Fashion of America (CFDA) previously given to Michelle Obama and Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood.
But this collection takes its influence, and the concept of inclusion, to a broader level.
As for why Mattel was interested, well, according to Richard Dickson, Mattel’s president and chief operating officer, the company believes that toys have the potential to be a credible fashion accessory, just like handbags and perfumes. .
“When you combine the seriousness of high fashion with fun toys, you create something very powerful,” said Dickson. It turns out that Mattel has some experience in this field, having created a limited edition Hot Wheels Cadillac with Gucci in October. According to Dickson, the toy cars – 5,000 strollers in all, priced at $ 120 each – sold out in a matter of minutes.
Prices for the Barbie x Balmain collection are higher. They range from $ 295 for a T-shirt to $ 42,494 for an iconic dress, which is far more than regular Barbie prices but less than classics from Balmain, whose basic logo T-shirt sells for $ 495. (No one knows how much the NFTs will sell for given the current craze for digital collectibles; the auction runs from Tuesday through January 14.) The point, Dickson explained, is that just as those who aspire to a Chanel bag can start by buying a bottle of Chanel No. 5, those who dream of a Balmain dress can start with a Barbie x Balmain accessory.
“People are looking for optimism and joy, especially now that life is so heavy,” he said. “By definition toys are that.” That the same definition can be used for fashion is one of the points of convergence.
In addition, it is true that it is difficult to look at the Barbie x Balmain collection without a smile, despite the saccharine sweetness of the color palette, which ranges from fuchsia to Mexican pink (in other words, it does not go very far), with some whites, blues and yellows as accents.
There are giant, fluffy bags with Balmain Paris scrawled in Barbie cursive script under the 1970s Balmain logo and clear plastic bags that look like boxes of Barbie dolls; pastel pink silk satin suits with kimono-style jackets and short striped pajama sets; Sequined disco mini dresses and a strapless mermaid cut dress. Also, overalls, sweatshirts and jackets in bouclé fabric with shoulder pads and gold buttons.
The combination of pure and goofy kitsch with pop culture and haute couture works to surprising success.
The collection adds levity to Rousteing’s powerful eighties shoulder pads and elaborate gowns, which sometimes feel too ornate, and raises the bar for collaborations. Like Balenciaga’s “The Simpsons” episode, it makes social and cultural commentary part of the value offering.
And in doing so, he lends credence to Dickson’s prediction that soon the toy and fashion industry complex “is going to be a whole new business.”
