On the opposite corner of the room were 10 mannequins dressed like Margot Robbie as Barbie—actual pieces from the press tour that were hauled in for the evening to be viewed IRL. There was the 1959 Barbie-channeling black and white striped Herve Leger mini dress Robbie wore in Australia in June, the Vivienne Westwood gown the actor donned at the London film premiere, a sparkling black mermaid gown by Schiaparelli that appeared at the Los Angeles premiere of the film, and an Atelier Versace gown fans in Seoul may remember.
As far as book launches go, this was one people felt palpably excited about—and there is, of course, a huge energy in the room when not only Robbie but Mattel, the engine of a corporation behind the toy enterprise, are in the room. “I think about the impact on just people. The emotion, the love, the happiness,” Josh Silverman, executive vice president and chief franchise officer of Mattel tells Vogue. “The film was able to bring people together to share experiences, which I think is really important.”
Its impact also generated the company over $150 million. “A lot of this is about alchemy,” he said, “and the magic that became.” Rizzoli, the publishing company behind the anticipated documentation of the press tour’s wardrobe process, was also present. “It was such an unusual project to have all these creative people, all these fashion designers, all working toward one idea,” Charles Miers, Vice President at Rizzoli, told Vogue. “So it was very obviously fashion history in the making.”
For the span of the three-hour-long event, there likely wasn’t a nano-second Robbie wasn’t surrounded by people eager to congratulate the actor and producer. The next busiest person in the room was, of course, Mukamal. While many Barbie press tour looks dominated the news, a few never publicly came to be due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
“That pushed us to realize that there’s this treasure trove of looks that the world has never seen, and honestly, they may never have seen had it not been for this.” Of them all, seen and unseen, you, of course, can’t quite ask him to pick a favorite. “It’s so hard to choose. The ones we did on tour have this spark of memory where I look at it and I’m immediately back in that city, in that day, with Margot,” Mukamal says. “These are memories I know I’ll look back on so fondly. But also, the looks that nobody got to see are so exciting and special to me also, because now they exist only in this form.”
With everyone in their best cocktail attire, Robbie in a ‘60s-esque mini number derived from the Spring 2024 Versace collection by Donatella (who, despite hosting her own party elsewhere, made an appearance), the room was abuzz.
Jeremy Scott, who supported a number of the tour’s looks, ogled the glass case of Barbie dolls dressed in vintage doll wear later reimagined on screen and on the carpet (it sat next to a wall of shoes Robbie donned along the way); Hailey Bieber made a late arrival, but made a beeline for the table of Barbie: A World Tour books (Mukamal walked her through the pages himself); and Zoë Kravitz (a longtime client of Mukamal’s) and Channing Tatum chatted with friends in the middle of the room. It was, in all aspects, just the kind of cocktail party you’d expect for the occasion—bedazzled pink bottles of Don Julio tequila and all.
