Costume designer Jacqueline Durran on the stunning Chanel outfits in Barbie movie
The featured silhouettes from Chanel highlighted Barbie through her journey in the film.
Barbie movie has made a huge Barbiecore wave since it hit the big screen. Chanel has been a preferred collaborator, working alongside Barbie creatives like Jacqueline Durran, to realise several costumes for Margot Robbie’s character - the adorable Stereotypical Barbie.
To celebrate the success of Barbie worldwide, Oscar-winning costume designer and friend of the House, Jacqueline Durran shares her stories behind every Barbie costume and collaborating with Chanel.
On the creative concept behind Barbie’s costumes
“There are two dominant ideas in my interpretation of Barbie’s costumes for the movie. The first and most important concept for the Barbie costumes is that she is always perfectly dressed for everything that she does – so that means that every time she changes what she is doing she changes clothes!
The second is that I wanted to reference the history of Barbie’s wardrobe which has been created by Mattel since 1959 – this particularly made sense because we see Barbie Margot at the beginning of the film in the 1959 black and white swimsuit which is the first Barbie costume – so I wanted to reference different periods of Barbie fashion from 1959 to 2023.”
On collaborating with Chanel
“The costumes from Chanel in the movie bring something so special to the Barbie wardrobe. One of the amazing things that Chanel did for the movie was to recreate a 1995 pink suit designed by Karl Lagerfeld. We were so happy when Chanel made not only the perfect suit but also sent the hat and bag and shoes – everything that you could dream of to complete the look.
One of the key things about Barbie is that every look she wears is fully accessorised – that is almost what defines a Barbie look and no one can accessorise like Chanel!
One of the best looks in the movie is when Barbie Margot is dressed head to toe in Chanel – fully accessorised with earrings, necklace, bag, shoes and the perfect pink dress – it’s a great moment.
There is a part of the movie where Barbie Margot needed a ski suit – and of course being Barbie we wanted to make this a fashion moment and I knew that Chanel would have something amazing in the Coco Neige collection but the problem was that we needed a matching suit for Ken and they don’t make menswear! The Chanel ski suit and goggles were perfect and I explained the situation to the House – and problem solved – Chanel made Ken a suit!
I had the opportunity to go to the Patrimoine de Chanel archive in Paris and look through all of the clothes and accessories held there and make a selection that we would then fit on Margot Robbie.
I discovered that Karl Lagerfeld had designed a Barbie collection in 1995 and I was determined that we should reference this in the movie and so we took some pieces to fit on Margot. One of the looks worked really well and is there in the movie – the Claudia Schiffer suit – Barbie imagined by Karl Lagerfeld! How amazing!”
On Chanel’s commitment to cinema
“I have worked with Chanel several times on different movies with very different requirements – from Atonement to Barbie – but what has been consistent is that the team at Chanel always prioritise the work and what the movie is looking for and then do all they can to support you. It is not a question of product placement but of supporting the vision of a movie with their resources.
One of these collaborations was on Anna Karenina when they loaned trays of diamonds to the production so that Keira Knightley – playing Anna K – could choose real diamonds as her accessories. It was thrilling to have real jewels to accessorise with and it gave a reality to the image of high society that we wanted to create in the movie.”
