Living doll Margot Robbie can do better than dressing like Barbie

Judging by Margot Robbie’s red carpet looks for the upcoming Barbie movie it’s time to cross your fingers in hope of a subversive take on the gender and body image issues that have accompanied the iconic doll as faithfully as Ken and Skipper since its launch in 1959.

But the gesture is up to you – because Barbie’s fingers are fused plastic.

So far, Robbie’s promotional wardrobe of hot pink tributes from Moschino, Versace and Prada, reinforces stereotypes rather than challenges them, demonstrating what’s rotten at the core of last year’s Barbiecore fashion trend.

“The thing about how our story is constructed is that Barbie can be anything,” Robbie said at the Sydney stop of the Barbie press tour. “Barbie can be president, Barbie can be a Nobel Prize winner.”

Unfortunately, president, Nobel Prize winner, computer engineer and NASCAR driver Barbie have failed to walk or do wheelies on the promotional trail.

Rather than explore the infinite possibilities of the Barbie world, Robbie and her stylist Andrew Mukamal have mined the hyper-feminine looks of Pink and Fabulous Barbie, in a polka dot Valentino mini-dress, and Day To Night Barbie in Versace.

It’s difficult to detect any attempts at irony through the layers of pink.

Many of Robbie’s red carpet dresses have been recreations of the doll’s outfits, but even those straying from the copycat formula pull – rather than push – boundaries.

In Sydney, Robbie strutted in a sparkling sequinned pink mini-dress, originally worn by German supermodel Claudia Schiffer in 1994, another flesh and blood substitute for Barbie. At the height of her fame, Schiffer looked so much like Barbie that Ellen Von Unwerth photographed her as the doll for Vogue Italia in 1994.

This is the traditional blonde, buxom, wasp-waisted and arched foot Barbie associated with thin-ideal internalisation in a 2016 Flinders University study and gendered play. That’s the Barbie some parents banned their children from playing with, only to send them into friends’ toy drawers looking for a covert fix of fabulousness.

German supermodel Claudia Schiffer on the Versace runway in 1993 for autumn/winter 1994 and a Barbie created in her image.Credit: Getty/Mattel

Barbie was inspired by the doll Bild Lilli, based on a saucy, gold-digging German comic book character. Manufacturers Mattel have slowly expanded Barbie’s representation beyond the bimbo image, with varying degrees of success.

The first black Barbie went on sale in 1980, the first plus-size Barbie in 2016 and a Barbie with Down syndrome arrived in this April. A wheelchair using Barbie appeared in 2019, replacing her wheelchair using friend Share-A-Smile Becky from 1997, who disappeared from shelves after complaints the doll couldn’t fit into the Dreamhouse.

Barbie movie previews, featuring black actor Issa Rae and transgender actor Hari Nef as Barbies, show that director Greta Gerwig will tackle representation, but Robbie is the lead. It’s Robbie’s bouncy blond hair, model figure and flirty dresses representing the original doll we see on the red carpet, not the inclusive iterations.

We know that as a producer Robbie has been a driving force in getting the Barbie movie made, with formidable credentials having guided stories of strong women to the screen with I, Tonya and Promising Young Woman.

Why can’t we see this professional side of Robbie on the red carpet, in powerful suits from Alexander McQueen, challenging dresses by Simone Rocha or Australian designer Dion Lee’s unapologetic celebrations of sexuality?

At the haute couture shows in Paris this week, Chanel, with whom Robbie has frequently collaborated, sent out an array of chic black suits for living women rather than living dolls.

When Christian Bale played Batman, he chose suits rather than capes for premieres, while Gal Gadot refrained from star-studded underpants on the Wonder Woman media press trail.

Let’s see the real Robbie in intelligent outfits that show there’s more inside the head of Barbie than the faint scent of plastic.

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