When hair and makeup artist Ivana Primorac first met Barbie movie director Greta Gerwig on Zoom, it was a year before filming began. Every Tuesday the pair would meet with production designer Sarah Greenwood and costume designer Jacqueline Durran to try to answer the same question: How do we represent the world‘s most iconic doll on screen?
“We have all the dolls as reference points, so how do we make humans into dolls? We discussed that at great length,” Primorac tells Glamour. “But it was always great fun because we were free to just chip in with all of our ideas.”
At first Primorac was set on recreating a toy—something that had a “plastic look” to the hair and skin. “I thought it was about the shine and perfection of some kind, that’s not worldly and that’s not human,” she says.
Over the course of planning, discussions, and script changes, Primorac found that Barbie’s perfection didn’t have to be so literal. After a few tests, she quickly ruled out the fantastical, plastic look of dolls and approached Barbie from a much more grounded place.
“What we realized is that the Barbie doll represents the best version of oneself,” she says. “If you can think of what would be the best version of yourself, it would be when your hair looks the nicest, when your skin is blemish free. Your hair is the best color that suits you. It’s not in the plastic sheen—the plastic was just a material the dolls were made out of.”
Jaap Buitendijk
Instead, Primorac decided to focus on proportions and paid close attention to smaller details, like skin smoothness and color, to convey the perfection of Barbie dolls.
“Doll hair is glorious and it’s the width of their shoulders, so it’s always a bit more glorious than any human could ever have,” she says. “And the skin matches all over. It’s not plastic necessarily, but it’s all nicely finished. The elbows, knees, and heels—those clunky things like the soles of your feet, when they get a bit dry and dirty—dolls don’t have that. So we paid extra attention to that, rather than making any of our cast members look plastic and fake.”
