Come on Barbie, let’s go party!
That’s what New Yorkers have been exclaiming since May of last year, when word broke that the influential yet elusive doll-faced beauty was eyeing New York as her next destination.
But for now Barbie seems bent on sticking around Malibu, at least temporarily, with a new endeavor at Santa Monica Place in Santa Monica, California, where she has partnered with the Otis College of Art and Design to present a creative collaboration with students, dubbed Barbie’s Housewarming Party.
The show, featuring work from Otis students and including short films about Barbie’s influence and impact on art and design, will be on window display today through January 29 in a retail space adjacent to Nordstrom on level two of a shopping center at Santa Monica Place (a walk-through exhibit ended Jan. 20).
Malibu, California’s “most fashionable” resident also made major renovations to her Malibu Dreamhouse and invited Otis students to use her home and life as inspiration, Peter Helenek, VP of Girls Global Packaging at Mattel, in a statement, calling Barbie a “big supporter of young emerging talent.”
“Barbie was the perfect mentor,” added Rosemary Brantley, chair of Otis’ Fashion Design Program. “She’s sophisticated, a world-traveler, and the ultimate fashionista.”
Natasha Carovska, a first-year student at Otis studying Liberal Arts and Sciences, reflected:
“With Barbie, we find that she is teaching the young girls of the future to grow up and follow their dreams,” she said, noting the influence of astronaut Barbie in 1965, African American Barbie in 1968 and presidential candidate Barbie in 2000
“Barbie has had every single career under her pink belt as if to say, ‘Hey, yeah. I’m a girl. I can do anything…and in heels, too!’”
After Barbie set up shop in her first life-size location for The Barbie Dreamhouse Experience tour in Florida last year, Mattel told The Commercial Observer that Barbie had visited New York City after listing her stunning Malibu digs for sale in February, causing a stir in certain circles across the city.
Jeffrey Roseman may have nailed it when he said, not referring to Barbie in any way, that “every city’s got its own idiosyncrasies, but great corners are great corners in our world, and retailers want the best corner on Rodeo Drive, the best corner on Michigan Avenue and the best corner on Madison Avenue.”
So you’re telling me there’s a chance. Yeeeah!
