Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie, has already exceeded everyone’s expectations. Now the people responsible for the amazing character design in the movie are talking about the process of finalizing everyone’s looks.
Barbie makeup artist Ivana Primorac didn’t like the plastic look
While speaking to E! In the early stages of the film, they “thought, ‘Should they have plastic overlays?’” Ivana Primorac told the news. Should they have plastic skin, plastic hair? “We didn’t like all of that stuff in the end because Barbie is beautiful in every child’s mind. So once that fake image was created, it wasn’t pretty.”
So instead, she revealed that she focused on making Barbie and Ken look as unique as possible. Ivana continued, “The most beautiful thing is for everyone to be the best they can be. To make them believable, and relatable to dolls, every Ken and Barbie had to be the best version of themselves. Everyone had to have the skin that best suited them, and everyone had to have the hair color that matched them.”
While Ivana refrained from giving Barbie and Kens a plastic look, doll-like elements were still incorporated. Every detail, from the elbows and ears to the heels, requires careful attention to achieve the almost airbrushed look.
“There’s a high-gloss finish to everything,” Ivana noted, emphasizing that hair should be fuller, and skin looking brighter and more radiant.
Also read: Barbie movie review: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are pure bliss in Greta Gerwig’s comedic ode to womanhood
The difficulty of getting a Barbie look
The makeup artist explains the difficulty of getting the perfect Barbie look, “It was very difficult to trick the makeup. I wanted her skin to look fresh at all times.”
But at the same time, they had a lot of fun with the cheek and lip colors. She revealed, “Margot would choose her lipstick and blush according to the outfit she’s wearing. We had a little shop for her with 50 shades of red and pink, and she could choose which one worked best for that outfit.”
“Beauty is at the center of Barbie,” Primorac told the outlet. She believes the character “has to be beautiful — but that’s why I think the story is so clever. In the end, the movie is about so many other things — individuality, our beauty as people, and how it can be celebrated in every way.”
Also read: Barbie: Where was Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s fictional movie filmed? Location and specific details inside
