In her long career, Barbie has been a lot of things—an astronaut, a teacher, a doctor, and more. One thing she’s never been is old. The Barbie of my day had unreal body proportions and permanently misshapen feet. Not yet a career girl, she was always on the cusp of growing up. Her love of pink—a color linked to girl babies—suited her quite well. That’s why I’m dismayed by the latest bizarre fashion trend of “Barbiecore.” I don’t consider it a color suited for adult women. The last time I remember wearing pink I was sixteen years old.
I’m an outlier here, though, since grown up women have long accepted a vibrant pink aesthetic. In fact, one could argue that “Barbiecore” has always existed on the fringes of the fashion universe. The women depicted here are too old to have played with Barbie’s Dream House. They loved pink for its own sake. I probably could have found older examples if my photo collection wasn’t mainly black and white.
Sometimes an aging Ken even got into the groove.
The Ken and Barbie picture is great – do you suppose those are his jammies?
Ceci
I don’t wear pink either, but I’d love to have the shoes in photo #2.
I like certain shades of pink even though I don’t wear it very often. The suit in the second photo has the only color that would interest me in these pictures.
As middle-range Baby Boomer, I was around for Barbies but wasn’t allowed to have one. Too grown-up. I got a Skipper instead. I’ve always thought Barbie was silly and it’s hard for me to care about the Barbie movie. I’ll see it when it’s on a free streaming platform.