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There’s a reason that thousands of people have wanted to disappear into Barbie’s world over the past 64 years. Her glamorous, playful aesthetic can make even a tiny plastic clinic seem eminently desirable. As such, it’s always a treat to meet a non-Barbie (a human, in other words) who is just as committed to the color pink and all its pleasures. Enter Darian Darling, a Los Angeles–based makeup artist who has transformed not one but two homes into facsimiles of Barbie’s Dreamhouse. This makes sense for Darling, with her platinum waves and penchant for vibrantly colored tracksuits. She seems like a person who has escaped from Barbie World and found her way into Hollywood—only she’s very real and not being directed by Greta Gerwig.
Darling’s fascination with the toy began when she got her first Barbie on Christmas Day in 1985, when she was five. “It was the Day to Night Barbie, which is one of the most iconic Barbies of the mid-’80s, where she was a really chic executive, but then her outfit was reversible and could transform into a cocktail dress,” Darling says over Zoom from Los Angeles. “Growing up as a trans kid, Barbie represented this really heightened, idealized version of femininity. It’s unapologetic, no-holds-barred, inspirational, aspirational glamour. And as a kid seeing that, it’s so exciting.”
The thrill never went away. She started collecting when she was 14: It was 1994, the 35th anniversary of Barbie, and Mattel released a reproduction of the original doll—she with the rounded forehead and chevron black-and-white swimsuit. “I was just enamored by this vintage Barbie that was so elegant and classy and glamorous,” Darling says. The contemporary Barbies, on the other hand, “just got wackier and wackier and wackier and more heightened, more ridiculous. The late ’80s, early ’90s, that’s when things just exploded into pure neon insanity.” But they were no less entrancing.
As an adult, Darling started to extend her love of Barbie into other facets of her life. After all, the Barbie brand isn’t limited to just a doll; why should Darling be? When Jeremy Scott designed the spring 2015 collection for Moschino, which was entirely Barbie inspired, Darling started to dress like her as well. “Who else is buying this but me? This was designed specifically for me, and I just need to buy as much as I can,” Darling remembers thinking at the time. “And yeah, I turned 35, so maybe it was a midlife crisis too. I’ve always toyed around with dressing like Barbie every day. But it wasn’t until then that I was like, I need to wear pink all the time because it makes me really happy.”
At this point, she had already turned her New York home into a kind of Dreamhouse, resplendent with pink walls, couches, bedding, pillows, candles, and accented by Pop art images of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. “It went sort of semi-, quasi-viral, as much as something could go in 2010,” Darling says. Barbie would be proud of her unbridled femininity. “A lot of doll collectors are kind of reclaiming a little bit of their lost youth and rebuying stuff that they weren’t allowed to have as children,” Darling says. “Even though I got to play with dolls, it was still minimal. So as soon as I got my own money, I wanted to buy all these things because they make me feel happy and they’re glamorous and beautiful and inspiring.”
Then came the fulfillment of a decades-long dream. Darling moved to Los Angeles and in with her best friend, the songwriter Justin Tranter. When they were both broke and living in New York, they had dreamed of having what they called a transion. “I was on unemployment, doing odd makeup jobs. Justin was collecting cans for extra cash,” Darling recalls. “We would fantasize that whoever gets rich first, we were going to have a transion instead of a mansion—because I’m trans and his last name is Tranter.” Darling lives in the penthouse, complete with a cocktail lounge, living room, walk-in Barbie closet, guest room, bedroom, and bathroom.
The walls of most of the rooms are a rich mauve, including the built-in bookcase that houses some of Darling’s collection. (In addition to Barbies, she collects Jem and the Holograms and Wonder Woman dolls.) Two of the most notable artworks are life-size mannequins that Darling says she “rescued” from MAC in 2007, following the brand’s collaboration with Mattel. “I went to the SoHo store at Spring and Mercer and at 6 a.m. to procure these giant, six-foot-tall Barbie mannequins,” Darling says. “I’m standing there—and this was way before Uber, so I’m trying to get a cab that could fit these. I’m trying to hail a cab looking like I do, holding this big blonde Barbie. And I look, and there’s early-morning tourists in SoHo taking my photo.” (Years later Darling snagged a black-and-white chevron bathing suit for one of the mannequins and, during COVID, hand-stitched pink sequins onto it.)
But the dreamiest part of the Dreamhouse is the Barbie closet, painted a shocking fuschia that would make Schiaparelli proud. In the closet is the entire spring 2015 Moschino collection, and many of the Barbies that inspired Scott line the opposite wall. The Fashion Jean Barbie is on the right of the door, and the human-size Fashion Jeans are on the left. “I scored one of each and then all the vintage Barbies,” Darling says. “In peak COVID, you got really good deals on stuff.”
This may seem like the kind of unrestrained opulence that led to the wacky, campy Barbies Darling loves from the 1980s and 1990s, but in truth it takes a certain amount of rigor to craft a home this specific. It’s a lot of waiting and a lot of saying no. “I can’t just go to West Elm and be able to take that and that,” she says. “Which is on one hand annoying because it takes forever, but on the other hand, [I get] exactly what I want.” It’s how she approaches doll collecting too.
Darling’s Barbie collection has three key subcategories: the Moschino dolls (a more recent addition), dolls with a hair- or makeup-play element (what she collected in New York when space was limited), and the 1980s dolls in their pink packaging that she adored as a child. One particularly interesting find is an admittedly creepy mid-century wearable mask of Barbie’s face. “It’s so uncanny valley. But it’s like, I want to be Barbie. You can be Barbie. Everyone can be Barbie.”
One thing is clear: This is no passing fad. Long after Barbie comes out and Margot Robbie stops dressing like vintage dolls, Darling will still be living in her pink world. Is she daunted by the prevalence of the trend? “People are coming up to me, saying, ‘Oh, I love your Barbiecore look,’” Darling says. “It’s like, ‘Well, thank you. I’ve been doing it for quite a long time.’ At first you’re like, Oh, God, do I need to change my look? If everyone else is doing it, do I need to do something else until it falls out of fashion and I can do it again? But I’m just doubling down: everything pink.”
Listen to Darian Darling on this episode of The Run-Through here.
