Barbie: this unconditional fan imagined the perfect house in homage to the doll

For 64 years, thousands of us have wanted to teleport ourselves into the world of Barbie. It is therefore always a pleasure to meet a non-Barbie (that is to say a human being) who is equally attached to the color pink and all the pleasures that entails. Here is Darian Darlinga makeup artist from Los Angeles who has transformed not one, but two houses into exact copies of the dream house from Barbie. The collector, with her platinum blonde waves and penchant for flashy joggers, seems made for it. Looking at her, it looks like an escapee from the world of Barbie, lost in Hollywood. It is however completely real and is not carried out by Greta Gerwig.

The fascination of Darian Darling for the toy dates back to Christmas Day 1985, when at age five she received her very first Barbie. “She was the Barbie Day to Night, the most iconic doll of the 80s. She was a very chic business owner Barbie, with a reversible outfit that turned into a cocktail dress,” recalls Darian Darling during a Zoom from Los Angeles. “I grew up as a transgender child, and Barbie embodied a vivid and idealized version of femininity. Glamor that doesn’t hide, that doesn’t hold back, inspiring and ambitious. For a child, it’s absolutely great.”

“One has the impression of being in the valley of the strange. But it also says “I want to be Barbie”. You can be Barbie. Anyone can be Barbie.”

Her passion never left her. She started her collection at 14, in 1994: Barbie’s 35th birthday and, for the occasion, Mattel put up for sale a reproduction of the first doll, the one with the rounded forehead and the black and white herringbone swimsuit. “I was captivated by this vintage Barbie, which was so elegant, classy and glamorous,” says the collector. The Barbies of the day, on the other hand, “became more and more useless, unreal and ridiculous. The late 80s and early 90s really saw the crazy explosion of flashy colors.” They were nonetheless fascinating.

As an adult, she began to apply her love for Barbie to other facets of her life. After all, Barbie isn’t just a doll, and Darian Darling neither. When jeremy scott unveils her fashion show Moschino spring-summer 2015, which was entirely inspired by Barbie, the collector began to dress like the doll. At the time, she said to herself: “Who else but me is buying this? It was created especially for me, and I have to buy as many as possible”. “I had just turned 35, so maybe it had to do with an existential crisis. I’ve always more or less dressed like Barbie, but from there I realized that I had to wear pink every day because it makes me really happy.

By this time, she had already transformed her home in New York into a sort of dream houseadorned with pink walls, pink sofas, pink bedding, pink cushions, pink candles, and embellished with paintings pop art of Marilyn Monroe and D’Audrey Hepburn. “It went almost viral, as viral as it could get in 2010,” says the collector. Barbie would be proud of her unrestrained femininity. “A lot of doll collectors reclaim a bit of their lost youth, buying things they weren’t allowed to do when they were kids,” she explains. “I was able to play with dolls, but very little. As soon as I made my own money, I wanted to buy all these things because they make me happy, and they are beautiful, glamorous and inspiring.”

Then, a decades-old dream came true. Darian Darling moved to Los Angeles with his best friend Justin Tranter. When they lived in New York, both with few means, they dreamed of living in what they called a tranoir. “I was unemployed and living off odd make-up jobs right to left. Justin picked up cans to make pocket money,” recalls the collector. “We figured that the first of us to get rich would buy not a mansion, but a tranoir, because his last name is Tranter and I’m trans.” Darian Darling occupies the penthouse, which includes a cocktail bar, a living room, a Barbie dressing room in a dedicated room, a guest bedroom, a master bedroom and a bathroom.

The walls of most of the rooms are painted a deep mauve, including the built-in bookcases which house part of her collection (apart from Barbies, she collects dolls Jem and the Holograms And wonder woman.) Two of the most notable works are life-size mannequins that Darian Darling recounts having “rescued” from Mac in 2007 after their collaboration with Mattel. “I was at the SoHo store between Spring Street and Mercer Street at six in the morning to pick up these tall 6-foot-8 Barbie models,” says Darian Darling. “It was before Uber, so I was trying to find a taxi that could transport them. I call a taxi, with this big Barbie in my arms, and looking around me, I see that morning tourists are taking pictures of me. (Years later, she unearthed a black-and-white chevron swimsuit for one of the models and hand-embroidered pink sequins into it during the COVID pandemic.)

But the most beautiful in the dream houseit’s Barbie’s wardrobe, painted a bright fuchsia whose Elsa Schiaparelli would be proud. You can find the entire spring-summer 2015 collection there. Moschino and many of the Barbies that inspired jeremy scott are lined up on the opposite wall. The Barbie fashion jeans is to the right of the door, and the fashion jeans on a human scale are on the left. “I bought a Barbie of each model, then all the vintage Barbies”, explains Darian Darling.