Delivering Barbie to London, Propability worked in partnership with Blue Kangaroo Design and Mattel to bring the windows of Selfridges and Hamleys to life for the launch of the film.
Girl power at Selfridges
Two windows were created by Propability for the famous department store using designs by agency Blue Kangaroo.
A disco scene from the movie that included the real costumes worn by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling was delivered. The floor was printed and mounted to MDF to look like a retro bullseye dance floor. The back wall was made from Barbie pink, and gold shimmer panels that were fixed to painted MDF flats and the angled side walls were adorned with purple shimmer curtain that had coloured lights directed onto them to create an ombre effect. Prop elements included an array of hanging gold mirror balls in varying sizes and gold palms sat in gold metallic pots. The mannequins were purchased ‘off the shelf’ and adapted to take on the poses visualised by Blue Kangaroo from the movie, elbow and shoulder joints were adjusted and re-fibre glassed. Finally, a window frame housing chasing bulbs was made using MDF with a Barbie pink spray finish and movie logo applied.
The second window at Selfridges was inspired by the Barbie Dreamhouse and incorporated a giant Barbie doll box within the window and giant replicas of a dressing table and chair were made with oversized props sourced for the dressing tabletop – Mirror and cut-glass perfume bottle. Two mannequins were used, one was positioned inside the giant Barbie box and was sprayed pink to differentiate it from the ‘real life’ mannequin outside of the box. Both mannequins were dressed in costumes that Margo Robbie wore in the movie. Inside the giant doll box where Selfridges products, positioned where the accessories would be attached in a real-life Barbie doll toy box, a hat, bags and roller skates, these were suspended on clear acrylic rods attached to the back wall. The backdrop was painted sky blue to emulate the location of the dream house and a fret work panel was cut using the B from the Barbie logo to create an internal backdrop.
Barbie Hamleys
For Hamleys Regent Street and Hamleys Westfield, ombre effect pink backdrops, were created using a spray finish. Acrylic character cut outs slotted into a large bases made of MDF spray painted pink to match the floor. Palm trees, logo and window vinyls were applied to each store. For Hamleys Regent Street, the Barbie logo was incorporated as an eye-catching light box within the backdrop and the palm trees were printed on clear acrylic to give the window more depth.
Tyrone Cano, Head Honcho at Propability: “Working in partnership with Blue Kangaroo for Mattel was a perfect collaboration, all backdrops, vinyls, characters and overall design was created by Blue Kangaroo with us bringing the vision to life, sourcing, engineering and installing all windows to ensure all the elements came together for the final finish.”
