The moment to embrace Barbie pink may have been back in 2023, when director Greta Gerwig and actor Margot Robbie brought the iconic Mattel character to life on the big screen. But this pre-fall season, designer Frederick Anderson felt intrigued to experiment with the bubblegum shade, given he has long avoided it within his own collections. “It never felt authentic to me,” he says. “I’m never really inspired by a color, but I wanted to make pink cool.”
The opening look was a long pink tweed coat, a classic fabric he also used on micro shorts and a boxy top with vegan leather sleeves. To balance this sugary-sweetness, Anderson introduced edgier staples for daytime, like a totally-sheer black top embellished with studs.
A sense of transparency led into his statement dresses. A pink, lace-like dress—actually laser-cut tulle—featured an asymmetric ruffled hem, and revealed the form underneath. “I love when the body becomes part of the architecture,” Anderson said. For those who favor a more covered-up silhouette, his floral-printed long-sleeve silk dress, complete with a low-V neck, was perfectly elegant.
The lookbook ends on a serene note of angelic white. Anderson created a tinseled jacket and trousers set—very Las Vegas showgirl—and a thin-strapped dress covered in cascading fringes of three-dimensional flowers. The moulded flowers felt as thin and light as paper—so light they didn’t quite seem luxuriously built to last. But they were, at least, all cut and layered by hand. “She’s drama,” he quipped.