What’s Happening: On the cusp of the New Year, Surface declared 2023 to be Barbie’s marquee moment. With the premiere date of Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated film drawing near, Barbie-mania has come for everything from architecture to high-low fashion and, before the summer’s end, merch spinoffs.

The Download: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie may be slated for release on July 21, but its grip on the culture has held firm for well over a year now. Take Valentino’s fuschia and magenta–tinged Spring/Summer 2022 collection, which was instantly dubbed “Barbiecore” by the fashion glitterati when it debuted this past spring. Since then, pink has remained a key piece of the fashion lexicon. For those who can’t don bejeweled Versace bodysuits (see: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour) and sheer Valentino couture (à la Florence Pugh), a Mattel-sanctioned Gap collab is currently in the works.

Since its advent in 1962, the doll’s Dreamhouse has proved itself to be as captivating—or more—than Barbie’s preponderance of pink party-wear. “She owned her first Dreamhouse in 1962, before women could open their own bank accounts,” Kim Culmone, Mattel’s senior vice president and global head of design for Barbie, says of the fervor that accompanied the initial Dreamhouse.

Culmone attributes Barbie’s enduring appeal to the constant evolution of her style, though the nostalgia craze overtaking pop culture certainly doesn’t hurt. More than a decade later, photos of Jonathan Adler’s life-size interpretation of the Malibu Dreamhouse still circulate in the media. More recently, this past September, upstart paint brand Backdrop launched a Barbie Dreamhouse paint collection followed by an architectural survey of the Dreamhouse’s legacy by Pin-Up, marking the 60th anniversary of the doll–size domicile.

To bring Barbie’s Palm Springs abode to life for the film, Gerwig tapped production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer. The duo mined inspiration from Slim Aarons photography and the work of architect Richard Neutra to create the sprawling midcentury-inspired set, which features a spiraling three-story slide that leads to a kidney-shaped pool and toy-box wardrobe displays. “I wanted to capture what was so ridiculously fun about the Dreamhouses,” Gerwig recently told AD. “Why walk down stairs when you can slide into your pool? Why trudge up stairs when you take an elevator that matches your dress?”

As collabs go, there’s something in the pipeline for everyone. In addition to the Gap collection, outdoorsy types can look forward to film merch in the form of the retro-inspired hot pink and highlighter yellow skates Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling don as Barbie and Ken in the film’s new trailer. Those among us with a penchant for real estate–infused reality TV can tune into HGTV’s forthcoming Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge, or play the latest season of Selling Sunset to see the poreless, designer-clad cast teeter around garish mansions and pay each other the ultimate compliment: “You look like Barbie!”

In Their Own Words: With a recession and debt ceiling ordeal looming, Mattel’s Richard Dickson—the president, CEO, and the architect of Barbie’s current cool cachet—sees another reason for her popularity. “The world needs us, they need more fun and levity,” he told Business of Fashion. “Barbie represents the potential for that.”

Surface Says: Are we headed for… Feminist Girl Summer?

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For Gabriel Hendifar, parties are one of the most authentic ways to convey the emotion behind Apparatus’s carefully imagined lighting, furniture, and accessories. And the fashion-turned-product designer doesn’t simply invite you over for cocktails. In order to fully experience the new collections, Hendifar hosts an extravagant all-night soirée that not only casts a mesmeric reflection of his mind, but transports guests into the hedonistic heaven of Apparatus for one night only. It’s a coveted invite during NYCxDesign—an enticing dose of fantasy during a week defined by chaos—and one that was absent this year.

No matter. Hendifar was busy putting the finishing touches on Apparatus’s latest feat, an expansive gallery in London’s tony Mayfair district that will serve as the studio’s European base. Much like its existing showrooms in New York and Los Angeles, the 3,200-square-foot gallery acts as a living expression of Apparatus’s work—an immersive setting imbued with drama and sensuality arising from the constellation of influences Hendifar often mines across film, music, visual art, and human emotion.

Materials convey much of that, starting in the soaring ground-floor gallery, whose cosmic vibe comes courtesy of rich Italian Calacatta Classico marble and hand-troweled plaster. Subtle touches executed at a grand scale continue at the burl-lined staircase, where a portrait of Hendifar’s grandmother hangs inside. “In many ways, the London gallery is conceived as a fantasy home for [her],” he says. “Through these Persian matriarchs, I developed my own understanding of gracious hospitality and what it means to welcome people into a space.”

Take the studio’s lounge area as proof. Enveloped in bronze and dominated by a generous sofa evocative of London’s storied members’ clubs, there guests can browse Apparatus’s material library and linger for a while. “The objects in our homes have the power to help us understand ourselves more clearly,” Hendifar says.“Design is an expression of who we are and what we value. It’s about identity, connection, and humanity.”

A dash of midcentury Hollywood glamour, a pinch of Art Deco, and a wrapping of Wes Anderson is the recipe Studio Paul Chan cooked up when dreaming up Boisson’s first bottle shop in L.A. Specifically, the opening scene of the Anderson film French Dispatch, which sees a waiter carrying a tray of aperitifs, absinthe, and an affogato to a room of editors served as inspiration even though the brand’s spirits are non-alcoholic.

The recent rise in popularity of stylishly designed beverages for teetotalers is partly attributed to aesthetics that quell social anxiety about sobriety. To that end, a procession of sleek bottles displayed against dusty green walls mingles synergistically with statement objects such as a flower-like Pipistrello Table Lamp by Italian architect Gae Aulenti. Perched atop a glowing glass counter with a tropical plant nearby, it’s easy to imagine one of Anderson’s surrealist characters dropping by for a purchase.

When: June 2–July 6

Where: The Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy, Washington, D.C.

What: For Freedoms, an artist collective co-founded by Hank Willis Thomas in 2016, has emerged as one of the most impactful civic organizations powered by creatives and the arts. This summer, the organization has curated a group show featuring Sheida Soleimani, Eric Gottesman, Coby Kennedy, Nekisha Durrett, Martha Jackson Jarvis, and Willis Thomas himself. The works explore themes of freedom: from fear, from want, and freedom of expression, reflecting the organization’s aim of “building a political and cultural identity around listening, healing, and justice.”

New & Notable is a cultural catchall that highlights interesting new products and projects from our brilliantly creative members of The List. With new releases, events, and goings-on, the below moments indicate the power they have to move the needle in so realms like architecture, design, fashion, and art.

Miami Design District: The Magic City’s hub for visionary art, fashion, and food enlisted design studio MadeThought and animation studio 2Veinte to recount its origin story. The cinematic short “Beyond Belief” follows the “creative laboratory,” in the words of founder Craig Robins, from the neighborhood’s beginnings as the site of a Pineapple farm to Robins’ vision for the Design District a century into the future.

Art for Change: The marketplace for conscious collectors teamed up with artists Jesse Krimes and María Magdalena Campos-Pons to benefit the Brooklyn Museum in support of its annual Artists Ball gala benefit. From each sale of prints of Campos-Pons’ Testigo self-portrait and Krimes’ Elegy, $500 will be donated to the museum.

It’s fitting that New York City, often referred to as Gotham, would have its very own Batcave. Situated at the edge of Brooklyn’s perennially polluted Gowanus Canal is a red-brick industrial building once home to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company’s central power station. The six-story structure was decommissioned in the 1950s when steam power became obsolete. It was completely abandoned within a couple decades, causing its roof to give way and plants to sprout in its interior. Then the squatters arrived, blanketing its walls with graffiti and throwing all-night raves that earned the site its nickname.

Seeing potential in the derelict building, philanthropist Joshua Rechnitz purchased it in 2012 and has since invested more than $180 million through his foundations to steward its transformation into a community-focused contemporary arts hub. He formed the Powerhouse Environmental Arts Foundation—since renamed Powerhouse Arts—and enlisted PBDW Architects and Pritzker Prize–winning firm Herzog & de Meuron to overhaul its cavernous interior. They quickly got to work decontaminating the property from toxins leached from the canal, which the EPA designated a Superfund site.

Art of Tea is an award-winning tea importer and wholesaler based in Los Angeles that hand-blends and custom crafts fine organic teas and botanicals. Founder and master tea blender Steve Schwartz selects and sources rare and distinct teas directly from growers around the world based on deep, long-lasting relationships and his travels.

Surface Says: Informed by craft, quality, and the relationships forged on the far-flung travels of its founder, it’s easy to see why Art of Tea is the purveyor of choice for the pros behind Vera Wang, the St. Regis, and more.

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